Lorenzo was born in Florence in 1456 or 1459 to a goldsmith named Andrea d' Oderigo. He was apprenticed to the leading master
Andrea del Verrocchio, where he is first recorded, on low wages, in 1480/81. He eventually became Verrocchio's primary assistant, running the shop during the master's absence in 1482-1483, and inherited his workshop on Verrocchio's death in 1488. On Verrocchio's behalf he completed the famous
Madonna di Piazza for
Pistoia Cathedral, commissioned from Verrocchio in 1475 but executed by Lorenzo between 1485 and 1491. Lorenzo's earliest independent works include an
Annunciation in the
Uffizi, two panels of the
Madonna and Child at the
Galleria Sabauda in
Turin, another at the
National Gallery in London and
Adoration of the Child at the
Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia in
Venice. From his maturity date the
Madonna and Child with Saints Julian and Nicholas (1493) for the Mascalonzi chapel at the
Cestello, Florence (
Paris, Louvre), the
Adoration of the Shepherds (1487) for Santa Chiara (now at the Uffizi) and the
Baptism of Christ for the
Chiostro dello Scalzo (now
Fiesole, San Domenico). In 1501 he remade parts of
Fra Angelico's high altarpiece for
San Domenico,
Fiesole. Later works include an altarpiece (1510–12) for the
Ospedale del Ceppo,
Pistoia (now in that town's Museo Civico) and many small religious panels, including an unfinished
Crucifixion at
Göttingen University and an
Annunciation dated 1508 at the
Harvard University Art Museums. Lorenzo was also a painter of portraits. His most famous is the
Portrait of Caterina Sforza, called
La dama dei gelsomini, at the Pinacoteca in
Forlí. Caterina Sforza was the Lady of
Forlì and
Imola in the
Romagna and later a prisoner of
Cesare Borgia. Lorenzo's portrait of her has been the subject of recent attention because of the sitter's resemblance to the
Mona Lisa by
Leonardo da Vinci. Another portrait by Lorenzo, perhaps of his brother's widow is the panel now at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. The composition of this work is often compared to Leonardo's ''
Ginevra de' Benci'' at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Several of his patrons had links to
Savonarola, and apart from portraits, secular subjects such as mythological ones are absent from his known works, except for a nearly nude
Venus for the
Medici family. In 1504 he was appointed to the committee set up to decide where to place
Michelangelo's David.
Giorgio Vasari devoted a biography to Lorenzo di Credi in his
Lives of the Artists. Though Vasari praised Lorenzo's art for its high finish, he criticized him for being a perfectionist who was excessively diligent, ground his pigments too fine, and spent too much time distilling his oils. Lorenzo had many pupils. His most important were
Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, who assisted Lorenzo in many of his late works. Others include Tommaso di Stefano Lunetti and
Antonio del Ceraiolo. Collaborators and followers included
Giovanni di Benedetto Cianfanini, the Master of the Johnson Ascension of the Magdalene (named after a painting now in Philadelphia) and the anonymous artist known as "Tommaso" (also called Tommaso di Credi, the Master of the Czartoryski Tondo or the Master of the Santo Spirito Conversazione). Lorenzo died in Florence in 1537. ==Sculptor?==