Boccaccio Boccaccino bears the same character among the Cremonese as Grillandaio, Mantegna, Vannucci, and Francia, in their respective schools, the best modern among the ancients, and the best of the ancients in the list of the moderns. He had the honour of instructing Garofolo during two years previous to his visiting Rome in 1500. In the frieze of the cathedral, Boccaccino painted the Birth of the Virgin, along with other histories, relating to her and the Divine Infant. The style is in part original, and in part approaches that of Pietro Perugino, whose pupil Pascoli says he was. But he is less regular in his composition, less beautiful in the air of his heads, and less powerful in his chiaroscuro, though richer in his drapery, with more variety of colours, more spirit in his attitudes, and scarcely less harmonious or less pleasing in his architecture and landscape. He is, perhaps, least attractive in some of his figures, which are somewhat coarse, owing to their having a fulness of drapery, and not being sufficiently slender, a defect carefully avoided by the ancient statuaries, as I have formerly observed.[36] It is remarked by Vasari that he visited Rome, in which I agree with him, both because it is in some degree alluded to by Antonio Campi, and because there are evident traces of his imitation of Pietro, as in his Marriage of the Virgin Mary, and in a very magnificent temple, that appears erected upon lofty steps, a subject repeated by Pietro several times. It has been also noticed that his Madonna at S. Vincenzo, with the titular Saint and S. Antonio, seems like the work of Vannucci, and he certainly approaches very near him in other figures. I can easily believe, therefore, that Boccaccino was at Rome; but I also believe that what is written of him by Vasari and by Baldinucci, if not fictitious, is at least wide of the mark. Footnote 36: Chapter iii.