Ridolfo was the only one who chose the family profession, and he became
the fourth painter of the name of Ghirlandajo.
Davide was not a perfect artist, although a good mosaicist, as his
works in the cathedrals of Orvieto, Siena, and Florence show, but he
was for many years Ridolfo's only instructor. As the boy grew up
Ridolfo frequented those public schools of art before spoken of, the
Brancacci Chapel, and the study of the cartoons in the Papal Hall. Here
he secured the friendship not only of Granacci and Pier di Cosimo, but
of Raphael himself, with whom he visited Fra Bartolommeo in his
convent.
Raphael permitted Ridolfo to assist him in a Madonna for Siena, and
tried to persuade him to accompany him to Rome; but Ridolfo, like a
true Florentine, declined to go "beyond sight of the Duomo."
His first great picture was done in 1504 for the church of San Gallo.
The subject was _Christ Searing His Cross_. His uncle Benedetto
had laboured on a similar picture, now in the Louvre, but Ridolfo's is
a great improvement on this; the composition is well balanced, full of
force and animation, the weeping figures of the Maries and the
solicitude of S.
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