CREDI, Lorenzo di (1459-1537), was the least gifted of three artists who began life as journeymen with Andrea del Verrocchio at Florence. Though he was the companion and friend of Leonardo da Vinci and Perugino, and closely allied in style to both, he had neither the genius of the one nor the facility of the other. We admire in Da Vinci’s heads a heavenly contentment and smile, in his technical execution great gloss and smoothness of finish. Credi’s faces disclose a smiling beatitude; his pigments have the polish of enamel. But Da Vinci imparted life to his creations and modulation to his colours, and these are qualities which hardly existed in Credi. Perugino displayed a well-known form of tenderness in heads, moulded on the models of the old Umbrian school. Peculiarities of movement and attitude become stereotyped in his compositions; but when put on his mettle, he could still exhibit power, passion, pathos. Credi often repeated himself in Perugino’s way; but being of a pious and resigned spirit, he generally embodied in his pictures a feeling which is yielding and gentle to the verçe of coldness. Credi had a respectable local practice at Florence. He was consulted on most occasions when the opinion of his profession was required on public grounds, e.g., in 1491 as to the fronting, and in 1498 as to the lantern of the Florentine Cathedral, in 1504 as to the place due to Michelangelo’s David. He never painted frescoes; at rare intervals only he produced large ecclesiastical pictures. The greater part of his time was spent on easel pieces, upon which he expended minute and patient labour. But he worked with such industry that numbers of his Madonnas exist in European galleries. The best of his altar-pieces is that which represents the Virgin and Child with ...

CREDIT FONCIER and CREDIT MOBILIER are finance institutions, which had their origin in the joint-stock speculation and sanguine promotion of public works which marked many years of the second empire in France, and to which the introduction of limited liability in England had given a great stimulus on the British side of the Channel. The parent institutions in Paris were followed by similar establishments in some other capitals. As the terms imply, the credit foncier contemplates loans and advances on real securities, and the crédit mobilier ou what is called with us personal or movable estate. Whether such limits and distinctions have been evei strictly observed in the practical working of these credit banks is doubtful. The credit mobilier of France has had a more unfortunate experience than the credit foncier, though the latter has by no means sustained the promise of its early years. While tho mania of launching new projects continued, enormous profits were made, which could only be the result of heavy promotion charges, and the shares rose in value with tho extraordinary liberality of the dividends. But the system of business pursued had the result of mixing the credit banks very closely with the various companies and undertakings they were promoting, and of throwing back upon them a growing mass of depreciated or unsaleable securities; while the abatement or collapse of speculation restricted the business from which the main part of the former income had been derived. The rates of dividend and the value of the shares consequently fell as rapidly as they had risen. This has been the practical experience of the crédit foncier and the crédit mobilier of France, which were the first, and remain the greatest examples of the finance companies so named. The credit ...

CREDITON, a market town of England, county of Devon, on the Greedy, near its junction with the Exe, eight miles north-west of Exeter. Population (1871), 4222. It is situated in a narrow vale, between two steep hills, and is divided into two parts, the east or old town, and the west or new town. The church, formerly collegiate, is a noble edifice, in the later Pointed style, with a fine tower 100 feet in height springing from the centre. There are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, Methodists, and ^Unitarians, a free grammar school with exhibitions to both universities, blue-coat, national, and infant schools, a mechanics’ institution, a public library, and a newsroom. There were formerly extensive woollen and serge manufactories there, but the inhabitants are now chiefly engaged in shoemaking and agriculture. Crediton was the birthplace, about 680, of the Anglo-Saxon Winfrid, better known as St Boniface, “the Apostle of Germany.” It returned two members to the Parliament at Carlisle in the reign of Edward I., and from 909 to 1049 was the seat of a bishopric, which was afterwards removed to Exeter. Fairfax with Cromwell took possession of Crediton in 1645. The present modern appearance of the town is mainly due to the removal of the old houses by fires which occurred in 1743 and 1769.