Note 209 — Chapter VII · (XXI.)

Pietro Crista is of course Petrus Christus or Christi of Bruges, an imitator, though as Mr Weale has shown not an actual pupil, of the van Eycks. Von Wurzbach says that Guicciardini was the first to mention his name, but Vasari in 1550 already knows him. As an explanation of the surname it has been suggested that the artist’s father may have had a reputation as a painter or carver of Christ-figures, so that Petrus would be called ‘son of the Christ-man.’