Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci (1450 - 1523), was born in Perugia (hence 'il Perugino'), moved to Florence where, along with Leonardo da Vinci, he was an assistant in Verrocchio's workshop. He went on to work in Rome, as well as Florence, before returning to settle in Perugia. He had thriving commercial workshops, and was said by Agostino Chigi, banker to the Popes, in 1500 to be 'il meglio maestro d'Italia' (quoted in Camesasca, L'opera Completa del Perugino, p.9). Vasari's Life of Perugino stresses his poverty as a young man, and the hard work which led to his commercial and artistic success ( Vasari, Le Vite, Testo III.595). Raphael was apprenticed to Perugino, but Michelangelo, not Perugino, provided the model for the later work of Raphael and for the sixteenth century. Perugino's reputation, therefore, came to be as the type of a master, whose work belonged to the past, excelled by his pupil, whose work defined the future. He withdrew from Florence because of the abuse he met there as his work went out of fashion, and settled finally in Perugia. For Reynolds, as for Vasari, Perugino was 'surpassed by far' by his pupil Raphael. Ruskin on Perugino asserts that Perugino was 'better than Bellini and Luini' ( Works, 22.346, and Works, 22.490), and that he was 'better than Raphael' ( Works, 36.51).