Antonio, like a man who was weighed down by his family, was anxious to be always saving, and he had thereby become as miserly as he could well be. Wherefore it is related that, having received at Parma a payment of sixty crowns in copper coins, and wishing to take them to Correggio to meet some demand, he placed the money on his back and set out to walk on foot; but, being smitten by the heat of the sun, which was very great, and drinking water to refresh himself, he was seized by pleurisy, and had to take to his bed in a raging fever, nor did he ever raise his head from it, but finished the course of his life at the age of forty, or thereabout.

His pictures date about 1512; and he bestowed a very great gift on painting by his handling of colours, which was that of a true master; and it was by means of him that men's eyes were opened in Lombardy, where so many beautiful intellects have been seen in painting, following him in making works worthy of praise and memory. Thus, by showing them his treatment of hair, executed with such facility, for all the difficulty of painting it, he taught them how it should be painted; for which all painters owe him an everlasting debt. At their instance the following epigram was written to him by Messer Fabio Segni, a gentleman of Florence:

Hujus cum regeret mortales spiritus artus
Pictoris, Charites supplicuere Jovi.
Non alia pingi dextra, Pater alme, rogamus;
Hunc præter, nulli pingere nos liceat.
Annuit his votis summi regnator Olympi,
Et juvenem subito sidera ad alta tulit,
Ut posset melius Charitum simulacra referre
Præsens, et nudas cerneret inde Deas.

At this same time lived Andrea del Gobbo of Milan, a very pleasing painter and colourist, many of whose works are scattered about in the houses of his native city of Milan. There is a large panel-picture of the Assumption of Our Lady, by his hand, in the Certosa of Pavia, but it was left unfinished, on account of death overtaking him; which panel shows how excellent he was, and how great a lover of the labours of art.

ANTONIO DA CORREGGIO: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI
(Milan: Brera, 427. Canvas)
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PIERO DI COSIMO