In 1519, Antonio went to Parma, and soon after his arrival is said to have painted a room in the Nunnery of St. Paul. The authenticity of this work, placed within the clausure of the convent and consequently inaccessible, has been recently disputed, and the author of a certain dialogue even attempts to prove the whole a fable. To ascertain the fact, a special licence to visit the place was obtained for some painters and architects of note, and on their declaring the paintings one of Correggio's best works, Don Ferdinando de Bourbon, with some of the courtiers and Padre Iveneo Affo, followed to inspect it. What he tells us of monastic constitution in those times accounts for the admission of so profane an ornament in such a place; for in the beginning of the sixteenth century, clausure was yet unknown to nunneries; abbesses were elected for life, their power over the revenue of the convent was uncontrolled, their style of life magnificent, and their political influence not inconsiderable. Such was the situation of nunneries when Donna Giovanna da Piacenza, descended from an eminent family at Parma, the new-elected abbess of St. Paul's, ordered two saloons of her elegant apartments to be decorated with paintings; one by Correggio, and another, as it is conjectured, either by Alessandro Araldi of Parma, or Cristoforo Casella, called Temperello. Padre Affo proves that Correggio must have painted his apartment before 1520, immediately after his arrival at Parma, and four or five years before the introduction of the clausure. Of a work so singular and questionable, it will not appear superfluous to repeat some of the most striking outlines from his account:—"The chimney-piece represents Diana returned from the chase, to whom an infant Amor offers the head of a new-slain stag; the ceiling is vaulted, raised in arches over sixteen lunettes; four on each side of the walls; the paintings are raised about an ell from the floor, and form a series of mythologic and allegoric figures, which breathe the simplicity, the suavity, and the decorum of Art's golden age. Of these the three Graces naked, in three different attitudes, offer a charming study of female beauty, and a striking contrast with the Parcæ placed opposite; the most singular subject is a naked female figure, suspended by a cord from the sky, with her hands tied over her head—her body extended by two golden anvils fastened with chains to her feet, floating in the attitude of which the Homeric Jupiter reminds his Juno.[162] The high-arched roof embowers the whole with luxuriant verdure and fruit, and is divided into sixteen large ovals, overhung with festoons of tendrils, vine-leaves, and grapes, between which appear groups of infant Amorini, above the size of children, gamboling in various picturesque though not immodest attitudes."
Neither the pretended inaccessibility of place, nor the veil thrown by monastic austerity over the profaneness of the subject, can sufficiently account for the silence of tradition, and the obscurity in which this work was suffered to linger for nearly three centuries. Supposing it, on the authorities adduced, to be the legitimate produce of Correggio, and considering its affinity to the ornamental parts of the Loggie in the Vatican, it affords a stronger argument of Allegri's having seen Rome, studied the antique, and imitated Raphael, than any of those that have been adduced by Mengs, who (with his commentator D'Azara,) appears to have been totally uninformed of it, notwithstanding his familiarity at Parma with every work of Correggio, his perseverance of inquiry and eager pursuit of whatever related to his idol, the influence he enjoyed at Court, and unlimited access to every place that might be supposed to contain or hide some work of art.
Soon after his arrival at Parma, Antonio probably received the commission of the celebrated cupola of S. Giovanni, which he completed in 1524, as appears from an acquittance for the last payment subscribed 'Antonio Lieto,' still existing at Parma.
In the cupola he represented the Ascension of the Saviour, with the Apostles, the Madonna, &c. and the Coronation of the Virgin on the tribune of the principal altar, whose enlargement in 1584 occasioned, with the destruction of the choir, that of the painting: a few fragments escaped; an exact copy had, however, been provided before, by Annibale Carracci, from which it was repainted on the same place by Aretusi. The same church preserved two pictures in oil of Correggio, the martyrdom of St. Placidus and Flavia, and Christ taken from the cross on the lap of his mother; both are now (1802) in the collection of the Louvre.
The success of the cupola of S. Giovanni encouraged the inspectors of the Domo to commit the decoration of theirs to the same master. Of their contract with him, the original still remains in the archive of their chapter; it was concluded in 1522, and amounted to about one thousand zecchini, no inconsiderable sum for those times, and alone sufficient to do away the silly tradition of the artist's mendicity. The decorations of the chapel, next to the cupola, were distributed among three of the best Parmesan painters at that time, Parmegianino, Franc. Maria Rondani, and Michael Angelo Anselmi. From all the papers hitherto found, it appears, however, that Correggio did not actually begin to paint the cupola before 1526: it represents the Ascension of the Virgin, and without recurring to an individual verdict, has received the sanction of ages, as the most sublime in its kind, of all that were produced before and after it; a work without a rival, though now dimmed with smoke, and in decay by time. These were the two first cupolas painted entire, all former ones being painted in compartments. Nothing occurs to make us surmise that Correggio had partners of his labour in these two works; for Lattanzio Gambara of Brescia, mentioned by Rossi as his assistant in the Domo, was born eight years after Correggio's death.
During the progress of these two great works, Correggio produced others of inferior size but equal excellence; the principal of which are the two votive pictures of St. Jerome, and La Notte. That of St. Jerome represents the Saint offering his Translation to the Infant Christ, who is seated in his Mother's lap, with St. Magdalen reclining on and kissing his feet, and flanked by Angels. The commission for this picture is said to have been given in 1523, by Donna Briseide Colla, the widow of Orazio or Ottaviano Bergonzi of Parma, who in 1528 gave it as a votive offering to the church of S. Antonio del Fuoco. The price agreed on, was 400 lire; 40,000 ducats were offered for it afterwards by the King of Portugal; and the then Abbot of the convent was on the point of concluding the bargain, when the citizens of Parma, to prevent the loss, applied to the Infante Don Philippo. He ordered it in 1749 to be transposed from S. Antonio to the Domo; there it remained till 1756, when, on the application of a French painter, expelled by the Canons for his attempt to trace it, the Prince had it transferred under an escort of twenty-four grenadiers to Colorno; and from thence to the newly instituted academy, where it remained till 1797, and now, (1802,) with other transported works of Art, glitters among the spoils of the Louvre.
The second picture known by the name of "La Notte," represents the birthnight of the Saviour, and was the commission of Alberto Pratonieri, as appears from a writing dated in 1522, though it was not finished till 1527 according to Mengs, or 1530 as Fiorillo surmised, when it was dedicated in the Chapel Pratonieri of S. Prospero at Reggio: from whence, 1640, it was carried to the gallery of Modena, by order, of Duke Francesco I. and from thence at length to that of Dresden.
A chapel in the church del S. Sepolcro at Parma, possessed formerly the altar-piece known by the name of "La Madonna della Scodella," because the Virgin, represented on her flight to Egypt, holds a wooden bowl in her hand: a figure, whom Mengs fancies the Genius of the Fountain, pours water into it; and in the back ground an angel, whose action and expression he considers as too graceful for the business, ties up the ass. This picture, he tells us, was, thirteen years before the date in which he wrote, nearly swept out of the panel by the barbarous wash of a Spanish journeyman painter who had obtained permission to copy it. It is now in the Louvre, and how much of its present florid colour is legitimate, must be left to the decision of the committee "de la Restoration."
If the most sublime degree of expression be entitled to the right of originality, Mengs must be followed in his decision on the Ecce Homo, formerly in the Palace Colonna, without much anxiety whether it be the same that belonged to the family of Prati at Parma, or that which Agostino Carracci engraved.
The Madonna seated beneath a palm-tree, bending in somnolently pensive contemplation over the Infant on her lap, watched by an Angel above her, and attended by a Leveret, known by the name of "La Zingarella" or the Egyptian, from the sash round her head, formerly in the gallery of Parma, and now at Naples in that of Capo di Monte, has suffered so much from a modern hand, that little of the master remains but the conception. Nearly a duplicate of it was presented by Cardinal Alessandro Albani to king Augustus of Poland; but Mengs hesitates to pronounce it an original.