Memoirs of the early Italian painters / by Anna Jameson; thoroughly revised and in part rewritten by Estelle M. Hurll.
- Anna Brownell Jameson
- Date:
- 1899
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Memoirs of the early Italian painters / by Anna Jameson; thoroughly revised and in part rewritten by Estelle M. Hurll. Source: Wellcome Collection.
265/335 page 223
![church was subsequently enlarged, and is now only known through engravings and the copies made by Annibal Caracci, which are preserved at Naples. For this work Correggio re- ceived five hundred gold crowns, equal to about 1,500/. at the present day. About the year 1525 Correggio was invited to Mantua, where he painted for the reigning duke, Federigo Gonzaga, the Edu- cation of Cupid, which is now in our National Gallery. For the same accomplished but profligate prince he painted the other mythological stories of Io,’Leda, Danae, and Antiope.1 Passing over, for the present, a variety of works which Cor- reggio painted in the next four or five years, we shall only observe that the cupola of San Giovanni gave so much satisfac- tion that he was called upon to decorate in the same manner the cathedral of Parma, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In the centre of the dome he represented the Assumption — the Madonna soaring into heaven, while Christ descends from his throne in bliss to meet her; an innumerable host of saints and angels, rejoicing and singing hymns of triumph, surround these principal personages. Lower down in a circle stand the Apostles, and [above them] genii bearing candelabra and swinging censers. In lunettes below are the four Evangelists, the figure of St. John being one of the finest. The whole com- position is full of glorious life; wonderful for the relief, the bold and perfect foreshortening, the management of the chiaroscuro; but from the innumerable figures, and the play of the limbs seen from below — legs and arms being more conspicuous than bodies — the great artist was reproached in his lifetime with having painted “ un guazzetto di rane ” (a fricassee of frogs).2 There are several engravings of this magnificent work; but those who would form a just idea of Correggio’s sublime con- ception and power of drawing should see some of the cartoons prepared for the frescoes and drawn in chalk by his own hand. A few of these, representing chiefly angels and cherubim, were discovered a few years ago at Parma, rolled up in a garret: they were conveyed to Rome, thence brought to England by 1 The Leda is in the Berlin Gallery; [the Io in Vienna]; the Danae in the Bor- Khese Gallery; and the Antiope in the Louvre: the latter once belonged to King Charles. 2 1° cookery only the hind legs of the frogs are used; the bodies are thrown away.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24877888_0265.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
