\paperw4995 \margr0\margl0 \plain \f1 \ATXsh255 Italian painter.\ATXsh4607 \par
\ATXsh255 Apart from a brief period in Parma, Correggio spent the whole of his life in his native
city. Art historians have hypothesized, however, that he made a number of journeys in order to explain the extraordinary course taken by the development of his style. He received his first important commission in 1514, the \i Madonna of San Francesco
\i0 for the Franciscans of Correggio (now in Dresden, GemΣldegalerie). In this early work, the painter produced a synthesis between the classicism proposed by Andrea Mantegna in Mantua and the new developments in Veneto and Emilia. A journey to Rome, made
around 1518, would explain his familiarity with RaphaelÆs painting. CorreggioÆs reflection on the principal artistic currents of the early sixteenth century in Italy found definitive expression in the decoration of the chamber of the Abbess Giovanna Piac
enza in the convent of San Paolo at Parma (1519). Here, Correggio painted a pergola of flowers that arches above monochrome lunettes. In 1520 he commenced the frescoed decoration of the dome of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma, surpassing the examples h
e had seen in Rome through the elimination of any architectural support. Correggio gave a second extraordinary demonstration of his mastery of these illusory effects in the \i Assumption of the Virgin\i0 painted on the ceiling of the central dome of Par
ma Cathedral. The representation is based on a mock marble parapet and expands into a swirl of foreshortened bodies, set amidst concentric circles of clouds. The monumental fresco was executed between 1526 and 1530 and in the same years Correggio painted
the \i Madonna and Child with Saints\i0 (Parma, Galleria Nazionale). This is almost contemporary with the suggestive night piece of the \i Adoration of the Shepherds\i0 in Dresden. The most important undertaking of CorreggioÆs last years was the serie
s of canvases depicting the \i Loves of Jupiter\i0 commissioned by the duke of Mantua as a gift for Emperor Charles V. In these paintings the artist brings a language based on a canon of purity to a maturity that was to set an example for the whole of t
he sixteenth century, and even influence baroque painting.\ATXsh4607
