ANNIBALE CARACCI’S OPINION OF CORREGGIO’S GRAND CUPOLA AT PARMA.

“I went,” says Annibale Caracci, in a letter to his cousin Lodovico, “to see the grand cupola, which you have so often commended to me, and am quite astonished. To observe so large a composition, so well contrived; and seen from below with such great exactness; and at the same time, such judgment, such grace, and coloring of real flesh, good God, not Tibaldi, not Nicolini, nor even I may say, Raffaelle himself, can be compared with him. I know not how many paintings I have seen this morning; the Ancona, or altar-piece of St. John, and St. Catharine, and the Madonna della Scodella going to Egypt, and I swear, I would change none of these for the St. Cecilia. To speak of the graces of this St. Catharine, who so gracefully lays her head on the feet of the beautiful little Savior; is she not more lovely than the St. Mary Magdalen? That fine old man St. Jerome, is he not grander, and at the same time more tender than that St. Paul, which first appeared to me a miracle, and now seems like a piece of wood, it is so hard and sharp. However you must have patience even for your own Parmiggiano, because I now acknowledge that I have learnt from this great man, to imitate all his grace, though at a great distance; for the children of Correggio breathe and smile with such a grace and truth, that one cannot refrain from smiling and enjoying one’s self with them.

“I write to my brother that he must come, for he will see things which he could never have believed,—18th April, 1580.

“I have been to the Steccata, and the Zocoli, and have observed what you told me many times, and what I now confess to be true; but I will say that, to my taste, Parmeggiano bears no comparison with Correggio, because the thoughts and conceptions of Correggio were his own, evidently drawn from his own mind, and invented by himself, guided only by the original idea. The others all rest on something not their own; some on models, some on statues or drawings: all the productions of the others are represented as they may be; all of this man as they truly are.

“The opportunities which Agostino wished for, have not occurred; and this appears to me a country, which one never could have believed so totally devoid of good taste and of the delights of a painter, for they do nothing but eat and drink, and make love. I promised to impart to you my sentiments; but I confess I am so confused that it is impossible. I rage and weep, to think of the misfortune of poor Antonio; so great a man, if indeed he were a man, and not an angel in the flesh, to be lost here, in a country where he was unknown, and though worthy of immortality, here to die unhappily. He and Titian will always be my delight: and if I do not see the works of the latter at Venice, I shall not die content.—April 28, 1580.”