DID CORREGGIO EVER VISIT ROME?

The question has been long agitated whether Correggio ever visited Rome, and profited by the study of the antique, and the works of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo; on this point, the only historical evidence which has been adduced, is a tradition recorded by Father Resta, and said to have been derived through three generations, from the information of Correggio’s wife. As an authority so light and doubtful could not be seriously advanced, his biographers and admirers have sought in his works for more valid traces of the models to which he recurred. Mengs contends that his paintings exhibit proofs of an acquaintance with the antique, and the works of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo. In the head of the Danaë, he traces a resemblance to that of Venus de Medici; and in the St. Jerome, and Mercury teaching Cupid to read, he recognises imitations of the Farnese Hercules and the Apollo Belvidere; he also discovers a resemblance to one of the children of Niobe, in the young man who endeavors to escape from the soldiers, in the picture representing Christ betrayed in the garden. The countenance of the Magdalen, in the St. Jerome, he considers as an imitation of Raffaelle; and in the cupola of the church of St. John, he perceives a similitude to the grand style of Michael Angelo, in the frescos of the Vatican. In corroboration of this opinion, he adduces the sudden change which is perceived in the style of Correggio at an earlier period, as a proof that he must have seen and studied compositions superior to his own. Ratti, the copyist of Mengs, coincides with him in opinion. Lanzi cautiously adopts the same sentiment; and Tiraboschi, after comparing the testimony on both sides, leaves the question unsettled. We cannot decide with certainty, that Correggio never visited Rome, and yet there is no argument to prove that he ever saw that Capital. Pungileoni, with superior advantage of research, pronounces a contrary decision; and affirms, from the evidence of the continued series of unquestionable documents, in which his presence is mentioned at Parma, Correggio, and other parts of Lombardy, during a number of years, that even if he did visit Rome, his stay must have been limited to a very short period. Finally, this opinion is corroborated in the assertion of Ortensio Landi, who had resided some time at Correggio; and who, in his Sette Libri de Cataloghi, printed at Venice by Giolito, as early as 1552, says of Correggio, “He was a noble production of nature, rather than of any master: he died young, without being able to see Rome.” Were all other evidence wanting, this testimony of a cotemporary, who must have collected his information on the spot, and who published it within eighteen years after the death of Correggio, must be allowed to carry great weight.