Parmigianino: life, works, style, masterpieces

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Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, better known as the Parmigianino (Parma, 1503 - Casalmaggiore, 1540) is one of the most important and influential personalities of the sixteenth century and one of the major artists who emerged after the death of Raphael. A leading exponent of the Emilian manner, he was a precocious talent, was for a brief period in Rome just before the sack of 1527, returned to his homeland and was the protagonist of some of the most significant episodes in the art of the time: his career, however, was very short-lived, because Parmigianino disappeared when he was only thirty-seven years old. Nonetheless, his painting managed to survive him, both in the creations of 16th-century Emilian artists who could not fail to measure themselves against him, in the Venetian sphere through Andrea Schiavone, and in France, where Parmigianinesque cues arrived with the art of Primaticcio. Parmigianinesque elements are then found in the work of a vast array of later artists, from Veronese to Ludovico Carracci, from Niccolò dell’Abate to Pellegrino Tibaldi, from Giulio Cesare Procaccini to Veronese painting of the second half of the 16th century.

One of Parmigianino’s main merits lies in having redefined the canons of beauty of the time, according to an elegant and artificial image, reaching to heights of extravagance, ambiguity, and hyperbole that, however, never lost their great charge of refinement. His ideas had a considerable circulation in Italy and Europe of the time, not only through the artists who traveled to Parma and its environs to see his works live(discover here some places in the Parma area where to see Parmigianino’s works), but also through the drawings and prints that enjoyed a wide circulation.

He was a cultured and refined artist who immediately enjoyed considerable critical acclaim, partly because of his tormented life, to the legend of which Giorgio Vasari’s account contributed greatly: according to the artist and historian from Arezzo, in fact, Parmigianino, caught up in his alchemical experiments, allegedly abandoned art, absorbed in alchemy to the point of self-destruction. Although Francesco Mazzola is known to have had interests in this subject, we do not actually know whether his attachment was as morbid as a reading of Vasari’s Lives would seem to suggest. What really matters is that Vasari praised and appreciated Parmigianino, granting him the fortune he always enjoyed: “Among many who have been endowed in Lombardy with the gracious virtue of drawing and a certain liveliness of spirit in invention, and a peculiar manner of making beautiful countries in painting, is to be placed above no one, indeed to be placed above all others, Francesco Mazzuoli parmigiano, who was by heaven amply endowed with all those parts that are required of an excellent painter, for he gave to his figures, in addition to what has been said of many others, a certain venosity, sweetness and gracefulness in their attitudes, which was his own and peculiar. In the heads likewise it can be seen that he had all those warnings that are due, meanwhile his manner has been immited and observed by infinite painters, for having given to art such a pleasant light of grace, that his things will always be held in esteem, and he will be honored by all scholars of drawing.”

Parmigianino, Self-Portrait in the Mirror (c. 1524; oil on convex panel, 24.4 x 24.4 cm; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum)

The Life of Parmigianino

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola was born in Parma on January 11, the eighth of nine children, to Filippo, a painter by profession, who came from a family of merchants and artisans originally from Pontremoli in Lunigiana and who had moved to Parma since the 14th century. We are not sure who his mother was, perhaps a certain Donatella Abbati. The family lived in Parma in Vicolo delle Asse, which today is ntoo as “Borgo del Parmigianino.” His father died as early as 1505, and little Francesco was entrusted to the care of his uncles Michele and Pietro Ilario Mazzola, also painters, with whom the young man would complete his artistic apprenticeship. In 1519, when he was only sixteen years old, the artist executed his first known work, the Baptism of Christ destined for the Church of the Annunziata in Parma and now preserved at the Staatliche Museen in Berlin. Around 1520, together with his uncles and other artists he began working on the frescoes in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma as a collaborator of Correggio, putting himself in particular light and demonstrating his precocious talent. The following year, in 1521, Parmigianino moved to Viadana to escape the war between Charles V and Francis I that was about to touch Parma: for the local church of the Franciscans the painter executed the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine now preserved in the church of Santa Maria Addolorata in Bardi in the province of Parma. Instead, one of his most famous works, theSelf-Portrait in the Mirror now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, dates from 1523.

In 1524 the artist began to look forward to one of his greatest undertakings: he was in fact at the Rocca di Fontanellato, called by the local lord, Galeazzo Sanvitale. Here the artist executes such important masterpieces as the Stories of Diana and Actaeon (the cycle of frescoes decorating the “Stufetta” of the Rocca), and the portrait of Sanvitale currently preserved at the National Museum of Capodimonte in Naples. Also in 1524 he stayed, together with Pietro Ilario, in Rome, where he was able to come into contact with the art of Raphael and Michelangelo Buonarroti, and to meet some of the greatest artists of the time such as Sebastiano del Piombo, Perin del Vaga, Polidoro da Caravaggio, and Baldassarre Peruzzi. According to tradition he succeeded, given his young age (just twenty-one), in astonishing Pope Clement VII by showing him some of his works. And also in Rome, he struck up a friendship with Pietro Aretino. In 1526, in Rome, he was commissioned to paint the Vision of St. Jerome now in the National Gallery in London.

In 1527, to avoid the sack of Rome, he, like many other artists, left the city: he therefore moved to Bologna and in the city of Bologna executed, among other works, San Rocco with a donor from the basilica of San Petronio. 1529 was the year of Pope Clement VII’s visit to Bologna: Francesco Mazzola gave him the Madonna of the Rose now preserved in Dresden. The following year the artist was commissioned for the fresco decoration of the church of Santa Maria della Steccata in Parma: this was one of his best-known and most important undertakings, but also his most painful. In fact, the work would not begin until five years later and would continue in a very tribulated manner: the artist’s slowness would bring him much trouble with the commissioners, including legal trouble (for example, the fabbriceria della Steccata, in 1538, allegedly ordered him to repay a large sum, 225 scudi, for breach of contract, and even in 1539 the fabbricieri managed to have the artist imprisoned, who spent two months in jail). It was in 1531 that the artist returned to his hometown. In 1534 he began painting perhaps his most famous masterpiece, the celebrated Madonna with the Long Neck, a work that remained unfinished and is now in the Uffizi Gallery. In 1539, after being released from prison as a result of the events just mentioned (the imprisonment order was turned into an order to stop interfering with the work, and Giulio Romano was to be chosen in his place, but he declined the invitation after initially accepting it), decides to leave his hometown and move to Casalmaggiore, just outside the borders of the duchy of Parma (the artist was probably planning to return as soon as possible, perhaps precisely to finish the Steccata commission, as one might surmise from reading his correspondence with Giulio Romano). In Casalmaggiore, however, Parmigianino died on August 24, 1540, possibly of malaria, contracted on August 5.

Parmigianino, Bardi Altarpiece (1521; tempera on panel, 203 x 130 cm; Bardi, Santa Maria Addolorata).

Basilica of Santa Maria della Steccata, the sottoarco with the Three Wise Virgins and Three Foolish Virgins

Parmigianino’s frescoes in the Rocca Sanvitale of Fontanellato

Parmigianino’s works, style, and importance

Parmigianino’s first masters were his uncles Pietro Ilario and Michele Mazzola, but the artist had trained primarily by admiring the works of Correggio, Dosso Dossi, and Pordenone (and probably also saw Raphael’sEcstasy of Saint Cecilia ). Assuming he stayed in Cremona, it can be assumed that Francesco Mazzola also knew the works of Romanino and Altobello Melone. His artists of reference can be seen from the very first work attributable to him, the Baptism of Christ preserved at the Staatliche Museen in Berlin, a very interesting work also because it was made by the artist at the age of sixteen. From the painting, one almost has the perception of being in front of an enfant prodige: the angels suggest his knowledge of Raphaelesque art, while the head of Christ is clearly derived from Correggio, while the landscape recalls Dosso Dossi and Venetian painting. The artist is already distinguished by the fineness of the decoration of the plate with which the Baptist is baptizing Jesus, and refinement is one of the hallmarks of his painting. The best known early masterpiece, however, capable of conveying Parmigianino’s taste for the bizarre to the relative, is theSelf-Portrait in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, dating from 1523. Parmigianino, in this painting, intends to astonish the viewer: in fact, the painter wanted to portray himself by giving the illusion of an image distorted by a convex mirror. To realize this, it is enough to observe the hand and the background, because a convex mirror reflects the edges of the figure in an altered way and instead leaves the center of the figure “intact,” which in the case of the self-portrait coincides precisely with the face of the painter, who depicts himself with very delicate features (those that earned him the nickname “Parmigianino”: in fact, the sources describe him to us as a young man of handsome appearance and gentle features). Moreover, with this self-portrait, the artist intended to demonstrate his skill in depicting reality, even when distorted through optical tricks, so much so that he won Vasari’s admiration.

Soon after, Parmigianino produced one of the works that best offer us the dimension of his art: the cycle of frescoes that was commissioned by Galeazzo Sanvitale for the “Stufetta” of the Rocca di Fontanellato. The frescoes, created around 1524, tell the Stories of Diana and Actaeon and decorate the vault of the room. The myth of Diana and Actaeon (the hunter transformed into a stag by Diana as punishment for having seen her naked at the bath with her nymphs, and then mauled by his own dogs) is narrated in a manner in which references to Correggio are evident, particularly to the Camera di San Paolo, which Parmigianino takes up though with variations and reworking in a wholly personal way the motif of the faux pergola that opens above the lunettes containing the depiction of the episodes. There are many unusual aspects of this cycle of frescoes: it was a dark room, because it originally had no windows, it is very small in size, contemporary sources do not tell us about it, and finally we do not know exactly what it was used for and therefore the most disparate hypotheses have been made as to what use the room was put to. There is also no lack of various elements from which the taste for the bizarre that permeates Parmigianino’s art is evident, albeit declined with great refinement: for example, some scholars note how Actaeon’s body with a deer’s head looks almost like a female body, or again the scene in which the hunter is mauled by his dogs shows no violence whatsoever (it almost looks like a dance rather than a desperate run). The frescoes of the Madonna della Steccata deserve special mention: the artist had been commissioned to paint them in 1531. However, the work proceeded very slowly until the last years of the artist’s life, when he passed away in 1540, and this slowness of his caused him several problems with the commissioners, because the work had to be finished within a year and a half (even Parmigianino in 1539 was imprisoned for breach of contract, although he later managed to get out after a couple of months, and the continuation of the frescoes, initially entrusted to Giulio Romano who first accepted and then declined the invitation, was secured to Michelangelo Anselmi). The delays were probably due to the ... excesses of zeal of Parmigianino, who designed the frescoes with great slowness (we are left with numerous drawings related to the design of this cycle). The only frescoes that Parmigianino managed to complete are those on the sub-arch of the high altar, decorated with Wise Virgins and Foolish Virgins between 1535 and 1539. Between two rows of gilded rosettes we notice decorations with plant and animal motifs and, in the background, on one side the wise virgins and on the other, in correspondence, the foolish virgins, with entirely similar poses: only the colors of the clothes and the lamps change, lit for the wise virgins and unlit for the foolish ones. The young girls achieve a distinct monumentality, reminiscent of the frescoes on the vault of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s masterpiece that Parmigianino certainly saw during his stay in Rome, but they also denote Francesco Mazzola’s interest in Raphael’s art (points of contact with the frescoes in the Vatican Stanze have been found).

The Parmigian aesthetic shines through perhaps even more clearly in his Madonna with the Long Neck, the unfinished masterpiece preserved in the Uffizi. This painting was made between 1534 and 1540, is kept in the Uffizi, and was commissioned by a Parma noblewoman, Elena Baiardi, for the funeral chapel of her husband, Francesco Tagliaferri, inside the church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Parma. It is one of the masterpieces of Mannerism: extravagant, unusual, filled with allegorical references. The distribution of the characters is strongly asymmetrical: on the left side of the painting is crowded with a host of angels while the right side is empty (the only presence is that of St. Jerome, which can be seen in the distance). The ivory column we see on the right is perhaps to be seen in relation to Our Lady’s neck (and in particular with the verse “collum tuum sicut turris eburnea” from the Song of Songs). The very neck that gives the painting its name is elongated, disproportionate to the body (deliberately: the elongation of the proportions of the human body is a hallmark of Mannerist language that rejects Renaissance harmony). It is not only the neck that is far from natural proportions: the hand is also very elongated, the baby Jesus is very very much larger than an infant should be (and the baby Jesus himself almost looks as if he might fall at any moment), the leg of the angel we see on the left is very elongated. Added to the many oddities, however, is a marked elegance, which we notice from the delicacy of the features on the faces of the protagonists: an effect of estrangement, typical of Mannerist art, is achieved.

Parmigianino (attr.), Baptism of Christ (c. 1519; oil on panel, 197 x 137 cm; Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie)

Parmigianino, Madonna with the Long Neck (1534-1540; oil on panel, 216 x 132 cm; Florence, Uffizi Gallery)

Where to see the works of Parmigianino

The starting point for discovering Parmigianino’s works is a tour of the Parma area: his works are preserved at the National Gallery in the Complex of the Pilotta, then there are the frescoes in Santa Maria della Steccata (the church, moreover, also preserves the two organ doors painted for the old oratory of the Steccata around 1523, before the church was rebuilt), those in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista where the artist worked as a collaborator with Correggio, and just outside you can admire the frescoes in the Rocca Sanvitale in Fontanellato, or a key painting such as the Bardi Altarpiece in the church of Santa Maria Addolorata in Bardi, in the Parma Apennines(find out about Parmigianino’s places in Parma here). In Rome, the Doria Pamphilj Gallery holds two masterpieces from the Roman period: the Nativity with Angels and the Doria Madonna. Another work from the Roman period is in the Uffizi: it is the Madonna and Child of 1525. Also at the Uffizi is the Madonna with a Long Neck and another important work, the San Zaccaria Altarpiece. In Naples, the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte holds the very famous Antea, the Portrait of Galeazzo Sanvitale, the Lucrezia Romana, and the Holy Family with St. John. Still, in the church of San Domenico di Taggia (Imperia) one can see an Adoration of the Magi, while a little Parmesan tour can be made in Bologna, where in San Petronio one can admire the San Rocco and a Donor, and at the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna the Madonna of St. Margaret.

Abroad, one encounters masterpieces by Parmigianino at the Courtauld Gallery in London (the Nativity and the Vasari Madonna), at the Prado (the Saint Barbara, the Holy Family with Angels, the Portrait of Pier Maria Rossi di San Secondo, the Portrait of Camilla Gonzaga), at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen (the Portrait of Lorenzo Cybo), at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (the Conversion of St. Paul and theSelf-portrait, the Portrait of Costanza Rangoni), at the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden (the Madonna of the Rose, the Casalmaggiore Altarpiece).

Parmigianino: life, works, style, masterpieces

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