Parmigianino

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino, Italian pronunciation, Parmigianino, the little one from Parma, January 11, 1503, August 24, 1540, was an Italian mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma. His work is characterized by a refined sensuality and often elongation of forms and includes vision of Saint Jerome, 1527, and the iconic if somewhat untypical Madonna with the long neck, 1534, and he remains the best-known artist of the first generation whose whole careers fall into the mannerist period. His prodigious and individual talent has always been recognized, but his career was disrupted by war, especially the sack of Rome in 1527, three years after he moved there, and then ended by his death at only 37. He produced outstanding drawings, and was one of the first Italian painters to experiment with printmaking himself. While his portable works have always been keenly collected and are now in major museums in Italy and around the world, his two large projects in fresco are in a church in Parma and a palace in a small town nearby. This in conjunction with their lack of large main subjects has resulted in their being less well known than other works by similar artists. He painted a of important portraits, leading a trend in Italy towards the three-quarters or full-length figure, previously mostly reserved for royalty. Parmigianino was the eighth child of Filippo Mazzola and one Donatella Abbati. His father died of the plague two years after Parmigianino's birth, and the children were raised by their uncles, Michele and Pier Ilario, who according to Vasari were modestly talented artists. 3. In 1515, his uncle received a commission from Niccolò Zangrandi for the decoration of a chapel in San Giovanni Evangelista, a work later completed by a young Parmigianino. By the age of 18, he had already completed the Bardi altarpiece. In 1521, Parmigianino was sent to Viadana, along with painter Girolamo Bettoli who was to marry his cousin, to escape the wars between the French, imperial, and papal armies. In Viadana, he painted two panels in tempero, depicting St. Francis for the Church of the Frati d'Azzoccoli, and the mystical marriage of St. Catherine for San Pietro. He also worked in San Giovanni in Meccoreggio, who was at work on the fresco decorations of the cupola.