Parmigianino

Lore & Background

Parmigianino was the eighth child of Filippo Mazzola and Donatella Abbati. His father died of the plague two years after his birth, and he was raised by his uncles, who were modestly talented artists. By age eighteen he had completed the Bardi Altarpiece. In 1521 he was sent to Viadana to escape wars, where he painted two tempera panels and met Correggio. In 1524 he traveled to Rome with five small paintings, including his Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror, seeking patronage of Pope Clement VII. Vasari records that in Rome he was celebrated as a Raphael reborn.

Reader's Guide

He produced outstanding drawings and was one of the first Italian painters to experiment with printmaking himself. His portable works have always been keenly collected and are now in major museums worldwide, while his two large fresco projects in a church in Parma and a palace in a small town nearby are less well known due to their lack of large main subjects. He painted a number of important portraits, leading a trend in Italy towards the three-quarters or full-length figure. He was a pioneer of Italian etching, and his prints, though few, had considerable influence. He became a devotee of alchemy, possibly due to his search for a new medium for his etchings, and was imprisoned for two months for breach of contract after failing to complete a commission for Santa Maria della Steccata. He died of a fever at age 37 and was buried naked with a cross of cypress wood on his chest.

Did You Know?

• Parmigianino was celebrated in Rome as 'a Raphael reborn' according to Vasari.
• He was one of the first Italian painters to experiment with printmaking himself.
• He was imprisoned for two months for breach of contract after failing to complete a church commission.
• His Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror was among five small paintings he brought to Rome in 1524.

Artistic Identity and the Mannerist Signature

Parmigianino is widely regarded as the most recognizable figure of the first generation of painters whose entire working lives fell squarely within the Mannerist period. His visual vocabulary is defined by what commentators have termed a refined sensuality, paired with a striking tendency to stretch and elongate human figures well beyond naturalistic proportions. This aesthetic ambition is most famously embodied in the Madonna with the Long Neck of 1534, a painting that remains both iconic and somewhat anomalous within the broader Renaissance canon. Another defining work, the Vision of Saint Jerome completed in 1527, demonstrates his capacity to fuse dramatic narrative with the same graceful, extended figuration. Beyond sacred subjects, he painted a number of important portraits that helped steer Italian painting toward the three-quarters and full-length figure, a compositional freedom previously reserved almost exclusively for royal sitters. His career spanned Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native Parma, yet his two major fresco undertakings—one in a Parma church and another in a nearby small-town palace—have remained comparatively obscure, overshadowed by the portable paintings now housed in major museums across Italy and the world.

Early Life and Formative Training

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola was born on 11 January 1503 as the eighth child of Filippo Mazzola and Donatella Abbati. His childhood was shaped by early loss: his father died of the plague just two years after his birth, leaving the children in the care of their uncles, Michele and Pier Ilario. According to Vasari, these uncles possessed a modest artistic talent, and it was through them that the young boy first encountered the practice of painting. In 1515, his uncle received a commission from Nicolò Zangrandi to decorate a chapel in San Giovanni Evangelista, a project the boy would later see to completion himself. By the age of eighteen he had already finished the Bardi Altarpiece, a work that signaled a prodigious and individual gift recognized by scholars to this day. In 1521, amid the escalating conflicts between French, Imperial, and papal armies, he was sent to Viadana, where he painted tempera panels of Saint Francis and the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine. It was during this period that he met Correggio, who was then working on the cupola frescoes of San Giovanni, an encounter that would profoundly shape his artistic direction.

Rome, the Sack, and a Career in Perpetual Motion

In 1524 Parmigianino traveled to Rome carrying five small paintings, among them the Circumcision of Jesus and his celebrated Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror, hoping to attract the patronage of the Medici pope, Clement VII. The reception was extraordinary; Vasari recorded that in Rome the young painter was celebrated as a kind of Raphael reborn. That same year he and his uncle Pier Ilario agreed with Maria Bufalina of Città di Castello to paint an altarpiece of the Vision of Saint Jerome for the church of San Salvatore in Lauro, a commission completed in 1527 and now held in the National Gallery, London. Yet the triumph proved fleeting. Within a year the Sack of Rome in 1527, just three years after his arrival, forced him and countless other artists to flee the city in chaos. He next settled in Bologna, where he spent nearly three years producing works including the Madonna and Child with Saints, the Madonna con la Rosa, and the Madonna with Saint Zachariah. By 1530 he had returned to Parma, where the remainder of his career would unfold amid commissions, disputes, and ultimately a premature end.

Printmaking Pioneer, Alchemy, and a Truncated Legacy

Parmigianino was a genuine pioneer in Italian etching, a medium first introduced to Italy by Marcantonio Raimondi but which particularly attracted skilled draughtsmen. The technique's capacity to capture the spontaneous quality of an artist's hand through acid rather than ink appealed deeply to him, a recognized master of elegant figure drawing. Between 1527 and 1530, while based in Bologna, he produced his etchings and designed chiaroscuro woodcuts cut by collaborators including Ugo da Carpi and Antonio da Trento. He also worked in collaboration with Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio. Though his total print output was modest, his influence on Italian printmaking was considerable, and the number of etchings attributed to him has fluctuated over the centuries, ranging from as few as six to eighteen in recent scholarship. In his final years he became absorbed in alchemical research, possibly driven by a desire to discover a new medium for his etchings. This obsession left his Santa Maria della Steccata commission unfinished, leading to a two-month imprisonment for breach of contract. He died of fever in Casalmaggiore on 24 August 1540 at just thirty-seven, and was buried in the church of the Servite Friars with a cypress-wood cross laid across his chest.