Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/274

 of that of Mantegna, as the pictures of Raffaelle and Titian display the progress and perfection of those of Perugino and Giovanni Bellini." The authentic documents revealed by the three savans before mentioned, show that Correggio was most highly esteemed by his cotemporaries, and that he associated with persons of rank and letters. On two occasions he passed some time at Padua, with the Marchese Manfredo, and the celebrated patroness of arts and letters, Veronica Gambara, relict of Gilberto, Lord of Correggio. That he was cheerful and lively, may be inferred from the expression of a writer concerning him: "La vivacitá e dal brio del nostro Antonio;" yet affectionate and gentle, as is evident from his being sponsor on three occasions to infants of his friends (in 1511, 1516, and 1518), before he had reached his twenty-second year. In 1520 he was admitted by diploma, as a brother of the Congregation Cassinensi, in the monastery of St. John the Evangelist, at Parma—the fraternity to which the illustrious Tasso belonged. In the same year he married Girolama Merlini, a lady of good family, amiable disposition, and great beauty, who was his model for the Zingara, probably after the birth of his first child. By this lady he had one son and three daughters. In 1529, to his great affliction, she died, and was buried by her own request in the church of St. John at Parma. Correggio did not marry again. He died suddenly on the fifth day of March, 1534, aged forty years, and