Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/380

 376 CORREGGIO ars Gheesdal, Pulman, Giselin, Kilian, and Ra- phelingus. The last declined the professorship of Greek at Cambridge, preferring to correct texts of the oriental languages, but afterward became at the same time head of a printing establishment at Leyden and professor of Hebrew in that city. Kilian, who corrected proofs for 50 years, wrote a pleasant poetical apology for the corrector typographicus, in which he reproached authors for the carelessness and deformity of their manuscripts. The Stephenses at Paris often corrected their own publications, but were assisted also by numerous erudite proof-readers. A poet of the time describes the interior of that learned establishment, in which the correctors and even the children and servants spoke in Latin. Robert Stephens and Plantin both often exposed publicly the sheets of a work, offering a reward to whosoever would show a fault. Erasmus corrected many proofs for his publisher, Froben of Basel ; and yet such unlucky mistakes stole into some of his own works, that he once declared that either the devil presided over typography, or there was diabolic malice on the part of com- positors. In a paraphrase of Matt. xvi. (1524), he spoke of Christ as singulari more jilium Dei. But instead of more there appeared in the text amore, and the faculty of theology at Paris immediately declared the proposition a Nestorian heresy. Erasmus, however, was able to prove his orthodoxy by producing a copy of a previous edition, in which the pas- sage was correctly printed. Other early and learned correctors of the press were Campanus, ex-bishop of Teramo, who served Ulrich Gallus at Rome; Chalcondyles, the exiled Greek, who corrected the first edition of Homer, and the first large work in Greek, Florence, 1488 ; Egnatius, professor of belles-lettres at Venice, and proof-reader for Aldus; (Ecolampadius, professor of theology, reformer, and proof- reader for Cratander at Basel ; Friedrich Syl- burg, who corrected the editions of the classics published by Wechel, and also those by Com- melin ; Turnebus, royal printer of Greek books in France, instructor of. Henry Stephens, and a friend of the most illustrious scholars of his time; and Cruden, the author of the concor- dance to the Bible. CORREGGIO, Antonio Allegri da, an Italian painter, born at Correggio, near Modena, in 1494, died there, March 5, 1534. His father Pellegrino Allegri, a tradesman in moderate circumstances, caused him to be instructed in various branches of polite learning, and his uncle, Lorenzo Allegri, an artist of tolerable ability, taught him the rudiments of painting. His first regular instructions probably were received in the school of Andrea Mantegna, continued by his son Francesco, in Mantua, whence he acquired his wonderful skill in fore- shortening. Francesco Bianchi Ferrari is also said to have been one of his masters, and the works of Leonardo da Vinci exercised an im- portant influence on him. He never visited Rome, never studied the antique, unless from such specimens as the cities of northern Italy contained, and seems never to have had in- tercourse with the great painters of the age, except through their works. Yet by the force of his individual genius he created a manner entirely original, in which movement, variety, and the most delicate gradation of light and shadow, are the principal elements, and in the art of chiaroscuro surpassed all former ar- tists. In 1518 Correggio, having already ac- quired some reputation as an artist, was invited to Parma to paint a saloon in the convent of San Paolo for the abbess. The subjects were selected from ancient mythology, and the groups of scantily draped gods and goddesses, of graces, nymphs, satyrs, and fauns, were rep- resented with a fulness of life, gayety, and grace of which the severer ideal of contem- porary masters had scarcely conceived. The reputation which this work gained for the ar- tist procured him in 1520 the commission to execute the frescoes on the cupola of San Gio- vanni in Parma. He painted the " Ascension of Christ," who appears soaring up to heaven, while below, the apostles, seated on clouds, are watching his departure. In 1525, on the invitation of Duke Federigo Gonzaga, he went to Mantua, where he painted a celebratad se- ries of mythological subjects: "Leda and the Swan," and " Jupiter and lo," now in the Ber- lin gallery; "Danae," in the Borghese gal- lery in Rome; "Jupiter and Antiope," in the Louvre; and "The Education of Cupid," in the British national gallery. The subjects, ap- pealing to the artist's feeling for grace and the expression of tender and voluptuous emo- tion, were executed with felicity, yet with- out grossness. The "Jupiter and lo," how- ever, which was once in the possession of Queen Christina of Sweden, having passed into the Orleans collection, the son of the re- gent duke ordered the face of lo to be cut out and burned. It was afterward skilfully re- stored by the French artist Prud'hon. In 1526 he began his celebrated fresco in the duomo of Parma. In the centre of the dome he rep- resented the Assumption the Madonna borne up to heaven by an innumerable throng of re- joicing angels, while the Saviour descends to meet her ; below are the apostles and evan- gelists. This is esteemed the masterpiece of Correggio, and Titian when he first saw it said, " If I were not Titian, I would be Cor- reggio." Some of the cartoons of this work were accidentally discovered in a garret in Parma, and are now in the British museum. Upon its completion in 1530, Correggio re- turned to his native town, where he passed the remainder of his life. He died of a malignant fever after a few days' illness. Correggio's works are not so numerous as those of some painters, but nearly every one is a masterpiece. The famous picture of the Nativity, in the Dresden gallery, called the Notte, in which the light proceeds from the head of the infant Sa-