Correggio

High Renaissance painter Antonio Allegri da Correggio (c. 1489-1534) pioneered illusionistic ceiling painting that anticipated the Baroque by a century. Named for his birthplace near Parma, he trained locally before absorbing influences from Mantegna's precise draftsmanship and Leonardo's soft sfumato. Unlike the great artists of Rome and Florence, Correggio spent his career in provincial Parma, yet his innovations proved profoundly influential.

His ceiling frescoes transformed how artists depicted heavenly visions. The Camera di San Paolo (1519) in Parma's convent features an arbor with glimpses of playful cherubs through painted openings. The Vision of St. John on Patmos (1520-21) in San Giovanni Evangelista floats Christ in clouds above the worshipper. His masterpiece, the Assumption of the Virgin (c. 1526-30) in Parma Cathedral, creates the illusion of the dome opening to heaven, with swirling angels and saints in dramatic foreshortening. One contemporary dismissively called it a "ragout of frogs' legs," but the technique revolutionized ceiling decoration. His mythological paintings for the Duke of Mantua display equally sensuous handling. Jupiter and Io shows the god as an embracing cloud. Correggio married in 1519 and had a son, Pomponio, who became a painter of modest talent. He died at 45, but his influence extended through Annibale Carracci to the great Baroque ceiling painters. Works hang at the Louvre, the National Gallery London, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna.