everity of
antiquarian criticism.'

In portraits Giorgione has only been exceeded by Titian. In the National
Gallery there is an unimportant 'St Peter the Martyr,' and a finer
'Maestro di Capella giving a music lesson,' which Kugler assigns to
Giorgione, though it has been given elsewhere to Titian. The 'refined
voluptuousness and impassioned sombreness' of Giorgione's painting have
instituted a comparison between him and Lord Byron as a poet.

Correggio's real name was Antonio Allegri, and he has his popular name
from his birth-place of Correggio, now called Reggio; although at one
time there existed an impression that Correggio meant 'correct,' from
the painter's exceedingly clever feats of fore-shortening.

His father is believed to have been a well-to-do tradesman, and the lad
is said to have had an uncle a painter, who probably influenced his
nephew. But Correggio had a greater master, though but for a very short
time, in Andrea Mantegna, who died when Correggio was still a young boy.
Mantegna's son kept on his father's school, and from him Correggio might
have received more regular instruction. He early attained excellence,
and in the teeth of the legends which lingered in Parma for a full
century, his genius received prompt notice and patronage. He married
young, and from records which have come to light, he received a
considerable portion with his wife.

The year after his marriage, when he was no more than six-and-twenty,
Correggio was appointed to paint in fresco the cupola of the church of
San Giovanni at Parma, and chose for his subject the 'Ascension of
Christ;' for this work and that of the 'Coronation of the Virgin,'
painted over the high altar, Correggio got five hundred gold crowns,
equivalent to L1500. He was invited to Mantua, where he painted from the
mythology for the Duke of Mantua. Indeed, so far and wide had the
preference for mythological subjects penetrated, that one of Correggio's
earliest works was 'Diana returning from the Chase;' painted for the
decoration of the parlour of the Abbess of the convent of San Paulo,
Parma.

Correggio was a second time called upon to paint a great religious work
in Parma--this time in the cathedral, for which he selected 'The
Assumption of the Virgin.' A few of the cartoons for these frescoes were
discovered thirty or forty years ago, rolled up and lying forgotten in a
garret in Parma; they, are now in the British Museum.

In 1533, Correggio, then residi