rreggio had painted for a
Company of Secular Priests, who hold it in very great price, as it
deserves, there being in it, in particular, besides other figures, an
Infant Christ in the lap of His Mother, who appears as if breathing, and
a most beautiful S. Peter Martyr; and another little altar-piece by
the same hand, painted for the Company of S. Bastiano, and no less
beautiful than the other. All these works, thus copied by Girolamo, were
the reason that he so improved his manner, that it did not appear like
his original manner, or in any way the same thing.

From Modena Girolamo went to Parma, where he had heard that there were
some works by the same Correggio, and he copied some of the pictures in
the tribune of the Duomo, considering them extraordinary works,
particularly the beautiful foreshortening of the Madonna, who is
ascending into Heaven, surrounded by a multitude of Angels, with the
Apostles, who are standing gazing on her as she ascends, and four
Saints, Protectors of that city, who are in the niches--S. John the
Baptist, who is holding a lamb; S. Joseph, the husband of Our Lady; S.
Bernardo degli Uberti the Florentine, a Cardinal and Bishop of Florence;
and another Bishop. Girolamo likewise studied the figures by the hand of
the same Correggio in the recess of the principal chapel in S. Giovanni
Evangelista--namely, the Coronation of the Madonna, with S. John the
Evangelist, the Baptist, S. Benedict, S. Placido, and a multitude of
Angels who are about them; and the marvellous figures that are in the
Chapel of S. Gioseffo in the Church of S. Sepolcro--a divine example of
panel-painting.

Now, since it is inevitable that those who are pleased to follow some
particular manner, and who study it with lovingness, should acquire
it--at least, in some degree (whence it also happens that many become
more excellent than their masters)--Girolamo caught not a little of
Correggio's manner; wherefore, after returning to Bologna, he imitated
him always, not studying any other thing but that manner and that
altar-piece by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino which we mentioned as
being in that city. And all these particulars I heard from Girolamo da
Carpi, who was much my friend, at Rome in the year 1550; and he lamented
very often to me that he had consumed his youth and his best years in
Ferrara and Bologna, and not in Rome or some other place, where, without
a doubt, he would have made much greater proficience. No little h