Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio for his hometown, probably travels to Rome, where he studies classical sculpture, such as the then recently discovered Laocoon, and the frescoes of Raphael and Michelangelo, before returning to Parma, where, in 1514, he paints (his earliest documented work), the Madonna of St. Francis, when he is twenty-five.

Correggio was in Parma by 1516, where he will spend most of the remainder of his career.

Here, he befriends Michelangelo Anselmi, a prominent Mannerist painter.

He marries in 1519 Girolama Francesca di Braghetis, also of Correggio, who will die in 1529.

One of his sons, Pomponio Allegri, will become an undistinguished painter.

From this period are the Madonna and Child with the Young Saint John, Christ Leaving His Mother and the lost Madonna of Albinea.

Correggio's first major commission (February–September 1519) is the ceiling decoration of the private dining salon of the mother-superior (abbess Giovanna Piacenza) of the convent of St Paul called the Camera di San Paolo at Parma.

Here he paints an arbor pierced by oculi opening to glimpses of playful cherubs.

Below the oculi are lunettes with images of feigned monochromic marble.

The fireplace is frescoed with an image of Diana.

The iconography of the scheme is complex, combining images of classical marbles with whimsical colorful bambini.

While it recalls the secular frescoes of the pleasure palace of the Villa Farnesina in Rome, it is also a strikingly novel form of interior decoration.

Its abstruse mythological allegory, set into a trellislike framework, evokes Mantegna's experiments in perspective.

The early works of Parmigianino, painted in or near Parma, from which Francesco Mazzola takes his name,include frescoes of the legend of Diana and Actaeon, painted in 1523 when Parmigianino is twenty, for the Cittadella di San Vitale in Fontanellato.

He has also worked in San Giovanni and met Correggio, who was at work on the fresco decorations of the cupola.

Correggio has frescoed the apse and dome of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma between 1520 and 1524.

The dome appears to open to the sky, as Christ, surrounded by his apostles, ascends into the heavens.

Correggio's work in Parma establishes his reputation.

The Martyrdom of Four Saints is one of the canvasses commissioned by Parmesan noble Placido Del Bono for a chapel in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma.

They will be mentioned (although wrongly assigned to the city's cathedral) by late Renaissance art biographer Giorgio Vasari in the first edition of his Lives.

The subject of the painting, rather rare in western religious art, is the martyrdom of Placidus and his sister Flavia (who had allegedly lived in the fourth century) and, behind them, that of two earlier Roman siblings, Eutychius and Victorinus, who appear to have been already beheaded.

An angel flies above them and holds the palm of martyrdom.

Correggio produces a Self-portrait in about 1525.

The highly original Correggio, in 1526, paints The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine (which Vasari will mention as being in the house of a Modenese doctor, Francesco Grillenzoni) and begins work on his most important church decoration, the Assumption of the Virgin, in the dome of the Cathedral of Parma.

Correggio, in about 1528, completes his “Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome and Mary Magdalen,” which will become commonly known as Il Giorno ("day").

The canvas had been commissioned in 1523 by Briseide Colla, for a private chapel at the right side of the church of Sant'Antonio Abate in Parma.

Vasari will describe the work's il mirabile colorito ("wonderful color"); it is also studied by El Greco.

The infant Jesus in Correggio’s “Adoration of the Shepherds,” a religious painting executed in 1530 and later commonly known as “La Notte” ("night"), is the source of intense light that illumines the entire painting and miraculously controls forms and colors.

Correggio executes his most important church decoration, the “Assumption of the Virgin,” in the dome of the Cathedral of Parma in the years from 1526 to 1530.

Correggio adds to the illusion of movement in space by foreshortening the apostles, positioned around the drum of the dome and watching a ring of angels, swimming through clouds, carry the Virgin into the heavens.

Correggio, aside from his religious output, executes a now-famous set of paintings depicting the Loves of Jupiter as described in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Conceived after the success of Venus and Cupid with a Satyr, the voluptuous series has been commissioned by Federico II Gonzaga of Mantua, probably to decorate his private Ovid Room in the Palazzo Te.

Correggio paints four canvasses in total, although others had perhaps been programmed.

However, they are given to the visiting Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and thus will leave Italy within years of their completion.

Corregio dies on March 15, 1534 at forty-four.