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.