Parmigianino

Mannerist painter Parmigianino (1503-1540) became one of the most influential artists of the Italian Renaissance through his elegant distortions and refined technique. Born Francesco Mazzola in Parma, he trained with his artist uncles and came into contact with Correggio, whose frescoes in local churches shaped his early development. By his early twenties, Parmigianino had traveled to Rome where contemporaries called him "a Raphael reborn" for his prodigious talent.

His signature style featured elongated figures, small heads, and graceful poses that pushed Renaissance ideals toward something stranger and more artificial. The unfinished Madonna with the Long Neck (1534-1540), now at the Uffizi Gallery, epitomizes this approach with its impossibly stretched Virgin and ambiguous spatial composition. Parmigianino died at 37, leaving behind works scattered across major museums. The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna holds his Cupid Making His Arch, while the National Gallery in London displays his Vision of Saint Jerome. The Museo di Capodimonte in Naples preserves some of his finest portraits, including the striking Antea.