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"Antonio Allegri da Correggio is the sixth source, whose emanating powers have illuminated the fine arts in the modern world. A superstitious mind, on seeing his works, would suppose that he had received his tuition in painting from the angels; as his figures seem to belong to another race of being than man, and to have something too celestial for the forms of earth to have presented to his view.
After this most stupendous work, Lorenzo made the ornament in bronze for that door of the same church which is opposite to the Misericordia, with that marvellous foliage which he was not able to finish, death coming unexpectedly upon him when he was preparing having already almost made the model to reconstruct the said door, which Andrea Pisano had formerly made; which model has now been lost, although I saw it formerly, when a youth, in Borgo Allegri, before it was allowed to be lost by the descendants of Lorenzo.
In the first burst of my disappointment, I paid a visit to the Sardinian Consul, Herr Bayerbach, and told him of the position in which I was placed. He consoled me, in a most kind and gentlemanly manner, as well as he could; and on learning that I had already taken up my quarters on board, insisted on my occupying a chamber in his country-house in the Serra Allegri.
Gervais give us some Palestrina and Vittoria, some Aichinger and Allegri, some Orlando Lasso and De Près; but no, he must detest these masters also, consider them as archaic rubbish, good to send into the dust-heaps." And Durtal continued, "What we hear now at Paris, in the churches, is wholly incredible!
Antonio painted just such pictures as Veronica liked she fixed the standard and he worked up to it. And who then could possibly have foretold that the work of the baker's boy would rescue the place from oblivion, so that anywhere where the word is mentioned, "Correggio" should mean the boy Antonio Allegri, and not the village nor the wide domain of the Corregghesi!
I will begin the work in the morning," replied Antonio. The confidence of the youth made the Abbess smile. Many of our finest flowers are merely transplanted weeds. Transplantation often works wonders in men. When Fate lifted Antonio Allegri out of the little village of Correggio and set him down in the city of Parma, a great change came over him.
When morning dawned the boy sat with his beautiful head upon his folded arms, asleep, while before him on the table lay a score of the Miserere of Allegri, entirely written from memory. The next day, Good Friday, the Miserere was performed for the second time.
There is one curious exception to this general preference for simplicity among the masters of the first class that of the celebrated Anthony Allegri, more commonly known under his surname, Correggio. This eminent painter did not think a pun beneath the dignity of his art, and, accordingly, the device by which he distinguishes his pictures consists of a punning symbol, representing his name.
Louis, saw the picture, and praising it, "all the men and women of Florence hastened in great crowds to admire it, making all possible demonstrations of delight. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood, rejoicing in this occurrence, ever after called that place Borgo Allegri," the name it bears to this day.
Later, Leo the Tenth was importuned to curb the festive spirit of the place, but he shelved the matter by sending along a fatherly letter of advice and counsel. About this time we find the Abbess and her Legal Adviser planning a scheme of decoration that should win the admiration or envy or both of every art-lover in the Emilia. The young man, Antonio Allegri, from Correggio should do the work.
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