design for a chapel

summer 1524

Travels to Rome with his uncles

According to Vasari, on hearing Raphael and Michelangelo praised, Francesco longed to see Rome; his uncles approved and advised him to take some of his works to open doors to the lords and artists there. They arrived in Rome in the summer of 1524, and Parmigianino presented several paintings to Pope Clement VII, among them the “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” painted on a wooden hemisphere.

1524–1527

Joins the circle of Raphael's pupils

In Rome Parmigianino grew close to Raphael's pupils working in the Vatican — Perino del Vaga, Baldassarre Peruzzi and Polidoro da Caravaggio — as well as Sebastiano del Piombo and Rosso Fiorentino; he copied the frescoes of Raphael's Stanze and the tapestry cartoons made for the Sistine Chapel. Vasari records that in Rome he was celebrated as “a Raphael reborn”.

1527

The Sack of Rome finds him at work

During the Sack of Rome by the landsknechts of Emperor Charles V, soldiers burst into the studio where Parmigianino was painting “The Vision of Saint Jerome” but harmed neither the pictures nor the artist. Soon, however, he had to abandon his lodgings and Rome, and he left the altarpiece with the church of Santa Maria della Pace.

1527

Flees ravaged Rome for Bologna

After the Sack of Rome Parmigianino moved to Bologna, where he spent four years by some accounts, nearly three by others. His first Bolognese work was “Saint Roch with a Donor” for the basilica of San Petronio, and here his palette grew cooler.

by 1530

Returns to his native Parma

By 1530 Parmigianino had come back from Bologna to Parma. Here, among other works, he painted “The Madonna with the Long Neck” and took on the decoration of the church of Santa Maria della Steccata.

May 1531

Commissioned to decorate Santa Maria della Steccata

In May 1531 Parmigianino was commissioned to fresco the church of Santa Maria della Steccata in praise of the Virgin, with the Coronation as the main scene, and undertook to finish within eighteen months; the work stalled again and again over irregular supplies and the church administration's dislike of his unusual design. Other accounts say the commission was for two altarpieces, of Saint Joseph and Saint John the Baptist. The confraternity advanced him a salary.