Correggio

Name at birth: Antonio Allegri

Antonio Allegro da Correggio -- known simply as Correggio -- was a 16th century Italian Renaissance painter known for his exuberant use of color, his mastery of chiaroscuro, and for a series of mythological paintings, including Jupiter and Io. Little is known about his early life or art education. One of his best known early ecclesiastical commissions is 1514's Virgin Enthroned, painted a few years before he began his series of mythological frescoes in Padua. Correggio spent most of his career in Parma, where he painted the cathedral's Assumption of the Virgin, known for its color and for its dramatic foreshortening. His fame was mostly local during his lifetime, but half a century later, Correggio was being compared to other great artists of the era, including Raphael and Michelangelo. His other famous paintings include The Night (1522), Ganymede Abducted by the Eagle (1531) and The Martyrdom of the Four Saints (1524).