Page:Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters.djvu/35

ALFANI— ALLEGRI. phael. He imitated and enlarged upon his master's style. His works, of which several exist in the churches of Perugia, have been till lately attributed to his son, Orazio. In the galleiy of the UfBizj, at Florence, in the Tribune, there is a Holy Family, now attri- buted to this painter. Umbrian SchooL ALFANI, Obazio, the son of Dome- nico, was b, at Perugia in 1510, and d, in 1583. Umbrian School. His style bears more resemblance to Baphael's second manner than to that of the Um- brian painters generally. There are pictures by him at Perugia, which may be mistaken for the works of Raphael, especially some Madonnas, about which the authorship is still disputed, but the colouring of Alfani has less force than that of Raphael. Works. Perugia, Birth of Christ, at San Francesco ; Madonna and Child, at the Augustine Convent ; and at the Conventual Friars, a Crucifixion by the two Alfani. {Mariotti.) ALIBRANDI, Gibolaico, called the Raphael of Messma, b, 1470, d, 1524. He became a scholar of Antonello da Messina, at Venice, and formed a friend- ship with Giorgione; after the death of Antonello, he entered the school of Leonardo Da Vinci, at Milan, and ac- quired some of his softness of light and shade. At Messina, in the church Delia Candelora, is a picture of the Purification of tbe Virgin, painted by Alibrandi in 1510 ; it is considered one of the best pictures in that city. {Gae- tano Grano.) ALIENSE. [Vassilacchl] ALIGHIERI, Giovanni, an Italian monk, and one of the oldest artists of Ferrara. He illuminated a MS. Virgil in 1198, for the Carmelite monks of Ferrara, which is still preserved. {Cit- tadella.) ALLEGRI, Antonio, commonly called CoRREGGio, from his birth-place, b, 1493-4, d. at Correggio, March 5, 1534. Lombard School, or Caposcuola of the School of Parma. He was established in Parma in 1519. His youth is in- volved in obscurity; his originid in- structor appears to have been Tonino Bartolotto, a painter of Correggio ; he seems to have at once matured into the great master. His most remarkable technical quality is his soft and powerful light and shade, strongly reminding of the Milanese School of Leonardo da Vinci. There are, too, infinite grace, beauty, and exuberance of life in the expression of Correggio's countenances, and a deep sensibility pervades his compositions, though all his excellence tends to the sensuous development of art His tints are delicate, his colour- ing rich and glowing; he creates the most powerful efibcts from his skill in chiaroscuro, and his forms possess a wonderful breadth, with charming un- dulations of contour. He carried to the highest perfection the faculty of fore- shortening ; but he paid more attention to the massing of the draperies, and to their flowing outlines, than to the study of the human figure itself, which we may call a distinctive characteristic of the Lombard School. His several styles may be thus classed : — ^his first, some- what resembles that of Leonardo da Vinci ; in his second, we find the highest mastery of chiaroscuro; and his third combines these with his proverbial grace, and that sensuous display of limb, which from his excessive fondness for foreshortenings, descended into manner, though at the same time con- stituting one of Correggio's capital cha- racteristics. Works. Frescoes — at Parma (en- graved by the Cav. Toschi), Cupola of San Giovanni, the Ascension of Christ, 1520; Cathedral, the Assumption of the Virgin, 1522 (finished by Gandini) ; Monastery of St. Paul, mythological. Oil pictures — Parma, in the Academy, St. Jerome, or Day, 1524; Madonna