  ONE of the earliest painters in this school was an obscure artist of the Old Lombard school named Martino Spanzotti. He was the master of Gaudenzio Ferrari (1471–1546), whose frescoes are easily recognisable by the crude colour, exuberant imagination, and forceful, almost brutal, realism which have caused him to be termed, somewhat loosely, the Rubens of Italy. A very late work by him is the St. Paul (No. 1285), which is signed and dated 1543 GAUDENTIUS. Another of Spanzotti’s pupils was Sodoma, who was born at Vercelli in Piedmont, in 1477. He is best known for the large amount of work that he executed at Siena. This prolific artist, like a number of other painters of this unimportant school, is not represented in the Louvre. He died in 1551. A faint echo of the teaching of Spanzotti may at times be detected in the works of Defendente Ferrari (fl. 1500–1535) and Girolamo Giovenone (fl. 1513–1527), who are not represented in the Louvre. PLATE XV.—CORREGGIO (1494–1534) SCHOOL OF PARMA No. 1117.—THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE (Mariage mystique de Sainte Catherine) The Virgin, in a red tunic and blue mantle, is seated to the left of the composition holding on her lap the Infant Christ. He is about to place the wedding-ring on the third finger of the outstretched right hand of the kneeling St. Catherine, who wears a gold-brocaded robe. Behind her stands St. Sebastian, looking on with interest and clasping in his hand the arrows, the symbol of his martyrdom. In the landscape background are depicted scenes of the martyrdom of the two Saints. Painted in oil on panel. 3 ft. 5½ in. × 3 ft. 4 in. (1·05 × 1·02.) |
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