DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42863#0312
282 HE PAINTS TWO ALLEGORIES
remarks that the Marchesa di Novellara has heard
from Ortensio Landi that Correggio has lately painted
a beautiful Magdalen for the Magnificent Signore di
Mantova.1
Whether the Marchesa ever owned a Magdalen
by Correggio or not, we know that two admirable
tempera paintings from his hand adorned her
Grotta. In the inventory of 1642, these works
are described as: “ Two pictures by the entrance
door, from the hand of the late Antonio da Correggio,
one of which represents the story of Apollo and
Marsyas, the other the three virtues, Justice, Tem-
perance and Fortitude, teaching a child to measure
time, in order that he may win the palm and be
crowned with laurel.” And in Vanderdoort’s2 inven-
tory of Charles the First’s collection the same paintings
are described as : “One large and famous picture
painted upon cloth in water-colours, kept shut up in
a wooden case, where they are tormenting and flaying
Marsyas. The second, another the like piece in water-
colours of Anthony Correggio, being an unknown
story containing four entire figures in a landskip, and
four angels in the clouds.” The Commonwealth in-
ventory is still vaguer in its interpretation, and
merely enters Correggio’s temperas as A Satire
Plead (flayed) and Another of the Same, but values
them at the high price of £1000, for which they
were actually bought by the banker Jabach.
The true title of these paintings was the Triumph
of the Vices and of the Virtues. In the one, a
naked man is seen bound to a tree. Evil Habit,
a woman wearing vipers in her hair, binds him with
1 Braghirolli, op. cit., 332.
2 P. 76.
remarks that the Marchesa di Novellara has heard
from Ortensio Landi that Correggio has lately painted
a beautiful Magdalen for the Magnificent Signore di
Mantova.1
Whether the Marchesa ever owned a Magdalen
by Correggio or not, we know that two admirable
tempera paintings from his hand adorned her
Grotta. In the inventory of 1642, these works
are described as: “ Two pictures by the entrance
door, from the hand of the late Antonio da Correggio,
one of which represents the story of Apollo and
Marsyas, the other the three virtues, Justice, Tem-
perance and Fortitude, teaching a child to measure
time, in order that he may win the palm and be
crowned with laurel.” And in Vanderdoort’s2 inven-
tory of Charles the First’s collection the same paintings
are described as : “One large and famous picture
painted upon cloth in water-colours, kept shut up in
a wooden case, where they are tormenting and flaying
Marsyas. The second, another the like piece in water-
colours of Anthony Correggio, being an unknown
story containing four entire figures in a landskip, and
four angels in the clouds.” The Commonwealth in-
ventory is still vaguer in its interpretation, and
merely enters Correggio’s temperas as A Satire
Plead (flayed) and Another of the Same, but values
them at the high price of £1000, for which they
were actually bought by the banker Jabach.
The true title of these paintings was the Triumph
of the Vices and of the Virtues. In the one, a
naked man is seen bound to a tree. Evil Habit,
a woman wearing vipers in her hair, binds him with
1 Braghirolli, op. cit., 332.
2 P. 76.