An exploration of Parmigianino’s greatest Roman painting, illuminating his dynamic process of invention and the dramatic story around its creation.
 
Parmigianino (1503–1540), whose nickname means “little man of Parma,” was the leading painter in Parma after Correggio, and is celebrated as one of the originators of Mannerism. The Vision of Saint Jerome is his first, and only, major public undertaking from his brief period in Rome.
 
This book explores the artist’s time in the city until the dramatic events of the Sack of Rome in 1527, and places The Vision of Saint Jerome in the context of Parmigianino’s career and legacy. Featuring a selection of key surviving preparatory drawings for this altarpiece, the publication reveals Parmigianino’s inspired artistic process.
 
Tracing the history of Parmigianino’s masterpiece after its arrival in England, the texts also provides an illuminating account of the painting’s conservation and of the artist’s reception in nineteenth-century Britain.