a celebrated painter, whose true name was Francesco Mazzuoli; but he received that of Parmigiano from the city of Parma, where he was born in 1504. He was brought up under his two uncles, and was an eminent painter when but sixteen years of age. He was famous all over Italy at nineteen; and at twenty-three he performed such wonders, that when the general of the Emperor Charles V. took Rome by storm, some of the common soldiers, having broken into his apartments, found him intent upon his work, and were so struck with the beauty of his pieces, that instead of involving him in the plunder and destruction in which they were then employed, they resolved to protect him from all manner of violence. His works are distinguished by the beauty of the colouring, the invention, and the drawing. His figures are spirited and graceful, particularly in respect to the choice of attitude, and the arrangement of drapery. He also excelled in music, in which he much delighted.

In large compositions Parmigiano did not always reach a high degree of excellence; but in his holy families, and other similar subjects, the gracefulness of his heads, and the elegance of his attitudes, are peculiarly remarkable. For the celebrity of his name he appears to have been chiefly indebted to his numerous drawings and etchings. As his life was short, and a great part of it consumed in the idle study of alchemy, and in the seducing avocations of music and gambling, but little time remained for application to the laborious part of his business. His paintings in oil are few in number, and held in high esteem; as are likewise his drawings and etchings. Good impressions of the last, however, are very rarely to be found. He was the first who practised the art of etching in Italy; and probably he did not at first know that it had been for some years practised in Germany. His principal works are at Parma, where he died poor in 1540.