In the first week, we will look at Parmigianino, born Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola in 1503 in the northern Italian city of Parma – the city which gave him his familiar name. We will start by examining 'The Vision of Saint Jerome' in detail, before going on to put it into the context of the artist’s career. We will also pay close attention to the dynamic drawings for which Parmigianino was famed, even as a child, as well as his highly innovative later paintings.  

The second week addresses the aspects of 'The Vision of Saint Jerome' in which women play the major role – each of which is a form of patronage. The first part of the session will explore the history of the Virgin and Child. 'The Vision of Saint Jerome' is officially titled 'The Madonna and Child with Saints', but the extraordinary way in which it was conceived can blind us to the fact that it is an essential example of a traditional, but evolving genre of religious painting. With examples drawn from the Gallery’s collection, we will see how Parmigianino’s work forms part of this important context. 

The second half of the session will explore the theme of women as patrons, as 'The Vision of Saint Jerome' was commissioned by a woman. Rules and regulations meant that women rarely had control of the purse strings – even when it was their own money – and so it was usually men who got to show off their devotion, their wealth and their status with the public display of art. Nevertheless, there were a few notable Italian women in the Renaissance who, for a variety of reasons, were able to become patrons. We will discover how, for some notable characters, this became possible 

According to the art historian Vasari, writing in the middle of the 16th Century, Parmigianino’s studio was invaded by German soldiers during the Sack of Rome in 1527, while he was painting 'The Vision of Saint Jerome'. They were so astonished by what they saw that, rather than carrying on their campaign of destruction and theft, they allowed him to carry on painting and left him in peace. This week we will look at the causes of this momentous rupture in European history and consider the effects it had not only on the artists who were in Rome at the time, but also on European politics on a wider scale. The first half of the session will dig deep into the politics and repercussions of the Sack of Rome – considering, among other things, the implications for Parmigianino in particular.  

The second session will consider ‘Mannerism,’ a deeply contested style among historians of art. We will explore if ‘Mannerism’ was really a style in its own right, or just a development of the Renaissance, a fashionable ‘taste’ which didn’t stand the test of time. We will also consider how ‘Mannerism’ is defined, and try to understand how and why it developed.