''Portrait of a Man with a Book'' is an oil on canvas painting by

Correggio Antonio Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 – 5 March 1534), usually known as just Correggio (, also , , ), was an Italian Renaissance painter who was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Renaissance, who was responsible for som ...

, dated to around 1522. It was bequeathed to the

Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco The Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco ("Sforza Caste Art Gallery") is an art gallery in the museum complex of the Sforza Castle in Milan, Italy. History Inaugurated in 1878, the gallery displays over 230 artworks, which include masterpieces by Ti ...

in Milan (where it now hangs) in 1945 by Lydia Caprara Morando Attendolo Bolognini. It is sometimes instead attributed to

Parmigianino Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (11 January 150324 August 1540), also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino (, , ; "the little one from Parma"), was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, ...

but majority opinion is that it dates to Correggio's first mature period, which is supported by the fact that it was painted directly on top of the sketch, an informal technique suggesting it was made for a close friend of the artist. It shows a man in a black coat and black cap three-quarter-length against a wooded background, reading from a tiny book held in his right hand, argued by

Roberto Longhi Roberto Longhi (28 December 1890 – 3 June 1970) was an Italian academic, art historian, and curator. The main subjects of his studies were the painters Caravaggio and Piero della Francesca. Early life and career Longhi was born in December 1 ...

to be a

book of hours A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

''Edizione delle opere complete'', Roberto Longhi. Author, Roberto Longhi. Publisher, Sansoni, 1985 and by others such as Muzzi to be a ''Petrarchino'' (ie a miniature edition of

Petrarch Francis Petrarch (; 20 July 1304 – 19 July 1374; ; modern ), born Francesco di Petracco, was a scholar from Arezzo and poet of the early Italian Renaissance, as well as one of the earliest Renaissance humanism, humanists. Petrarch's redis ...

's ''

Il Canzoniere ''Il Canzoniere'' (; ), also known as the ''Rime Sparse'' (), but originally titled ' (, that is ''Fragments composed in vernacular''), is a collection of poems written in the Italian language by Francesco Petrarca, Petrarch. Though the majorit ...

''). If it is the latter, the bee in the background may refer to poems CXC and CCCXIX of the work.

References

Bibliography

* Giuseppe Adani, ''Correggio pittore universale'', Silvana Editoriale, Correggio 2007. * AA.VV., ''La Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco a Milano'', Skira, Milano 2005. {{Antonio da Correggio Portraits by Correggio category:Portraits of men category:1522 paintings category:16th-century portraits Books in art Paintings in the Castello Sforzesco