ANIMAL LIFE IN ITALIAN PAINTING 



Correggio, Another woebegone lion is painted by Correggio 



1494-1534 (Antonio Allegri) in the Madonna di S. Girolamo 

 (Parma, Royal Gallery). The lion was intentionally 

 somewhat conventionalised in these pictures, and is 

 usually of the type made familiar by the block-books 

 of the Bib Ha Pauperu7n, but here evidently it is the 

 African lion. 



The dog appears several times with the cherubs in 

 the frescoes of San Paolo, Parma, generally much worried 

 by their attentions. One particularly, a long-nosed 

 greyhound hugged tightly round the neck, has the 

 strained look and the averted eye which any one who 

 has seen dogs and children together must have noticed. 



A spaniel, v/hich has rushed up just too late to 

 reach the eagle which is carrying off Ganymede (Vienna, 

 Imperial Gallery), stands and barks vigorously into 

 the air. The symbols of the Evangelists have as a 

 rule been neglected, but the eagle in the St. John 

 (Parma, S. Giovanni Evangelista), curiously fitted into 

 a corner of the lunette, is painted in an unconventional 

 manner, preening its wing feathers with its beak. 



A rabbit peeps inquisitively round some foliage at 

 the Virgin and Child in the National Museum, Naples. 



The painters of the decadence do not concern us in 

 the present inquiry, but by contrast they light up the 

 methods and ideals of their predecessors. The glow 



112 



