He was highly original in many ways. Although he had never seen the work of any great artist, he painted the most extraordinary fore-shortened pictures; and fore-shortening was a technicality in art then uncommon. He also was the first to paint church cupolas. Fore-shortening produces some peculiar as well as great results, and being a feature of art with which people were not then familiar, Correggio's work did not go uncriticised. Indeed one artist, gazing up into one of the cupolas where Correggio's fore-shortened figures were placed, remarked that to him it appeared a "hash of frogs." But when Titian saw that cupola, he said: "Reverse the cupola, fill it with gold, and even then that will not be its money's worth." Correggio did not receive very large sums for his work, and since he was married and took good care of his family, he must have had some source of income besides his brush. He received some interesting rewards for his paintings. For example, for "St. Jerome," called "Il Giorno," he was given "400 gold imperials, some cartloads of faggots and measures of wheat, and a fat pig." That picture is in the Parma Gallery, and all the cupolas which he painted are in Parma churches. Some of his pictures are signed; "Leito," a synonym for his name, "Allegri." This indicates his style of art. There is an interesting story told of how Correggio stood entranced before a picture of Raphael's, and after long study of it he exclaimed: "I too, am a painter!" showing at once his appreciation of Raphael's greatness and satisfaction at his own genius. Doubtless a good share of Correggio's comfortable living came from the lady he married, since she was considered a rich woman for those times and in that locality. Her name was Girolama Merlini, and she lived in Mantua, the place where the Montagues and Capulets lived of whom Shakespeare wrote the most wonderful love story ever imagined. This young woman was only sixteen years old when Correggio met and loved her, and very beautiful and later on he painted a picture, "Zingarella," for which his wife is said to have been the model. It seems to have been a stroke of economy and enterprise for painters to marry, since we read of so many who made fame and fortune through the beauty of their wives.