Mengs, and of course Batti, embrace the same opinion. Mengs draws his conclusion from the difference between Correggio's first and second style, which he considers less as the imperceptible progress of art than as the immediate effect of the works of Raphael and Michel Agnolo. Mengs was probably seduced to believe in this visionary journey on the authority of Winkelmann, who pretended to have discovered, in the museum of Cardinal Albani, some designs after the antique by Mantegna, Correggio's reputed master. Bracci, in opposition, assert that Allegri was beholden to none but himself for his acquirements, and appeals to a letter of Annibale Carracci, who says that Correggio found in himself those materials for which the rest were obliged to extraneous help. The words of Carracci, however, with all due homage to the genius of Correggio and the originality of his style, appear to refer rather to invention and the poetic, than to the executive part of his works. If there be any solidity in the observation of Mengs on Correggio's first manner, as a mixture of Pietro Perugino's and Lionardo's style, and of course not very different from Raphael's, how comes it that in the works of his second and best manner all resemblance to either, and consequently to Raphael, disappears? The simplicity of Raphael's forms is little beholden to that contrast and those foreshortenings which are the element of Correggio's style. Raphael sacrificed all to the subject and expression; Correggio, in an artificial medium, sacrifices all to the air of things and harmony. Raphael speaks to our heart; Correggio insinuates himself into our affections by charming our senses. The essence of Raphael's beauty is dignity of mind; petulant _naïveté_ that of Correggio's. Raphael's grace is founded on propriety; Correggio's on convenience and the harmony of the whole. The light of Raphael is simple daylight; that of Correggio artificial splendour. In short, the history of artists scarcely furnishes characteristics more opposite than what discriminate these two. And though it may appear a paradox to superficial observation, were it necessary to find an object of imitation for Allegri's second and best style, the artificial medium, the breadth of manner and mellowness of transition, with the enormous forms and foreshortenings of Michel Angelo, though adopted by so different a mind, from as different motives, for an end still more different, will be found to be much more congenial with his principles of seeing and executing, than the style of any preceding or coetaneous period.