Neither the pretended inaccessibility of place, nor the veil thrown by monastic austerity over the profaneness of the subject, can sufficiently account for the silence of tradition, and the obscurity in which this work was suffered to linger for nearly three centuries. Supposing it, on the authorities adduced, to be the legitimate produce of Correggio, and considering its affinity to the ornamental parts of the Loggie in the Vatican, it affords a stronger argument of Allegri's having seen Rome, studied the antique, and imitated Raphael, than any of those that have been adduced by Mengs, who (with his commentator D'Azara,) appears to have been totally uninformed of it, notwithstanding his familiarity at Parma with every work of Correggio, his perseverance of inquiry and eager pursuit of whatever related to his idol, the influence he enjoyed at Court, and unlimited access to every place that might be supposed to contain or hide some work of art. Soon after his arrival at Parma, Antonio probably received the commission of the celebrated cupola of S. Giovanni, which he completed in 1524, as appears from an acquittance for the last payment subscribed 'Antonio Lieto,' still existing at Parma. In the cupola he represented the Ascension of the Saviour, with the Apostles, the Madonna, &c. and the Coronation of the Virgin on the tribune of the principal altar, whose enlargement in 1584 occasioned, with the destruction of the choir, that of the painting: a few fragments escaped; an exact copy had, however, been provided before, by Annibale Carracci, from which it was repainted on the same place by Aretusi. The same church preserved two pictures in oil of Correggio, the martyrdom of St. Placidus and Flavia, and Christ taken from the cross on the lap of his mother; both are now (1802) in the collection of the Louvre.