HUBBLE, bubble, toil and trouble. There was a little bubble and a lot of trouble in the life of Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (1503–40), better known as Parmigianino after his native city of Parma, in northern Italy. In 1539, having failed to complete the frescos for the church of Santa Maria della Steccata that he had been commissioned to paint some eight years earlier, he was jailed for breach of contract.
Giorgio Vasari, in , blamed Parmigianino’s dithering on a newfound passion for alchemy: ‘Would to God that he had always pursued the studies of painting, and had not sought to pry into the secrets of congealing mercury… for then he would have been without an equal… whereas, by searching for that which he could never find, he wasted his time, wronged his art and did harm to his own life and fame.’ However, the reason Parmigianino did not finish his commission might have had more to do with constantly exploring ideas for the frescos, as his many preparatory studies
