The Bardi Altarpiece is an Italian

Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...

 Mannerist

Mannerism

Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

 painting by the Italian painter Parmigianino

Parmigianino

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola , also known as Francesco Mazzola or more commonly as Parmigianino or sometimes "Parmigiano", was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma...

, dating from c. 1521 and housed in the church of Santa Maria at Bardi, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.

Description

In 1521 Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

 was invaded by the imperial-papal troops under Prospero Colonna

Prospero Colonna

Prospero Colonna , sometimes referred to as Prosper Colonna, was an Italian condottiero in the service of the Papal States and the Holy Roman Empire during the Italian Wars.-Biography:...

, in the course of the Italian Wars

Italian Wars

The Italian Wars, often referred to as the Great Italian Wars or the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most of the city-states of Italy, the Papal States, most of the major states of Western...

. The young Parmigianino, then seventeen, was sent by his family to Viadana

Viadana

Viadana may refer to:* Lodovico Grossi da Viadana , an Italian composer, teacher, and Franciscan friar* Viadana, Lombardy, a town in the province of Mantua, Lombardy, northern Italy* Viadana Rugby, a rugby union club based in the town...

 to his cousin's house. According to Italian late Renaissance art biographer Giorgio Vasari

Giorgio Vasari

Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, writer, historian, and architect, who is famous today for his biographies of Italian artists, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing.-Biography:...

, there Parmigianino painted two tempera panels: St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata (lost) and the Marriage of St. Catherine, which was placed in the church of San Pietro. The latter was stolen in 1629, during the War of Mantuan Succession, and brought to Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

. Later, in unknown circumstances, it was transferred to the current location in Bardi, a town near Parma: here, in 1860, members of the Academy of Fine Arts of Parma recognized as by Parmigianino, although the identification remained disputed until the 1930s.

Description

The work depicts the mystical marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, set a in a fake niche with a colonnade surmounting the background curved wall. The scheme is that of the Holy Conversation. In the middle is the Virgin sitting on a tall throne, above a historiated section of column (decorated with a barely visible putto), giving the Child to St. Catherine, on the left, who receives the symbolic marriage ring. At the sides are two saints, St. John the Evangelist (with a chalice full of snakes, a hint to his alleged miraculous discovery and healing of a poisoned drink) and St. John the Baptist, who holds his typical attributed, a tall and slim cross. Catherine's attributed are shown in the low foreground, including a broken wheel and the martyrdom palm.