"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.

They were very happy together, Correggio and his wife, and they had
four children. Their happiness was not for long, because Correggio
seems to have been but thirty-four years old when she died, nor did he
live to be old. There is a most curious tale of his death which is
probably not true, but it is worth telling since many have believed
it. He is supposed to have died in Correggio, of pleurisy, but the
story is that he had made a picture for one who had some grudge
against him, and who in order to irritate him paid him in copper,
fifty scudi. This was a considerable burden, and in order to save
expense and time, it is said that Correggio undertook to carry it home
alone. It was a very hot day, and he became so overheated and
exhausted with his heavy load that he took ill and died, and he may be
said literally to have been killed by "too much money," if this were
true. Vasari, a biographer to be generally believed, says it is a
fact.

Correggio said that he always had his "thoughts at the end of his
pencil," and there are those who impudently declare that is the only
place he _did_ have them, but that is a carping criticism, because he
was a very great artist, his greatest power being the presentation of
soft blendings of light and shade. There seem to have been few unusual
events in Correggio's life; very little that helps us to judge the
man, but there is a general opinion that he was a kind and devoted
father and husband, as well as a good citizen. With little demand upon
his moral character, he did his work, did it well, and his work alone