It is natural, beneath this dome, to turn aside and think one moment of Correggio at Parma.  Before the macchinisti of the seventeenth century had vulgarised the motive, Correggio’s bold attempt to paint heaven in flight from earth—­earth left behind in the persons of the Apostles standing round the empty tomb, heaven soaring upward with a spiral vortex into the abyss of light above—­had an originality which set at nought all criticism.  There is such ecstasy of jubilation, such rapturous rapidity of flight, that we who strain our eyes from below, feel we are in the darkness of the grave which Mary left.  A kind of controlling rhythm for the composition is gained by placing Gabriel, Madonna, and Christ at three points in the swirl of angels.  Nevertheless, composition—­the presiding all-controlling intellect—­is just what makes itself felt by absence; and Correggio’s special qualities of light and colour have now so far vanished from the cupola of the Duomo that the, constructive poverty is not disguised.  Here if anywhere in painting, we may apply Goethe’s words—­Gefuehl ist Alles.

If then we return to Ferrari’s angels at Saronno, we find that the painter of Varallo chose a safer though a far more modest theme.  Nor did he expose himself to that most cruel of all degradations which the ethereal genius of Correggio has suffered from incompetent imitators.  To daub a tawdry and superficial reproduction of those Parmese frescoes, to fill the cupolas of Italy with veritable guazzetti di rane, was comparatively easy; and between our intelligence and what remains of that stupendous masterpiece of boldness, crowd a thousand memories of such ineptitude.  On the other hand, nothing but solid work and conscientious inspiration could enable any workman, however able, to follow Ferrari in the path struck out by him at Saronno.  His cupola has had no imitator; and its only rival is the noble pendant painted at Varallo by his own hand, of angels in adoring anguish round the Cross.

In the ante-choir of the sanctuary are Luini’s priceless frescoes of the ‘Marriage of the Virgin,’ and the ’Dispute with the Doctors.’[11] Their execution is flawless, and they are perfectly preserved.  If criticism before such admirable examples of so excellent a master be permissible, it may be questioned whether the figures are not too crowded, whether the groups are sufficiently varied and connected by rhythmic lines.  Yet the concords of yellow and orange with blue in the ‘Sposalizio,’ and the blendings of dull violet and red in the ‘Disputa,’ make up for much of stiffness.  Here, as in the Chapel of S. Catherine at Milan, we feel that Luini was the greatest colourist among frescanti. In the ‘Sposalizio’ the female heads are singularly noble and idyllically graceful.  Some of the young men too have Luini’s special grace and abundance of golden hair.  In the ‘Disputa’ the gravity and dignity of old men are above all things striking.