A Solid Mistake: An Early State of Caraglio's Diogenes after Parmigianino

Abstract

This paper begins with an assessment of the differences between two states of Jacopo Caraglio's engraved Diogenes after Parmigianino, and between each of those states and Parmigianino's preparatory drawing of the composition. What follows is an attempt to trace both the textual sources and the creative development of this unusual iconographie subject, culminating in a hypothesis about the chronological sequence of the earliest prints of Parmigianino's Diogenes. It is argued that, originally, the artist devised the composition in collaboration with a learned advisor. His own interest in geometry then led him, incongruously, to introduce a geometric solid—an error corrected in Ugo da Carpi's chiaroscuro woodcut version.