As one of Italy's leading altarpiece painter in the late 1500s, Federico Barocci exerted a profound influence on his contemporaries. He moved beyond the linear style of his teacher Battista Franco around 1563, when he discovered Correggio's *sfumato* effects, which made the defining lines of forms appear to dissolve into delicately colored, smoky mists. Barocci's decorations for the Casino of Pope
