A series of iconographic comparisons reveals a famous lady of the Renaissance in the sophisticated Madonna dal collo lungo by Parmigianino, dated 1534-35. According to the hypothesis underlying this study, the event that inspired the subject of the picture is the true, personal drama of Paola Gonzaga who had lost a newly born boy years before. Indeed, this tragic event in the Gonzaga-Sanvitale family had already inspired the cycle of Parmigianino’s mythological frescoes in Fontanellato with the stories of Diana and Atheon. Behind the image of the Madonna on the throne with child, the morphological archetype of the "Mother of life and death" can once again be seen, invariably legible in the particular re-emergence of the antique Pathosformel of the Mater Matuta.

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