text: Italy The artist arrived in Turin after crossing the Savoyard alps. In Turin she met the famous engraver Porporati, who was now a professor in the city's academy. Porporati and his daughter received the artist for five or six days until she resumed her journey southwards to Parma, where she met the Comte de Flavigny[fr] (then minister plenipotentiary of Louis XVI) who generously accommodated her during her stay there. While staying in Parma, she sought out churches and galleries that possessed works of the old master Correggio, whose painting The Manger, or Nativity had captivated her when she first saw it in the Louvre. She visited the church of San Giovanni to observe the ceilings and alcoves painting by Correggio, and then the church of San Antonio. She also visited the library of Parma where she found ancient artifacts and sculptures. The Comte de Flavigny then introduced Vigée Le Brun to Marie Antoinette's older sister, the bereaved Infanta and Duchess of Parma, Maria Amalia, while she was in mourning for her recently deceased brother Emperor Joseph II. The artist regarded her as lacking in Marie Antoinette's beauty and grace, and being as pallid as a ghost, and criticized her way of life as being "like that of a man", although she praised the warm welcome the Infanta had given her. Vigée Le Brun did not stay long in Parma, wishing to cross the mountains southwards before the seasons changed. De Flavigny postponed Vigée Le Brun's departure from Parma by two days so that she and her daughter could be escorted by one of his trusted men, the Vicomte de Lespignière, whose carriage accompanied her all the way to Rome.