Parmigianino’s “Schiava Turca” is in the news. Born in Parma and named after his native city, Francesco Mazzola (1503-1540) was famed for his mannerist portraits. And his painting of a Turkish slave woman has become the icon of the city of Parma. Painted around 1533, it is admired as an expression of female beauty, and it is often likened to Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa.” The recent hoopla has to do with the exhibition of the painting in San Francisco. It is hailed as a great enigma and the ideal of beauty itself. Only look at the woman in the painting, though. Wearing a turban, which was popular among the Italian nobles of the time, she is outright ugly. Nay, despicable. Endowed with bulging eyes, long and flat nose, pinched mouth, and sloping shoulders, she would frighten me in the dark. Has the ideal of beauty changed so much over the ages, or have the admirers of Parmigianino gone gaga on account of the painting’s perceived value? Monetary value, that is. No prize for guessing the answer. Come to think of it, Mona Lisa is far from a beauty by any serious standards, as well, but at least she is not frightening.