ITALIAN MANNERISM

C.1520 1600 THE STYLISH STYLE

Lodovico Capponi Mannerism is a term applied to the style

Agnolo Bronzino c.155055
Frick Collection, New York City, NY
This stylish court portrait has the that ourished in the 16th century between
detached refinement and polished
precision that characterizes
Bronzinos Mannerism. In a typically
the High Renaissance and the Baroque. It has
clever conceit, Capponis elegant
right hand partially conceals a been seen as both a rejection and a renement
cameo with an inscription that may
allude to his forbidden love. of the ideals of the High Renaissance. The
label derives from the word maniera, meaning
style or stylishness, which Giorgio Vasari
used at the time to describe the sophisticated
grace of contemporary art. But by the 18th
century, the term Mannerism (manierismo) was
being used in a pejorative sense, to describe
art perceived as decadent and affectedan over-stylish decline from the
balance and grandeur of the High Renaissance. Inspired by the late works
of Michelangelo and Raphael, Italian Mannerist artists played with the formal
language of the High Renaissance to create a deliberately articial style,
featuring elegantly elongated gures, decorative, unnatural colors, and difcult,
twisting poses. Bronzinos Portrait of Lodovico Capponi (above left), with its
elegant lines; acidic color; and unsettling, claustrophobic sense of space, is
a striking example of the rened beauty of the best Mannerist art.
 ITALIAN MANNERISM 133

CONTEXT Shifting world views

1522 Following the death of the Medici

Crisis or condence?
The stylish style that later became known
as Mannerism rst appeared in the work of
artists in Rome and Florence. Some historians
have suggested that the move away from the
harmonious equilibrium of High Renaissance
art toward the agitated complexities seen in
many Mannerist compositions reects a kind
of neurotic response to the uncertainties of
the 16th century. However, an alternative
viewpoint is that Mannerism was an expression
of condence rather than crisis: authoritative
condence was undoubtedly a hallmark of
Cosimo de Medicis autocratic court in Florence,
where Bronzino and Vasari were leading lights.
In the early 16th century, Europe was split in
two by the Reformation, which was triggered
in 1517 by Martin Luthers protest against the
Popes sale of Indulgences. The Sack of Rome
Emperor Charles V slaughtered thousands
in the city, was seen by many as divine
punishment. Spanish power (Charles V was
also king of Spain) now extended over large
areas of Italy. Not only was the position of Italy
in the world changing, but the belief that the
Earth itselfand by extension humankind
was the center of Gods universe was being
challenged by astronomer Nicolaus Copernicuss
revolutionary theory that the planets circled the
Sun. Other theological changes were ushered
in after 1545, when the Council of Trent met for
the rst time to formulate the Catholic Churchs
reaction to the Protestant Reformation: this
response, known as the Counter-Reformation,
led to strict censorship of religious art.
While some art historians have held the
view that these religious and cultural crises are
Pope Leo X (a lavish art patron), Adrian VI
is elected Pope. A Dutch theologian and
the only Renaissance pope to come from
Northern Europe, he curbed papal
expenditureincluding that on art.
1523 After Adrian VI dies, Cardinal Giulio
de Medici is elected Pope. As Clement
VII, he revives papal patronage. He
commissions Michelangelo to design the
Laurentian Library in Florence to house the
books of his uncle Lorenzo the Magnicent.
1543 Nicolaus Copernicuss On the
Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres is
published. The idea that the Earth was
not the center of Gods universe had
profound religious implications.
1545 Catholic authorities meet for the rst
time at the Council of Trent, marking the
start of the Counter-Reformation. The
Council sits intermittently until 1563.
1550 The rst edition of Giorgio Vasaris
Lives of the Most Eminent Italian Architects,

in 1527, when the troops of Holy Roman
KEY EVENTS
Painters, and Sculptors is published.
reected in the unsettling stylistic characteristics
1563 Vasari, Bronzino, and others set
of Mannerist art, others see
up the rst formal art academy, the
the elegant exaggerations of Accademia del Disegno in Florence.
Mannerism as an expression
of self-conscious sophistication.
Contemporary literature
indicates that elaborate displays
of wit and artice were highly
valued in cultured societyas
they were in Mannerist art. This
THIS STYLISH STYLE
was also a time when patrons HAD ITS ROOTS
were appreciating works of art
DEEP IN THE HIGH
as rst and foremost works
of artto be displayed and RENAISSANCE
enjoyed in a gallery. This may
be linked to the condent 1967 | John Shearman
British art historian
indeed, often overcondent
virtuoso artfulness of
Mannerist paintings.

Mannerist rule breaking

Michelangelos revolutionary design for
the vestibule of the Laurentian Library
in Florence replaces High Renaissance
harmony with an unsettling, stylish
severity: architectural elements are
modified, proportions are squeezed, and
giant brackets support nothing, instead
appearing to hang from a molding.
134 RENAISSANCE AND MANNERISM
BEGINNINGS
PAINTING AFTER PERFECTION
Around 1520, the year in which Raphael died, there was a
feeling that art in Italy had reached its peak, and that the
artists of the High Renaissance had achieved all there was
to achieve in terms of beauty, harmony, and technical
accomplishment. This could present artists with a potential
quandary: how do you progress from a point of perfection?
However, art cannot stand still, and the beginnings of
Mannerism are evident in the mature work of the High
Renaissance masters Raphael and Michelangelo. The
Pontormo
born Pontormo, nr. Empoli, Italy, May 26, 1494;
died Florence, Italy, December 31, 1556
Jacopo Carucci, known
as Pontormo after his
birthplace in Tuscany,
was a pioneer of
Mannerist painting.
According to Vasari,
he trained with a
number of High
Renaissance artists
including Leonardo
da Vinci and Andrea del Sarto. He had a
precocious talent, and early in his career
he broke away from the classicism of his
teachers to create a new, distinctive style
that seemed to reect his neurotic nature.
Vasari described him as solitary beyond
belief, and his diaries reveal him to have
had an anxiously obsessive personality.
Although his style was very personal and
original, it was inuenced by both
Michelangelo and the prints of Albrecht
BIOGRAPHY
Drer. Pontormo spent almost all his working
life in Florence, painting mainly religious
works and some portraits. Although only
nine years older than his pupil Agnolo
Bronzino, he became like a father to him.
artice and theatricality of Raphaels late works, and
the deliberate difculty of the contorted poses in which
Michelangelo painted his nudes, inspired the next generation
of artists. They used the same classical-inspired forms that
feature in Renaissance art, but pushed the boundaries of
artful invention and broke the classical rulesreplacing
balance with imbalance and complexity, and rejecting
compositional coherence in favor of distortions in scale and
perspective, often creating an unsettling sense of space.
ARTISTIC INFLUENCES
Mannerism emerged from the High Renaissance art of Michelangelo and Raphael, and
like these great masters, Mannerist painters drew their inspiration ultimately from classical
art. However, the characteristics of Mannerist paintingsexaggerated poses, elongated
limbs, unnatural colors, articiality, strangeness, and illogicalityreect a drive to rene
and experiment with these artistic inuences in pursuit of a new sense of style.
Michelangelo inuenced Mannerism in terms
Delphic Sibyl, 1509,
of both form and color. His difcult-to-draw shows Michelangelos
contrapposto (twisting) posesparticularly mastery of complex poses,
in his male nudesand his decorative, and his striking use of vivid
opalescent colors were emulated by colors. Sistine Chapel
Mannerist artists. Ceiling, Vatican
In Raphaels late works, his rened
The Archangel Michael
gures look forward to Mannerism in their Vanquishing Satan,
increasing sense of stylish articiality. This 1518, by Raphael, was
elegant image of St. Michael slaying the painted as a present from
dragon has a brittle poise and almost Pope Leo X to Francis I.
metallic smoothness. Louvre, Paris, France
Elegant hands, which are characteristic
Study of Hands,
of High Renaissance art, were adopted and c.151030, by Andrea
exaggerated by Mannerist painters. This del Sarto, one of the nest
study is by Andrea del Sarto, who trained draftsmen of the
and inuenced Mannerist artists Pontormo, Renaissance. Ufzi,
Vasari, and probably Rosso Fiorentino. Florence, Italy
Antique sculpture continued to be a
Death of Meleager,
source of inspiration to Mannerist artists, c.200 CE. The gure supporting
as it had been throughout the Renaissance. Meleagers legs is echoed in
Pontormos painting refers to a classical Pontormos crouching disciple.
relief sculpture of the dead Meleager, a Doria-Pamphily Collection,
Rome, Italy
hero from Greek mythology.
 ITALIAN MANNERISM 135

TURNING POINT

The Deposition
of Christ
Pontormo c.152528 Capponi Chapel
of S. Felicit, Florence, Italy

This achingly beautiful image of

the crucied body of Christ being
borne away from his mother marks
a radical departure from the serene
equilibrium of High Renaissance
painting. Although the painting is
often known as The Entombment,
there is no tomb visible: Pontormo
paints a moment never previously
depicted, when Christs body is
lifted away from his mother, who
swoons with grief. Her empty
lap is at the center of the uid,
deliberately unstable composition.
Doing away with the logical,
mathematical perspective and
subtly shaded modeling of his High
Renaissance masters, Pontormo
presses his gures into a harshly lit,
crumpled, unmeasurable space.
Elegantly awkward poses and
distortions, lurid lighting, and
unearthly colors heighten both the
paintings sense of artice and its
unnerving emotional effect.

HAVING PAINTED
IT IN HIS OWN
WAY...IT WAS
FINALLY
UNCOVERED
AND SEEN WITH
ASTONISHMENT
BY ALL OF
FLORENCE
1568 | Giorgio Vasari
On Pontormos
The Deposition of Christ
136 RENAISSANCE AND MANNERISM

The Marriage of the Virgin

TIMELINE Rosso Fiorentino 1523
S. Lorenzo, Florence, Italy
Rosso created this sophisticated, elegant painting for the
The characteristics of Mannerism emerged in the works of Raphael and Medici parish church of San Lorenzo. He left Florence for
Michelangelo, as the calm balance of the High Renaissance was replaced by Rome the year he painted it, later moving to Fontainebleau,
where he established the French Mannerist school.
theatricality and exaggerated poses. From the 1520s, Italian artists developed
these aspects, and an articial stylish style evolved. Renements and
exaggeration led to elegance, but also to excess, when heroic poses were at times
trivialized into empty posturing. Toward the end of the century a more emotionally
direct and powerful energy emerged in works by painters such as Barocci.

1515 1520 1525

End of an era
The Sack of Rome in 1527 has a
devastating impact on art and artists,
ending the optimistic confidence that
underpinned High Renaissance art and
temporarily bringing to a halt Romes
preeminence as an art center.

ALL LASCIVIOUSNESS MUST

BE AVOIDED, SO THAT IMAGES
SHALL NOT BE PAINTED
OR ADORNED WITH A
SEDUCTIVE CHARM
1563 | Decree of the Council of Trent

The Transguration
Raphael 151820 Pinacoteca, Vatican
Raphael was working on this great altarpiece when he died. Its
agitated theatricality, particularly in the lower scene involving
the healing of the possessed boy, differs from the serenity and
balance of his earlier work. The exaggerated gestures, disjointed
poses, and unharmonious lighting show Raphael moving away from
the ideal art of the High Renaissance toward a Mannerist style.
 137

Last Judgment
Michelangelo 153641
Sistine Chapel, Vatican
Completed almost three decades after the
Sistine Chapel ceiling (and, significantly,
after the Sack of Rome), Michelangelos
powerful, pessimistic Last Judgment
contrasts in both mood and style from the
ceilings calm, heroic grandeur. Bands of
massive figures in all manner of contorted
poses writhe and tumble in non-naturalistic
space. Considered obscene by the Council
of Trent, the nudes genitalia were
painted over with folds of drapery.

Michelangelo
returns to Rome
In 1534, Michelangelo
returns from Florence to
settle in Rome for good. He
is commissioned by Pope
Paul III to paint the Last
Judgment on the altar wall
of the Sistine Chapel.

1530 1535 1540 1545 1550 1555 1560

Sala dei Giganti (Room of the Giants)
Guilio Romano c.1530
Palazzo del T, Mantua, Italy
One of the most confidently ingenious manifestations
of Mannerism is the Room of the Giants in Mantua.
In an overpowering, illusionistic tour de force, Giulio
Romano covered walls and ceiling with scenes
depicting the Titans vain attempt to overthrow the
gods of Olympus.
The Odyssey
Pellegrino Tibaldi c.1555 Palazzo Poggi
(now the University), Bologna, Italy
Tibaldis narrative fresco cycle illustrates the
adventures of Ulysses. The figures adopt athletic
contrapposto poses, but Tibaldi leavens the
grandeur with a stylish sense of humor.
Madonna of the Long Neck
Parmigianino 153440 Uffizi, Florence, Italy
The artificial beauty that characterizes Mannerism is
well illustrated in this celebrated painting. The Madonnas
elongated neck echoes the column behind her, while
her body twists into a sinuous, serpentine curve.
138 RENAISSANCE AND MANNERISM

Portrait of Don Gabriel St. Luke Painting

de la Cueva y Giron the Virgin
Giovanni Battista Moroni, 1560 Giorgio Vasari c.1570
Gemldegalerie, Berlin, Germany SS. Annunziata,
With its austere, enclosed classical setting Florence, Italy
and sharply drawn, flattened silhouette, this Vasari includes a self-portrait
portrait by the northern Italian artist Moroni as St. Lukethe patron
creates a refined but unsettling effect typical saint of paintersin this
of Mannerist portraiture. The fashionable traditional devotional subject.
Spanish nobleman turns to the viewer with Despite being a leading figure
almost sneering aristocratic hauteur. in Mannerist art, Vasari is not
now regarded as a great
painter. Though indebted to
his hero Michelangelo, this
fresco is mannered in an
overblown, affected way.

Grand Duke Cosimo

Cosimo de Medici,
Duke of Florence, is
raised to the rank of
Grand Duke of Tuscany
in 1569; he is now a
sovereign, one rank
below royaltyand
Florence is a
sovereign territory.

1560 1565 1570 1575 1580

The first academy

Determined to raise the status of Giorgio Vasari
artists, Vasari instigates the born Arezzo, Italy, July 30, 1511;
prestigious Accademia del died Florence, Italy, June 27, 1574
Disegno (Academy of Design) in
Florence in 1563. It served as Of incomparable art-historical
a model for the art academies importance as the writer of Lives
established in Europe in the
of the Artists, Vasari was also a
following centuries.
prolic painter, a distinguished
architect, and a prominent gure
in Florence and Rome. Born into
a family of potters, he received a
classical education, and was
tutored with members of the Medici
family in Florence, where he began
his artistic training. Hugely ambitious,
he achieved great success. His
paintings are now less well
BIOGRAPHY

regarded than his architecture: he

designed the building now home
to Florences famous Ufzi Gallery,
The Pearl Fishers originally as government ofces for
Alessandro Allori 157072 his patron Cosimo de Medici.
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy
AlloriBronzinos pupil and adopted
sonpainted this elegant scene as
part of a complex decorative design
for the studiolo of Grand Duke
Francesco de Medici. Influenced by
Vasari and Bronzino, with poses
taken from Michelangelos Battle of
Cascina, it has come to epitomize late
Mannerism in Florence.
 ITALIAN MANNERISM 139

Barbarossa Pays Homage

to Pope Alexander III
Federico Zuccaro 1582
Doges Palace, Venice, Italy
The Mannerist artist and theorist Zuccaro worked
throughout Europe, becoming one of the most famous
painters of his generation. This large work, painted
for the Doges Palace, contains dramatic changes in
scale reminiscent of the Venetian master Tintoretto.

Adoration of the
Shepherds
Camillo Procaccini 1584
Pinacoteca Nazionale,
Bologna, Italy
Procaccini came from a family of
painters who worked in Bologna
and Milan. This emotionally intense
Adoration is notable for its dramatic
chiaroscuro (strong contrasts
of light and dark) and rather
ostentatious gestures, including
that of the muscular shepherd in
the foreground who shields
his eyes from the divine light.

1585 1590 1595 1600

Italians at the Escorial

From 1585 to 1588, Federico Zuccaro paints
at the Escorial, Philip IIs monastery-palace
near Madrid. He and Pellegrino Tibaldi, who
arrives at the Escorial in 1587, introduce the
Italian Mannerist style to Spain.

The Baroque emerges

As the taste for the artificiality of Mannerism
declines, Annibale Carracci begins work in
1597 on his Baroque masterpiece, the
decoration of the Farnese Gallery in Rome.
Michelangelos Sistine Ceiling and Tibaldis
frescoes of Ulysses were inspirations.

Federico Barocci
born Urbino, Italy, 1535?;
died Urbino, September 30, 1612

Although Barocci spent most of his life in

Urbinonot a major art centerhe was among
the most successful artists of his time. He
abandoned his early career in Rome when
he believed he was being poisoned. Plagued
by a debilitating illness thereafter, he could only
BIOGRAPHY

work in short bursts. Yet he was a productive
painteralmost exclusively of religious works
and an outstanding draftsman. His style bridges
the High Renaissance and the Baroque, and he
inuenced many artists, including Rubens.
Aeneass Flight from Troy
Federico Barocci, 1598 Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy
Apart from a few portraits, this is the only secular subject painted by the devout
Barocci. In fact, he painted it twicefor Emperor Rudolph II in Prague, and then this
version for Monsignor Giuliano della Rovere of Urbino. Its emotional force, robust
figures, and dramatic movement and lighting look forward to the Baroque.
140 RENAISSANCE AND MANNERISM
MASTERWORK
An Allegory With Venus and Cupid
Agnolo Bronzino c.1545
National Gallery, London, UK
Commissioned by the Duke of Florence, Cosimo
de Medici, this coolly erotic allegory was sent as a
gift to the French King Francis I, whose court at
Fontainebleau was a leading center of Mannerist art
outside Italy. The epitome of stylish, sophisticated
artice, it is deliberately complex and erudite, as would
have appealed to a cultivated, courtly audience. It is
thought to symbolize the consequences of unchaste
love. Venus, goddess of love and beauty (identied by
her golden apple), disarms her son Cupid by removing
an arrow from his quiver as they kiss incestuously.
Other gures in the painting are personications of
concepts related to the theme. Folly showers the couple
with rose petals, not noticing the pain (of love) from the
thorn in his foot. Pleasure offers a sweet honeycomb,
but has a sting in her tail. Time (an old man with an
hourglass) draws back the curtain to reveal Fraud
A PICTURE OF SINGULAR BEAUTY ...
WHEREIN WAS A NUDE VENUS, WITH
A CUPID WHO WAS KISSING HER
1568 | Giorgio Vasari
represented by a head that is a hollow mask. The
screaming gure may represent Jealousy and/or syphilis,
a disease that was rife at the time. If so, such a gift from
the Italian duke to the French king may have been a dark,
sophisticated joke: syphilis was known as the French
disease in Italy, and the Italian disease in France.
As his master Pontormo did in The Deposition of
Christ (see p.135), Bronzino creates an irrational sense
of space, with entwined and distorted gures pressed
up against the picture plane. But where Pontormos
painting expressed an intense spirituality, Bronzinos
exquisitely skilful Mannerist masterpiece is spiritually
and emotionally as cold as alabaster. The paintings
overt eroticism offended later generations, and in the
Victorian era Venuss tongue was painted out, as was
the nipple that protrudes between her sons ngers. In
1958 it was restored to its present sexually explicit state.
Agnolo Bronzino
born Monticelli, nr. Florence, Italy, November 17, 1503
died Florence, November 23, 1572
Born Agnolo di Cosimo,
Bronzino may have earned his
nickname because of his dark
complexion. He came from a
humble background in a suburb
of Florence, and as a boy was
apprenticed to the young
Florentine master Pontormo.
According to his friend Vasari,
Bronzino became like a son to
Portormo, who included a portrait of him as a boy in
his painting Joseph in Egypt (above) in c.1518. By the
1530s, Bronzino was sought after as a portraitist,
particularly by literary patronshe was a gifted poet
himself. In 1539, he began working for the new Duke
of Florence, Cosimo de Medici, and was court artist for
almost three decades, painting formal portraits, religious
works, and mythologies, and creating tapestries for the
BIOGRAPHY
Medici court. In 1563, along with Vasari, he was a
founder member of Florences new art academy, the
Accademia del Disegno. Among his pupils was
Alessandro Allori, who became his adopted son.
141