Fifty painters of restless elegance

Florence and Rome after the High Renaissance

A generation that transforms the models of Raphaël and Michelangelo

Andrea del Sarto prepares this mutation through her complex colors and poses. His students Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino push emotional tension further, while Parmigianino makes elongation a form of conscious grace. In Rome, Giulio Romano, Perin del Vaga, Polidoro da Caravaggio and Daniele da Volterra work from Raphael and Michelangelo, but shift their examples towards illusionist architectures, more demonstrative anatomy and stories designed to surprise. Mannerism therefore does not constitute a simple decadence of the Renaissance: it is a scholarly reflection on what painting can still invent after models considered almost unsurpassable.

European courses, trips and homes

From the Medici court to Fontainebleau, Prague, Haarlem and Toledo

Bronzino, Salviati, Vasari and Allori gave Florence a precise, cold and erudite court art. Rosso Fiorentino, Le Primaticce and Niccolo dell'Abbate transported to France a taste for elegant figures and mythological decorations. In Prague, Arcimboldo, Spranger and Hans von Aachen adapted the maniera to the intellectual pleasures of Rudolf II; in Haarlem, Goltzius and Cornelis Cornelisz amplified the twists through engraving and large nudes. In Greco, finally, associated Byzantine heritage, Venetian color and Roman experience with Toledo spirituality. Finally, Greco associates Byzantine heritage, Venetian color and Roman experience with Toledo spirituality. These circulations explain why the movement is European even before the word became a historical category.

Read the ranking

Historical criteria without reducing mannerism to a formula

The rank intersects with originality, the quality of major works, the role in the diffusion of style, the influence on subsequent generations and the presence in public collections. It takes into account the differences between Florence, Siena, Parma, Venice, Fontainebleau, Prague, the Netherlands and Spain. Elongated figures, artificial colors, unstable spaces, serpentine poses and complex allegories are landmarks, not obligations: Veronese constructed by color and architecture, Lavinia Fontana by portrait, Santi di Tito by a more readable reform, and Barocci by a gentleness that announces the baroque. The diversity of these responses precisely makes the richness of mannerism.

Sources and routes

Extend the discovery of mannerism