Mannerism

Mannerist architecture uses the classical orders and ornament of the High Renaissance but breaks their rules on purpose. Columns are recessed into walls instead of standing in front of them, brackets are placed where they support nothing, pediments (the triangular or curved tops of doors and windows) are broken open, and keystones, the central wedge stones of arches, are enlarged. Smooth and rusticated (rough-cut) stone appear together on the same wall.

In the vestibule of Michelangelo's Laurentian Library in Florence (begun 1525), paired columns are set into recesses in the walls, blind windows taper, and a staircase completed by Bartolomeo Ammannati in 1559 divides into three flights. In the courtyard of Giulio Romano's Palazzo del Te in Mantua (1524-1534), some triglyphs, the grooved blocks in a Doric frieze, drop below their line as if slipping. Giorgio Vasari's Uffizi in Florence (1560-1581) frames a long, narrow courtyard with identical bays and unbroken cornices.

The name comes from the Italian maniera, meaning style. In architecture it begins with Michelangelo's work for the Medici in Florence, including the Laurentian Library, commissioned by the Medici pope Clement VII in 1523 and begun in 1525. Giulio Romano, a pupil of Raphael, built the Palazzo del Te in Mantua for Federico II Gonzaga from 1524.

After the Sack of Rome in 1527, artists left the city for other courts, and the style spread across Italy and to Fontainebleau in France, Prague and Antwerp. Baldassare Peruzzi's Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne in Rome (1532-1536) has a curved facade that follows the street. Vasari began the Uffizi in 1560 as offices for the government of Cosimo I de' Medici, and architectural historians regard its courtyard as Europe's first regularized streetscape. In Rome, Vignola designed the church of Il Gesù, begun in 1568, with a facade by Giacomo della Porta; its plan and facade became models for Baroque churches after 1600.