Architectural works until 1530

After the resolved Classical order and measured harmony of Bramante's High Renaissance buildings, two main, though interwoven, directions of Mannerist development become apparent. One of these, emanating largely from Peruzzi, relied upon a detailed study of antique decorative motifs - grotesques, Classical gems, coins, and the like - which were used in a pictorial fashion to decorate the plane of the facade. This tendency was crystallized in Raphael's Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila (destroyed) at Rome, where the regular logic of a Bramante façade was abandoned in favour of complex, out-of-step rhythms and encrusted surface decorations of medallions and swags.

The second trend exploited the calculated breaking of rules, the taking of sophisticated liberties with Classical architectural vocabulary. Two very different buildings of the 1520s were responsible for initiating this taste, Michelangelo's Laurentian Library in Florence and the Palazzo del Tè by Giulio Romano in Mantua.