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| Sophonisba Anguissola Portrait of Giovanni Battista Caselli, poet of Cremona 1557-58 oil on canvas Prado |
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| Carlo Portelli Charity 1570s oil on canvas Prado |
"Strengthened by its references to Raphael and Michelangelo, by artists' travels, and by the circulation of models expedited by the growing availability of printed materials, the stylistic phenomenon of Mannerism spread internationally, ultimately becoming the lingua franca of court art in the late Renaissance. In more than one country, in fact, there was a direct transition from late-Gothic art to Mannerism. In a political atmosphere characterized by the rise of the large nation-state, which absorbed small local powers, art tended toward a European-wide "globalization," taking standardized forms. One crucial factor was the Sack of Rome (1527): Raphael's collaborators, who continued to form a tight-knit school even after the master's death, abandoned Rome and scattered to a variety of European courts, both large and small. The aristocratic ideal and the firm stability of power was expressed through a three-dimensional, almost crystallized form. The explicit or tacit reference to classical formal models, whether ancient statues or engravings taken from the work of Raphael, could be appreciated only by individuals with a refined, current understanding of art; it thus became a sort of coded language accessible only to an elite."
– Stefano Zuffi in European Art of the Sixteenth Century, translated by Antony Shugaar (Getty Museum, 2006)
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| Agnolo Bronzino Portrait of Garcia de Medici ca. 1550 oil on panel Prado |
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| Paolo Veronese Portrait of Livia Colonna ca. 1570-72 oil on canvas Prado |
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| Paolo Veronese Youth Between Virtue & Vice ca. 1581 oil on canvas Prado |
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| Paolo Veronese The Martyrdom of St Mena 1580 oil on canvas Prado |
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| Giovanni Agostino da Lodi St Anthony Abbot ca. 1510 oil on panel Prado |
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| Annibale Carracci Virgin & Child with Infant St John the Baptist ca. 1599-1600 oil on panel Prado |
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| Leandro Bassano The Crowning with Thorns 1590s oil on canvas Prado |
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| Giacomo & Giulio Francia St Jerome, St Margaret, and St Francis 1518 oil on panel Prado |
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| Giulio Romano & Giovanni Francesco Penni The Visitation ca. 1517 oil on canvas Prado |
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| Titian Posthumous portrait of Empress Isabel of Portugal, consort of Charles V 1548 oil on canvas Prado |
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| Daniele da Volterra Portrait of a young man ca. 1550-55 oil on canvas Prado |
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| Bernardino Licinio Portrait of a young woman ca. 1525-30 oil on canvas Prado |
I am grateful for the beautiful reproductions made available by Museo del Prado.