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| Jan van Hemessen Judith with the Head of Holofernes ca. 1540 oil on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Giorgio Vasari Temptation of St Jerome ca. 1541-48 oil on panel (unfinished) Art Institute of Chicago |
"When artists and writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries examined the tensions and distortions, the visual and emotional surprises of the years around 1520, they characterized these developments as a decline and referred contemptuously to what they called maniera (manner). This is derived from the Italian word mano (hand) that signifies the ascendancy of manual practice – and especially the art of drawing – over visual observation and intellectual clarity. The assertion of a post-High Renaissance decline in central Italian art persisted throughout the nineteenth century; the decline was generally attributed to the excessive imitation of Michelangelo, to the pernicious influence of Giulio Romano, or to both. Shortly before World War I, in an artistic atmosphere charged with the revolutionary developments of twentieth-century art, works of this period that had been condemned or ignored for more than three hundred years began to excite sympathetic interest."
– Frederick Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art, originally published in 1969, revised by David G. Wilkins and reissued by Abrams in 1993
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| Giorgio Vasari Study for Allegory of Two Quartieri of Florence ca. 1563-65 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Giulio Cesare Procaccini Virgin and Child with Angels ca. 1610 oil on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| attributed to Pellegrino Tibaldi Pan before 1596 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| attributed to Francesco Primaticcio Sacrifice of a Bull ca. 1550-60 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Callisto Piazza Beheading of St John the Baptist before 1561 oil on panel Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice |
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| Abraham Janssens Jupiter rebuked by Venus ca. 1612-13 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| attributed to Federico Barocci after Raphael Cumaean Sibyl ca. 1556-66 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Federico Barocci Head of Swooning Virgin (study for The Deposition) 1568-69 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Jacopo Bassano Virgin and Child with the young St John the Baptist ca. 1560-65 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Alessandro Vittoria The Annunciation ca. 1583 bronze relief Art Institute of Chicago |
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| follower of Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro Marcus Curtius plunging into the Chasm ca. 1550-95 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Joachim Wtewael Battle between Gods and Giants ca. 1608 oil on copper Art Institute of Chicago |