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| Parmigianino Draped female figure 16th century drawing Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Parmigianino Seated male figure ca. 1518-40 drawing British Museum |
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| Parmigianino Three male figures ca. 1518-40 drawing British Museum |
Francesco Mazzola (il Parmigianino) 1503-1540 was a north Italian painter who made his way to Rome in his youth. The Sack in 1527 spoiled his expanding Roman career and sent him back north. Claire Van Cleave narrates an episode from Parmigianino's later days in Parma – "... he contracted to paint the eastern apse and vaults of the new Santa Maria della Steccata. It is clear from the many surviving drawings, some of which are very elaborate, that the designs for this project occupied Parmigianino for years, but he never succeeded in finishing the paintings. After the first contract to complete the scheme within eighteen months was broken, three subsequent agreements were flouted until December 1539, when the exasperated patrons had Parmigianino thrown into jail. On his release he returned to the church to deface part of the completed vault before escaping to Casalmaggiore, outside Parma, where the authorities could not touch him. His freedom was short-lived. By August 1540, when he was just thirty-seven years old, Parmigianino was dead."
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| Anonymous print-maker after Parmigianino Narcissus ca. 1527-50 chiaroscuro woodcut Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Anonymous print-maker after Parmigianino Lute player ca. 1527-50 chiaroscuro woodcut Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Anonymous print-maker after Parmigianino Tiburtine Sibyl ca. 1527-50 chiaroscuro woodcut Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Andrea del Sarto Figure studies ca. 1520 drawing British Museum |
Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530) was a Florentine, son of a tailor, who grew up copying the Leonardos and Michelangelos that surrounded him in his turbulent and fortunate city. He left Florence only once, for a year serving the French king.
Andrea became a hero to Vasari (a Florentine partisan) – the famous Lives declare Andrea del Sarto to be, "free from errors and absolutely perfect in every respect."
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| Andrea del Sarto Study of a child's head and an adult hand holding a staff 1510 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Andrea del Sarto Study of a child 16th century drawing Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Andrea del Sarto Standing man carrying burdens 1528 drawing (recto) Morgan Library, New York |
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| Andrea del Sarto Standing man carrying burdens 1528 drawing (verso) Morgan Library, New York |
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| Andrea del Sarto Figure study 16th century drawing Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Andrea del Sarto St John the Baptist ca. 1517 drawing British Museum |
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| Andrea del Sarto Standing man with drapery 1528 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
– Quotations are from Master Drawings of the Italian Renaissance by Claire Van Cleave (Harvard University Press, 2007)