Some great northern painters, principally Michael
PACHER, Jean FOUQUET, and JUSTUS OF GHENT, visited Italy
during the 15th century and devised Italianate styles of
considerable distinction. Nevertheless, they constitute the
exceptions that prove the general rule that most northern-
ers were indifferent to the achievements of the Italians. Al-
brecht Dürer’s visits to Venice in 1495 and 1505–07 were
fundamentally different to those of his predecessors in
that they stimulated the artist to seek a thorough under-
standing of the first principles of perspective and propor-
tion. These Dürer publicized not only in paintings and
numerous prints, but also in a series of treatises.
Dürer had little, if any, first-hand experience of an-
cient art. The first northern painters to retrace the steps of
Masaccio and Mantegna to the antiquities of Rome were
the Netherlanders Jan GOSSAERT, Jan van SCOREL, and
Maarten van HEEMSKERCK. By the fourth decade of the
16th century, three principal centers of Italianate northern
painting had been established: southern Germany, the
Netherlands, and FONTAINEBLEAU, where Francis I en-
trusted the decoration of his palace to expatriate Italians.
Thence a variety of more or less Italianate styles rapidly
became the norm throughout northern Europe. Remark-
ably, the most outstanding northern painter of the mid-
16th century, Pieter BRUEGHEL, eschewed the trappings of
contemporary Italianism in favor of a more traditional
naturalism, which drew upon 15th-century Netherlandish
painting and was yet prophetic of Dutch landscape pic-
tures of the following century.
Widespread use of the term MANNERISMin different
contexts has dissipated its meaning, which was originally
quite specific. Vasari regarded maniera as a positive qual-
ity, evocative of stylishness. Its principal exponents were
ROSSO FIORENTINO, PONTORMO, and GIULIO ROMANO.
While deeply attached to traditional Italian artistic pre-
cepts, especially the primacy of figure drawing, these
painters rejected the serenity of High Renaissance art in
favor of a powerful but subjective and emotional style,
which drew somewhat upon Raphael’s last paintings and
was profoundly influenced by Michelangelo’s late grand
manner. The principal northern Italian exponent of this
style was PARMIGIANINO. Venice was too profoundly con-
ditioned by the work of Titian to be much affected by
these new developments, although some aspects of TIN-
TORETTO’s style have been characterized as mannerist.
It was largely as a result of the initiative of these “first
generation” mannerists that a new canon of drawing,
which emphasized complexity of pose and gesture and
popularized elongated figure types, became widely estab-
lished. In northern Europe where the mainstream of
painting had been abruptly redirected, Mannerism found
fertile soil. Its principal Flemish exponent, Frans FLORIS,
established a trend which endured, through the paintings
of such artists as Joachim Wittewael (c. 1566–1638), Hans
von AACHEN, and Hendrick GOLTZIUS. Ultimately “Man-
nerism” as broadly applied, constituted the final interna-
tional phase of Renaissance painting. Moreover, it set the
scene for the more truly European style which was to fol-
low, the BAROQUE.
Further reading: John White, The Birth and Rebirth
of Pictorial Space (London: Faber, 1957; 3rd ed. 1987);
Marcia B. Hall, Color and Meaning: Practice and Theory in
Renaissance Painting (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1992) ENGLAND: Karen Hearn (ed.), Dy-
nasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530–1630
(London: Tate Gallery, 1995); Roy Strong, The English
Icon: Elizabethan and Jacobean Portraiture (London: Rout-
ledge & Kegan Paul and New York: Paul Mellon Founda-
tion for British Art, 1969) FRANCE: Anthony Blunt, Art
and Architecture in France 1500–1700 (London: Penguin,
1953; 5th ed. New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1999); Grete Ring, A Century of French Paint-
ing, 1400–1500 (London: Phaidon, 1949; New York:
Hacket Art Books, 1979) ITALY: Michael Baxandall, Giotto
and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting and the
Discovery of Pictorial Composition, 1350–1450 (Oxford,
U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1971; corr. repr. 1986); Bruce
Cole, Italian Art 1250–1550: The Relationship of Renais-
sance Art to Life and Society (New York and London:
Harper & Row, 1987); David Franklin, Painting in Renais-
sance Florence, 1500–1550 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 2001); Marcia B. Hall, After Raphael: Painting
in Central Italy in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, U.K.:
Cambridge University Press, 1998) NETHERLANDS:
Maryan Wynn Ainsworth (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paint-
ing at the Crossroads (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 2002); Dirk De Vos, The Flemish Primitives (Prince-
ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press and Amsterdam,
Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press, 2003); Rudolf
H. Fuchs, Dutch Painting (London: Thames & Hudson,
1978).Palatina, Bibliotheca Originally the LIBRARYof the uni-
versity of Heidelberg, which was founded in 1386. The li-
brary was named in honor of the electors of the Palatinate,
several of whom increased its holdings, especially Philip,
Ludwig III, Ludwig V, Friedrich, and Otthenrich, the first
Protestant elector, who lived in Heidelberg from 1556 to- In 1584 it received a donation of manuscripts and
books from Ulrich FUGGER of the Augsburg bankers.
When Heidelberg fell to the Catholic League in 1622,
Maximilian I of Bavaria presented its 3542 manuscripts
and 5000 books to Pope Gregory XV; these form the Pala-
tini collection in the VATICAN LIBRARY, except for 852 man-
uscripts returned to Heidelberg by the Vatican in 1816.
Palatinate A territory on the middle Rhine, inherited by
Conrad, half-brother of Emperor Frederick I, who made
Conrad count palatine in 1155. Conrad combined his ad-
ministrative and judicial duties in the empire with his in-33556 6 PPaallaattiinnaa,, BBiibblliiootthheeccaa