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.

Preview	Picture Data	Info
	Project for the façade of San Lorenzo, Florence c. 1517 Black and red chalk, 140 x 180 mm Casa Buonarroti, Florence
	Model for the façade of San Lorenzo, Florence 1517 Wood, 210 x 280 cm Casa Buonarroti, Florence
	Palazzo Medici Riccardi: Windows 1517 Photo Via Camillo Cavour, Florence
	Study c. 1525 Pen and traces of chalk on paper, 410 x 570 mm Casa Buonarroti, Florence
	Interior view 1526-33 Photo Sagrestia Nuova, San Lorenzo, Florence
	Interior view 1525 Photo Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence
	Staircase in the Vestibule 1558 Photo Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence
	Vestibule 1558 Photo Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence
	Vestibule 1558 Photo Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence