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Fresco's and Mannerism under Francesco di Medici I, Florence in the 1500's

Francesco's tastes for estheticism led him to promote and develop those forms of urban decoration that were already widespread under Cosimo's reign. Michelangelo had exaggerated the physiognomical features of his figures (as in the grotesque appearance of his youthful works in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo). Cellini put monsters at the base of the Perseus.

Between the middle of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries Tribolo, Ammannati, Cellini, Buontalenti, Giambologna and Zuccari created a trend of tastes in wich formal invention was led to allusive obscurity through a transposition of human- feline forms of organic plant, animal or mixed architecturally stylized elements. Thus the busts of the reigning princes or the crests with the six balls were embellished with arms and scrolls and scattered freely throughout the city.

Frescoed facades came into fashion and painters such as Poccetti (the house of Bianca Cappello in Via Maggio - paid for by the Mint, other homes, the Misericordia, etc.) dedicated themselves to this art. The master when it came to sculpting busts of Francesco was Bandini. He also sculpted those on the door of the Suppliche (of the Petitions), on Palazzo Benci in Piazza Madonna (1574), Palazzo Uguccioni in Piazza Signoria, Palazzo Carlo Martelli (Via Martelli 7), Palazzo Niccolini in Via dei Servi (lost to us). Other busts of Francesco were placed on the Palazzo Agostini in Via Maggio and on Giambologna's Palazzo della Commenda in Via Tornabuoni.

These were signs of Mannerist art and architecture's tendency to veer towards caprice and naturalism in a "debate" or "argument" with classical tradition that has been defined as "anti-Renaissance". This encompasses the fashion for elaborate gardens with grottoes, that is, architecture- nature. But it was also evident in residential buildings.

In 1578-79 Federico Zuccari, one of the many lesser Mannerists who worked on major sixteenth century projects in several places (villa Giulia, Caprarola, Florence, Padua, etc.), built his home-studio in Via Giusti where the city dissolved into countryside within the walls, and yet just a short walk from the rational order of Brunelleschi's Piazza dell'Annunziata, with Via dei Servi serving as the "telescope" to project onto the Cathedral.

In this situation Zuccari affirmed a concept of completely anticonventional architecture by intellectually bringing together naturalistic, abstract and imaginary elements. In Boboli, they built Buontalenti's grottoes (1583-93) and the others under the courtyard fountain (A. Novelli). Buontalenti's grottoes were one of the most elegant and refined contributions to XVI century architecture in terms of environmental settings. The inspiration for the iconographic program drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses, which had already been mentioned by contemporary writers is highly significant.

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