ABSTRACT
Italian Mannerist painters learned to admire the woodblock prints of Albrecht Durer; but they absorbed, they were not absorbed by, what they admired. Mannerism had nothing to do with the presence or absence of a 'court'. Nor can Mannerism be traced to the importation or the imposition of contemporary non-Italian cultural forms. The march of Mannerism was equally triumphant as it moved southward. Mannerist culture then proceeded to Genoa, which the Revolution of 1528 had at last detached from its century-long political dependence upon France and turned into a powerful, independent member of the Italian alliance. To be sure, most of the Mannerists at one time or another criticized aspects of contemporary culture and customs. At times, the Mannerists took freedoms with their models that went well beyond the limits set by Grazzini's reservations. Indeed, many of the critical, experimental and reformist efforts of the Mannerists were inspired by the High Renaissance masters themselves.
