The Grotesque Provocations of the Palazzo di Bianca Cappello

Abstract

While architectural inventions after Michelangelo are often termed “Mannerist,” Giorgio Vasari used a more conspicuous adjective to describe licentious ornament: grotesque. According to Vasari, “new fantasies have since been seen which have more of the grotesque than of reason or rule in their ornamentation.” The “fantasies” that architects such as Bartolomeo Ammannati, Bernardo Buontalenti, and Vasari