Abstract
The painter and writer Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo wrote two of the most complex treatises on art in sixteenth-century Italy: The Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura (1584) and the Idea del Tempio della Pittura (1590), both published in Milan by Paolo Gottardo Pontio. Defined by Schlosser as “the bible of Mannerism,” the Trattato is divided into seven books dedicated to the seven parts of painting, namely proportion, movement, light, color, perspective, storie of painting, and the practice of painting. It is one of the most complete attempts to give painting a defined theoretical structure.