The nature and significance of mannerism has been a topic of lively debate for centuries. This insightful book by James V. Mirollo provides not only an introduction to mannerism as a theoretical concept and a historical stylistic mode but also a cogent discussion of some of the literary and artistic manifestations of mannerism in the Renaissance.

Mirollo begins by offering an updated account of the controversy over mannerism that began in the mid-sixteenth century and is only now approaching a consensus. Both the survey and the bibliography that accompanies it are unusual in their...