High Renaissance architecture first became visible at Rome in the work of Bramante at the beginning of the 16th century. The period was very momentary, centred almost exclusively in the city of Rome; it ended with the political and religious tensions that shook Europe during the third decade of the century, culminating in the disastrous sack of Rome in 1527 and the siege of Florence in 1529. The High Renaissance was a period of harmony and balance in all the arts, perhaps the most definitive moment in this respect since the 5th century BC in Greece.

The art of the High Renaissance, however, sought a general, unified effect of pictorial representation or architectural composition, increasing the dramatic force and physical presence of a work of art and gathering its energies and forming a controlled equilibrium. Because the essential characteristic of High Renaissance art was its unity, a balance achieved as a matter of intuition, beyond the reach of rational knowledge or technical skill, the High Renaissance style was destined to break up as soon as emphasis was shifted to favor any one element in the composition.

In the High Renaissance the focus of architecture moved physically from Florence to Rome and Venice, while its aesthetic objectives became the search for an all encompassing spatial experience. The three major architects of the century were Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, and Andrea Palladio.

Mannerist architecture, roughly contemporarneous with mannerist art, draws attention to design elements themselves particularly through visual paradox and confusion. The earliest master of the mannerist style in architecture was Michelangelo Buonarotti, whose architecture is filled with confusing and contradictory devices.

Mannerist architecture, then, threw the Vitruvian principles of congruence and symmetry on their head. There is a tension in mannerist buildings between order and disorder, between functionality and uselessness. This is all meant to draw attention to the fact that the architecture is a contrivance, a work of art, an artifice. Here we see the origins of post-modern architecture with its emphasis on disproportion and non-functionality.

The Mannerists, however, never fully abandoned Vitruvius. Mannerist buildings are still very proportioned and rigidly designed, they don't present, however, a serenely symmetrical surface but rather draw our attention to their very use of architectural elements. An example of mannerist architecture is the Villa Farnese at Caprarola in the rugged country side outside of Rome. The proliferation of engravers during the 16th century spread Mannerist styles more quickly than any previous styles.

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