Primaticcio makes cartoons for tapestry-weavers and, like all sixteenth-century court artists, is called upon to design elaborate ephemeral decorations for masques and fêtes, which survive only in preparatory drawings and, sometimes, engravings.

François trusts his eye and had sent him back to Italy on buying trips in 1540 and again in 1545.

Part of Primaticcio's commission is to take casts of the best Roman sculptures in the papal collections, some of which are cast in bronze to decorate the parterres at Fontainebleau.

His crowded Mannerist compositions and his long-legged canon of beauty will influence French art for the rest of the century.