This catalogue, produced for the first world monographic exhibition on Arcimboldo, reveals the eclecticism of one of the most fertile and brilliant minds of the Mannerist era, and looks at the artist and his work in the cultural context of the time. In addition to the famous composite heads, which are from important public and private collections all over the world, there is a remarkable selection of some 30 paintings (including many original portraits), tapestries, drawings and illustrations, created throughout the artist’s life, from his early beginnings in Lombardy to later years at the Hapsburg Court. These works enable the reader to discover and appreciate the extraordinary allegorical and formal breadth of this artist’s pictorial world. Well known for his anamorphic head constructed from plants, fruit, animals and other elements, Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526/27-1593) remains, paradoxically, a figure shrouded in mystery.