The concept of imitatio in the context of the aesthetic Renaissance thought and later in the artistic practice itself acquired the value of compositional and stylistic imitation of the famous artworks by other artists and also entailed the ability to interpret the original sample in accordance with the individual artistic manner. Such method reaches its heyday in the works of draftsmen of the High Renaissance.

A very illustrative example in the context of theoretical argumentation of the method of imitation and its practical implementation can be found in the oeuvre of Jacopo Pontormo. In his “Lives”, Vasari gives the best characteristics of Pontormo’s picturesque manner. However, the artist’s creative activity experiences strong changes (and not in the better way, according to Vasari), due to his familiarity with the engravings of Dürer.This process also affected Pontormo and had an undeniable impact on the further development of his painting style. Analyzing the corpus of Pontormo’s drawings relating to the frescoes of the Certosa del Galluzzo, we can see how the study of the prints of Dürer influenced the stylistic features of the artist’s graphic manner of the 1520s (“The Procession to Calvary”, “Agony in the Garden”, “The Supper at Emmaus”). The example of Pontormo’s graphic heritage allows us to assess the importance of the problem of imitation as an artistic technique for the study of the artist’s creative method, of his artistic interests and preferences, as well as of the influence that the style of Dürer’s engravings had on his works.