Much of what is known about the invention of Mannerist decorative programmes is owed to the writings of humanist advisors like Annibale Caro, Vincenzo Borghini and Pietro Vettori. Jacopo Zucchiās Discorso on the Rucellai Gallery is a unique insight into the iconographic process for an artist who composed his own programme. This paper will examine some of the textual and visual sources used by Zucchi and attempt to discern his criteria for selecting them. The decoration of the gallery, in the Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome, is far and away his largest secular programme and serves as a painted resum, reusing a repertoire of motifs accumulated under Vasari in Florence and during his work as an independent artist for Ferdinando deā Medici in Rome.