Vasari was aMannerist painter highly regarded both as a painter and architect in his day but rather less so in later centuries. He was effectively what would later be called theminister of culture to theMedici court inFlorence, and theLives promoted, with enduring success, the idea of Florentine superiority in thevisual arts.
Vasari designed theTomb of Michelangelo, his hero, in theBasilica of Santa Croce, Florence, that was completed in 1578. Based on Vasari's text in print aboutGiotto's new manner of painting as arinascita (rebirth), authorJules Michelet, in hisHistoire de France (1835),[5] suggested the adoption of Vasari's concept, using the termRenaissance (from French) to distinguish the cultural change. The term was adopted thereafter in historiography and remains in use.
Vasari was born prematurely on 30 July 1511 inArezzo,Tuscany.[6] Recommended at an early age by his cousinLuca Signorelli, he became a pupil ofGuglielmo da Marsiglia, a skillful painter ofstained glass.[7][8] Sent toFlorence at the age of sixteen by CardinalSilvio Passerini, he joined the circle ofAndrea del Sarto and his pupils,Rosso Fiorentino andJacopo Pontormo, where his humanist education was encouraged. He was befriended byMichelangelo, whose painting style would influence his own. Vasari enjoyed high repute during his lifetime and amassed a considerable fortune. He married Niccolosa Bacci, a member of one of the richest and most prominent families of Arezzo. He was madeKnight of the Golden Spur by the Pope. He was elected to the municipal council of his native town and rose to the supreme office ofgonfaloniere.[8]
In 1529, he visitedRome where he studied the works ofRaphael and other artists of the RomanHigh Renaissance. Vasari's ownMannerist paintings were more admired in his lifetime than afterwards. In 1547, he completed the hall of the chancery inPalazzo della Cancelleria in Rome with frescoes that received the nameSala dei Cento Giorni. He was regularly employed by members of theMedici family inFlorence and Rome. He also worked inNaples (for example on theVasari Sacristy), Arezzo, and other places. Many of his paintings still exist, the most important being on the wall and ceiling of the Sala di Cosimo I in thePalazzo Vecchio in Florence,[8] where he and his assistants worked from 1555. Vasari also helped to organize the decoration of theStudiolo, now reassembled in the Palazzo Vecchio.
Aside from his career as a painter, Vasari was successful as an architect.[12] Hisloggia of the Palazzo degliUffizi by theArno opens up the vista at the far end of its long narrow courtyard. It is a unique piece of urban planning that functions as a public piazza, and which, if considered as a short street, is unique as a Renaissance street with a unified architectural treatment.[clarification needed] The view of the Loggia from the Arno reveals that theVasari Corridor is one of the very few structures lining the river that is open to the river and appears to embrace the riverside environment.[13]
In Florence, Vasari also designed the long passage, now called Vasari Corridor, which connects the Uffizi with thePalazzo Pitti on the other side of the river. The corridor passes alongside the River Arno on an arcade, crosses thePonte Vecchio, and winds around the exterior of several buildings. It was once the location of the Mercado de Vecchio.[14] He renovated the medieval churches ofSanta Maria Novella andSanta Croce. In both buildings, he removed the originalrood screen and loft, and remodeled the retro-choirs in the Mannerist taste of his time.[8]
Often called "the first art historian",[16] Vasari invented the genre of the encyclopedia of artistic biographies with hisLe Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori (Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects). This work was first published in 1550 and was dedicated to Grand DukeCosimo I de' Medici. Vasari introduced the term "Rinascita" ("rebirth" in Italian) in printed works – although an awareness of an ongoing "rebirth" in the arts had been in the air since the time ofAlberti. Vasari's term, applied to the change in artistic styles with the work of Giotto, eventually would become the French termRenaissance ("rebirth") widely applied to the era that followed. Vasari was responsible for the modern use of the termGothic art, as well, although he only used the wordGoth in association with the German style that preceded the rebirth, which he identified as "barbaric". TheLives also included a novel treatise on the technical methods employed in the arts.[8][17] The book was partly rewritten and extended in 1568,[8] with the addition of woodcut portraits of artists (some conjectural).[citation needed]
Title page of the first and second part of the 1568 edition of theLives
The work shows a consistent and notorious bias in favour ofFlorentines and tends to attribute to them all the developments in Renaissance art – for example, the invention ofengraving.Venetian art in particular (along with arts from other parts of Europe), is ignored systematically in the first edition. Between his first and second editions, Vasari visited Venice and while the second edition gave more attention to Venetian art (finally includingTitian), it did so without achieving a neutral point of view.[citation needed]
Many inaccuracies exist within hisLives. For example, Vasari writes thatAndrea del Castagno killedDomenico Veneziano, which is incorrect; Andrea died several years before Domenico. In another example, Vasari's biography of Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, whom he calls "Il Sodoma", published only in the second edition of theLives (1568) after Bazzi's death, condemns the artist as being immoral, bestial, and vain. Vasari dismisses Bazzi's work as lazy and offensive, despite the artist's having been named a Cavalier of theSupreme Order of Christ byPope Leo X and having received important commissions for theVilla Farnese and other sites.[18]
Vasari's biographies are interspersed with amusing gossip. Many of his anecdotes seem plausible, while others are assumed fictions, such as the tale of youngGiotto painting a fly on the surface of a painting byCimabue that supposedly, the older master repeatedly tried to brush away (a genre tale that echoes anecdotes told of the Greek painterApelles). He did carry out research archives for exact dates, as modern art historians do, and his biographies are considered more reliable in the case of his contemporary painters and those of the preceding generation. Modern criticism – with new materials produced by research – has revised many of his dates and facts.[8] Vasari included a short autobiography at the end of theLives, and added further details about himself and his family in his lives ofLazzaro Vasari andFrancesco Salviati.[8]
According to the historian Richard Goldthwaite,[19] Vasari was one of the earliest authors to use the term "competition" (or "concorrenza" in Italian) in its economic sense. He used it repeatedly, and stressed the concept in his introduction to the life ofPietro Perugino, in explaining the reasons for Florentine artistic preeminence. In Vasari's view, Florentine artists excelled because they were hungry, and they were hungry because their fierce competition amongst themselves for commissions kept them so. Competition, he said, is "one of the nourishments that maintain them".[citation needed]
^Gauvin Alexander Bailey, 'Santi di Tito and the Florentine Academy: Solomon Building the Temple in the Capitolo of the Accademia del Disegno (1570–71)', Apollo CLV, 480 (February 2002): pp. 31–39.
^"Vasari's ability as a painter cannot match his talents either as a historian or as an architect," according toLawrence Gowing, ed., Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists, v.4 (Facts on File, 2005): 695.
Barriault, Anne B.; Ladis, Andrew T.; Land, Norman E.; Wood, Jeryldene M., eds. (2005).Reading Vasari. London: Philip Wilson.
Guagliumi, Silvia.Giuliano da San Gallo architettore, Tau editrice, Todi 2016
Guagliumi, Silvia.Raffaello da pittore ad architettore.Milano Giugno/Luglio 2023ISBN979-12-210-4000-5.
Guagliumi, Silvia.Antonio da San Gallo il Vecchio, Milano Giugno 2024ISBN979-12-210-6439-1.
Cast, David J., ed. (2013).The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari. Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England: Routledge.doi:10.4324/9781315613017.ISBN9781409408475.
“Giorgio Vasari'sLives of the Artists.” Site created by Adrienne DeAngelis. Now largely completed in the posting of theLives, intended to be re-translated to become the unabridged English version.
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