Vasari, Giorgio

Date born: 1511

Place born:  Arezzo, Italy

Date died: 1574

Place died:  Florence, Italy

Considered the first art historian and often referred to as the “father of art history.”  Varsari was the son of Antonio Vasari (d. 1527), a potter, and Maddelena Tacci (d. 1558). He learned Latin and other humanist disciplines in the 1520’s by Antonio da Saccone and Giovanni Pollastra (1465–1540). Throughout his career, Vasari practiced as an artist.  He entered the Arezzo studio of Guillaume de Marcillat, whose previous commissions at the Vatican in Rome brought Vasari into conversance with the work of Michelangelo and Raphael. Vasari’s own painting led the Cardinal of Cortona, Silvio Passerini (1470–1529), tutor of Alessandro and Ippolito de’ Medici, to take Vasari with him to Florence in 1524. There Vasari and the two Medici received further instruction by Pierio Valeriano (1477–1558). Vasari also trained during this time in the Florentine workshops of Andrea del Sarto and Baccio Bandinelli, under Francesco Salviati.  Forced to return to Arezzo when the Medici were expelled in 1527, Vasari entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici in January 1532. He studied ancient and modern Roman art and architecture again with Salviati. There he also met Paolo Giovio, an important force for his Vite years later.  When Alessandro de’ Medici was murdered in 1537, Vasari was once again devoid of a princely patron. From that point on, he decided to exist on his own. He painted several work for the monks at Camaldoli before journeying to Rome in 1538, accompanied by his assistant Giovanni Battista Cungi. Already he was interested in studying ancient with a view of their effect on contemporary art, the core idea later into his masterwork of writing, the Vite.  Vasari went to Venice in 1541.

After about seven years of writing, Vasari published his most famous book, Le vite de più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori in 1550.  The printer was the Florentine humanist Lorenzo Torrentino (d. 1563). The two-volume, octavo work was dedicated to Cosimo de’ Medici. After its appearance several other biographies of artists appeared, most notably the life of Michelangelo by Asconio Condivi (q.v.).  Vasari corrected and enlarged his text, issuing a second edition in 1568.  It is this version that all subsequent editions and translations are based, and for which Vasari owes his fame.  The work is divided into a preface (proemio), a discussion of the various media, and then three sections devoted to artist biographies arranged chronologically. The first section covers Cimabue to Lorenzo di Bicci, section two from Jacopo della Quercia to Pietro Perugino, and the final section, from Leonardo da Vinci to Michelangelo.  Michelangelo was the only artist still living when the Vite appeared. Vasari ends with a section to ‘artists and readers’.  Several indexes complete the work.

Chronological biographies of artists had previously existed.  Vasari’s contribution was to create a critical, i.e., evaluative, history of artistic style, although he was far from unbiased. Core to Vasari was the notion of the rebirth of art, a rinascita. Art had a history and by new birth, it reestablished itself as a noble pursuit worthy of study.  Vasari’s division art history into ages took as its paradigm the stages of human development. This, too, was not a novel conception with Vasari, but in his book, it took on a logical sense of order.  Art’s early perfection was the antique, but hade then declined under Constantine. This low period of barbaric or Germanic art (“Gothic” Vasari called it) far removed from classical models, was ready for renaissance.  Cimabue, Giotto and others formed the naissance of art, inspired by the imitation of nature, a primary stage (primi lumi).  A developmental period (augumento) was ultimately succeeded by the age of perfection (perfezione)--coincidentally Vasari’s own time and that of Michelangelo. Vasari’s book created a sensation. Benvenuto Cellini found much fault, but Michelangelo, Gherardi, Salviati and Carlo Fontana praised it. Vasari wrote a second book, somewhat of a supplement to the Lives, entitled Ragionamenti sopra le Invenzioni. Appearing after his death in 1588, the book is a catalog of the allegorical compositions in the Palazzo Vecchio.

Home Country: Italy

Sources: Kultermann, Udo.  Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte:  Der Weg einer Wissenschaft.  2nd ed. Frankfurt am Main and Vienna:  Ullstein, 1981, p. 438 n. 9; Blunt, Anthony. Artistic Theory in Italy: 1450-1600. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962, pp. 86-102; Kleinbauer, W. Eugene.  Modern Perspectives in Western Art History:  An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts.  New York:  Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, pp. 68-9;  Rud, Einar.  Vasari’s Life and Lives: The First Art Historian.  Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand Company, 1963.

Bibliography: Le vite de'più eccellenti pittori, scuttori e architetti. Florence: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1550. Enlarged ed., Florence: T. Giunti, 1568. Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptures and Architects. Translated by Gaston du C. de Vere. 10 vols. London: Macmillan and the Medici Society, 1912-15; Ragionamenti del Sig. cavaliere Giorgio Vasari, pittore et architetto aretino, sopra le inuentioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel palazzo di Loro Altezze Serenissime.  Florence: F. Giunti, 1588.