GIOVANNI, GIORGIO VASARI. — Painter, architect, and writer, born 27 July 1511 in Arezzo, died 27 June 1574 in Florence.
Having shown an aptitude for drawing, during his studies of the classical languages he received his first artistic instruction from the celebrated stained-glass painter Guglielmo de Marcelli, a Frenchman by birth who had chosen Arezzo as his adopted home, and subsequently in Florence from Michelangelo. After his father’s death in 1527, Vasari, driven by necessity and the resolve to support his family, took up painting in Arezzo and its countryside. Yet, owing to his youth and inexperience, he failed to achieve his aim and was obliged to turn to the goldsmith’s craft under the Florentine Vittorio Ghiberti, later working in the workshops of other goldsmiths in Pisa and Arezzo, while still producing minor paintings.
In 1532 he succeeded in securing a position at the court of the splendid Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, which enabled him to devote himself fully to the study and practice of painting in Rome, continuing these pursuits in Florence after entering the service of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici. His talent also became evident in decorative and architectural works and in the conception and execution of large-scale temporary decorative schemes—of particular note being the one created for the entry of Charles V into Florence in 1536. After the assassination of his patron on 6 January 1537, Vasari, now having developed his own distinctive pictorial manner, pursued his artistic activity in Florence, Arezzo, Rome, and other Italian cities.
In 1541 he was summoned by Pietro Aretino to Venice to execute the stage apparatus for the latter’s comedy *La Talanta*, thereby setting an example of true and grand scenography. After completing portraits and various works in that city, including the notable decoration of the Palazzo Cornaro, he moved to Naples, where he decorated the great refectory and church of the Olivetan convent of Monteoliveto, the church of S. Giovanni in Carbonara, and undertook numerous commissions for other patrons. Returning to Rome in 1546 at the behest of Cardinal Farnese, he completed in just one hundred days the full decoration of the main hall of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, which became the first of those pictorial cycles in which Vasari specialized, executed by coordinating the work of numerous pupils and assistants. It was during this period of work and residence in Rome, while participating in the evening gatherings in the household of Cardinal Farnese alongside the most eminent humanists of the day, that Vasari conceived the idea of composing *Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori*, which, with the aid of learned friends, he was able to write and have printed in 1550 by the Torrentino press in Florence. This city was to become his place of residence, though he was periodically obliged to leave it for other commissions in Rimini, Ravenna, Bologna, and Arezzo, where in 1548 he began the decoration of the fine house he had had built there, though he inhabited it only during the rare but productive periods of his vacations.
In 1554 Vasari entered the service of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Duke of Tuscany, who, recognizing in him the man capable of rapidly and grandly conceiving and executing architectural, engineering, and pictorial works to adorn his palaces, Florence, and other places within his duchy, appointed him overseer of all works carried out under his orders. Having secured a solid financial position and greater renown, Vasari continued to expand his multifarious and almost incredible activity (Michelangelo is said to have remarked: “Giorgio alone works as much as a thousand”), executing commissioned paintings from every quarter, designing grand buildings and works such as the Palazzo degli Uffizi—his architectural masterpiece—and the transformation of the Palazzo Vecchio, in which he created the Medici apartments and the Salone dei Cinquecento, personally decorating both. At the same time, he continuously supplied designs for other constructions in Tuscany, for the Medici tapestry works, and for every other kind of craft activity. With the assistance of the erudite Florentine Vincenzo Borghini, he also labored over the difficult preparation of the second edition of *Le Vite*, which was eventually printed in 1568 by the Giunti press in Florence.
In 1565, on the occasion of the marriage of Prince Francesco de’ Medici, Vasari conceived and oversaw the execution—with the collaboration of the entire body of Florentine artists—of the lavish and colossal decorations for the city of Florence, which was then, and remained thereafter, considered an unparalleled achievement in its genre. In 1570 he executed in Rome, at the behest of Pius V, various paintings in the Vatican Palace, and in 1572 completed the decoration of the Sala Regia there. Declining an invitation from Philip II to travel to Spain to design and execute architectural and pictorial works, he remained in Florence to devote himself to the decoration of the dome of S. Maria del Fiore. Yet he was able to complete only the lower portion before being struck by a severe illness that led to his death on 27 June 1574.
Driven by temperament and an excessive desire for gain, Vasari worked ceaselessly and with undue haste, contributing through his pictorial output—though only a few works were executed purely to his personal satisfaction—to the advancement and establishment of Mannerism. Brilliant and even grandiose in his decorative works, he distinguished himself especially in architecture, his finest and most important creations including the Palazzo and church of the Knights of S. Stefano in Pisa, the dome of the church of the Umiltà in Pistoia, the Palazzo degli Uffizi in Florence, and the Badia church and the loggias of the Piazza Grande in Arezzo. As architect to the Medici court, he gave powerful artistic direction and admirable new aesthetic and monumental aspects to Florence itself. Yet greater and immortal fame derives to Vasari from *Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori*, which must be regarded as one of the most original and important works of literature of all time and the foundational pillar of a new discipline: the history of art. — See pl. XCIX.