| Biography, Lectures, and Research Links: |
Malaspina Great Books -
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1571)
Biography
Blog Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter and architect, mainly known for his famous biographies of Italian artists, was born at Arezzo on July 3, 1511. At a very early age he became a pupil of Guglielmo da Marsiglia, a very skilful painter of stained glass, to whom he was recommended by his own kinsman, the painter Luca Signorelli. At the age of sixteen he went to Florence, where he studied under Michelangelo and Andrea del Sarto, aided by the patronage of the Medici princes. In 1529 he visited Rome and studied the works of Raphael and others of his school. The paintings of Vasari were much admired but some critics saw them as parodies of the works of Michelangelo. Vasari was largely employed in Florence, Rome, Naples, Arezzo and other places. Many of his pictures still exist, the most important being the wall and ceiling paintings in the great hall of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, and his frescoes on the cupola of the cathedral, which, however, were not completed at the time of his death. As an architect he was perhaps more successful: the loggia of the Uffizi by the Arno, and the long passage connecting it with the Pitti Palace, through Ponte Vecchio, are his chief works. Unhappily he did much to injure the fine Medieval churches of S. Maria Novella and Santa Croce, from both of which he removed the original rood-screen and loft, and remodelled the retro-choir in the degraded taste of his time. Vasari enjoyed a very high repute during his lifetime and amassed a considerable fortune. He built himself in 1547 a fine house in Arezzo, and spent much labour in decorating its walls and vaults with paintings. He was elected one of the municipal council or priori of his native town, and finally rose to the supreme office of gonfaloniere. He died at Florence on June 27, 1571.
The Vite
As an art historian of his country, he is usually considered in the highest ranks. His great work was first published in 1550, and afterwards partly rewritten and enlarged in 1568, bearing the title Delle Vite de' piu eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori. It was dedicated to Cosimo de' Medici, and was printed at Florence by the Giunti; it is a small quarto illustrated with many good woodcut portraits. This editio princeps of the work contains a very valuable treatise on the technical methods employed in all branches of the arts. His biographies are written in a very pleasant style, interspersed with amusing stories. With a few exceptions Vasari's judgment is acute and unbiased, even if many anecdotes he reports have proven to be wholly fantastic. And though modern criticism - with all the new materials opened up by research - has done valuable work in upsetting a good many of his traditional accounts and attributions, the result is a tendency very often to underestimate Vasari's accuracy and to multiply hypotheses of a rather speculative character. The work in any case remains a classic, however it may be supplemented by the more critical research of modern days. Vasari gives a sketch of his own biography at the end of his Vite, and adds further details about himself and his family in his lives of Lazzaro Vasari and Francesco Salviati. The Lives has been translated into French, German and English.
Biographies
The Vite contains the biographies of many important Italian artists, and is also adopted as a sort of classical reference guide for their names, which are sometimes used in different ways. The following list respects the order of the book, as divided into its three parts.
Part 1: Part 2: - Jacopo della Quercia
- Nanni d'Antonio di Banco
- Luca della Robbia
- Paolo Uccello
- Lorenzo Ghiberti
- Masolino da Panicale
- Masaccio
- Filippo Brunelleschi
- Donato (Donatello)
- Giuliano da Majano
- Piero della Francesca
- fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Beato fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Beato Angelico))
- Leon Battista Alberti
- Antonello da Messina
- Alessio Baldovinetti
- fra Filippo Lippi
- Andrea del Castagno
- Domenico Veneziano
- Gentile da Fabriano
- Vittore Pisanello
- Benozzo Gozzoli
- Francesco di Giorgio e di Lorenzo Vecchietto (Lorenzo Vecchietta)
- Antonio Rossellino
- Bernardo Rossellino
- Desiderio da Settignano
- Mino da Fiesole
- Lorenzo Costa
- Ercole Ferrarese
- Jacopo Bellini
- Giovanni Bellini
- Gentile Bellini
- Cosimo Rosselli
- Antonio Pollaiolo
- Piero Pollaiolo
- Sandro Botticelli
- Andrea Verrocchio
- Andrea Mantegna
- Filippo Lippi (Filippino Lippi)
- Bernardino Pinturicchio
- Francesco Francia
- Pietro Perugino
- Luca Signorelli
Part 3: [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Giorgio Vasari.]
The Great Books: Giorgio Vasari
Please browse our Amazon list of titles about Giorgio Vasari. For rare and hard to find works we recommend our Alibris list of titles about Giorgio Vasari. Post Comments, Questions or Suggestions! This database is maintained by Malaspina Great Books .
|
Giorgio Vasari
Great Books Online: Amazon Search
