Giorgio Vasari: Art and HistoryVasari's Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects are and always have been central texts for the study of the Italian Renaissance. They can and should be read in many ways. Since their publication in the mid-sixteenth century, they have been a source of both information and pleasure. Their immediacy after more than four hundred years is a measure of Vasari's success. He wished the artists of his day, himself included, to be famous. He made the association of artistry and genius, of renaissance and the arts so familiar that they now seem inevitable. In this book Patricia Rubin argues that both the inevitability and the immediacy should be questioned. To read Vasari without historical perspective results in a limited and distorted view of The Lives. Rubin shows that Vasari had distinct ideas about the nature of his task as a biographer, about the importance of interpretation, judgment, and example - about the historian's art. Vasari's principles and practices as a writer are examined here, as are their sources in Vasari's experiences as an artist. |
Contents
Biographical Outline | 9 |
Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo | 61 |
Research and Publication | 106 |
Vasari and the Writers of Histories | 148 |
Changing History | 187 |
Writing about the Arts | 231 |
The First Light | 287 |
Donatello and the Artists of the Second Age | 321 |
Raphael the New Apelles | 357 |
A Letter to his Readers | 403 |
Bibliography | 413 |
| 437 | |
Common terms and phrases
Accademia del Disegno Alberti Alessandro altarpiece ancient ancora Andrea Andrea del Sarto Antonio architecture Aretino Arezzo artefici artists Baccio Bandinelli Barocchi Battista beautiful biography Bologna Brunelleschi Cardinal career casa chapel Cimabue commission cose Cosimo Bartoli Dante decoration described Description of Vasari's disegno Donatello drawing Duke Cosimo example fame fatto figures Florence Florentine Francesco frescoes Frey Ghiberti Giorgio Vasari Giotto Giovanni Giulio Romano honor Ibid imitation invention Ippolito Italian Jacopo l'opere Leonardo letter libro Lives Lorenzo maniera Martelli masters Medici Michelangelo molti molto nature notes Ottaviano painter painting Palazzo Vecchio Paolo Giovio Perino del Vaga Perugino Pietro Pietro Aretino pittori pittura Pliny Pope portrait praise preface quale quali Raffaello Raphael Renaissance ricordanze Rome Salviati Sangallo Santa Maria Sarto sculpture sempre story style talent trans tutte tutto Vasari says Venice Vincenzo Borghini virtù vita writing wrote