Casa Vasari in Florence

Giorgio Vasari’s Florentine residence is a stone’s throw from Santa Croce in the street of the same name, Borgo Santa Croce, house number 8. At Vasari’s request, Duke Cosimo I. had initially let the building to him in 1557 before gifting it to him four years later in recognition of his artistic achievements. With the help of his studio, Vasari frescoed the walls of the Sala Grande on the first floor around 1572 with ancient artistic legends, allegorical representations and a series of portraits of important painters, sculptors and architects of the Renaissance. The programme, which could be attributed to Vasari’s friend, the humanist Vincenzo Borghini, is dedicated to the portrayal of Vasari as an artist, humanist and scholar. In its entirety, it represents the complete achievements of his theoretical and practical experiences gathered during his lifetime. Parts of the fresco programme can be traced to the earlier frescoes Vasari created between 1542 and 1548 for his residence in Arezzo. After his death in 1574, the house in Florence remained in the hands of Vasari’s family, and then was passed to an Aretine lay brotherhood in 1687, until finally purchased by the Morrocchi family in the 19th century, who still owns it today. Only the Sala Grande remained untouched by the numerous reconstructions that the Palazzo was subjected to over the course of time.

On the left of the majestic chimney on the northwest wall of the Sala Grande a kneeling youth is portrayed. He is tracing the contours of his shadow on the wall by the light of a lamp. Vasari himself provides the key to interpreting this scene in the preface to the “Lives”, in which a long passage is devoted to the question of the origins of art: With reference to the ancient author Pliny the Elder and his “Naturalis historiae", Vasari tells the story of Gyges of Lydia, who sat by the fire contemplating his own shadow and then followed his instinct to sketch it on the wall with a piece of charcoal. In stylizing Gyges as the first artist in his interpretation of the Pliny text, Vasari thus perceives the beginning of art as a narcissistically motivated making of a self-portrait. However, Vasari considered Gyges’ drawing not only the starting point of painting, but also the common foundation for all arts. This ambitious concept of the “disegno” (drawing, draft), which runs through Vasari’s entire theoretical writing, was also practiced in the “Accademia del Disegno” in Florence, established in 1563. Vasari was one of the founding members of this institution, which is considered to be one of the first art schools in Europe.

In the centre of the wall opposite to the chimney is the story of the Greek painter Zeuxis of Heraclea and the beautiful maidens, which was told by Pliny in chapter 35 of his “Naturalis historiae”: Zeuxis was commissioned by the residents of Agrigento to create a female portrait for their temple honouring Juno. As a result, the painter chose five of the most beautiful girls in the city, who were to model for him together, so that he could merge the most beautiful feature of each one into a single perfect portrait. This story, which is intended to illustrate the superiority of art over nature, deals with the much discussed question since ancient times of the relationship between art and nature. In nature, Vasari saw the teacher of art, which should not simply imitate nature, but try to surpass it. In the fresco, he selected this concept as a central theme using the comparison of two sequences from the tale: On the right side, the maidens are being led to the artist’s studio. Their route takes them past the many-breasted herm of Diana of Ephesus, who was honoured in the ancient world as the goddess of nature. On the left side, Zeuxis stands before the easel in his studio and merges the examples from nature into a perfect artistic creation. The “disegno”, which means in Vasari’s own words “the imitation of the most beautiful elements of nature”, acts as a mediator between the two concepts depicted in the scenes. It is represented by a figure of the statue of a naked youth

Pliny again provided the basis for the portrayal of Apelles and the cobbler on the south-east wall. According to Pliny’s tale, the Greek painter Apelles liked to present his works to the general public after their completion, to hear their opinion, because he was of the opinion that the verdict of nonexpert viewers could include many important points. At such times, he hid himself, so that his presence did not influence anyone. One day, a cobbler came and criticised the representation of a sandal in a picture. Apelles, who felt that the criticism was justified, revised his painting as a consequence. The cobbler came again the next day. Pleased that the painter had taken his objection seriously, he proceeded to criticise the painting technique used for a leg. This enraged Apelles, who came out of his hiding place and punished the cobbler with the words that remain a proverb until today: “Ne sutor ultra crepidam” (Cobbler, do not judge higher than the sandals). The power of judgment (“giudizio”), schooled with intellectual and practical experience, to which this story alludes, occupies an important role in Vasari’s theory of art. The artist can use it as a self-test, with the help of which he can avoid excessively unrestrained ideas. However, the issue of individual taste also plays a role in this case; according to Vasari, only true connoisseurs of art will reach a common verdict due to their application of the same criteria in their analysis.

One of the central artistic debates of the 16th century concerned the question of the “paragone” (the comparison of artistic media). In particular, the discussion questioned which of the three fine arts (painting, sculpture or architecture) takes precedence over the other two. While other artists declared a clear preference for one or the other category, Vasari expressed more reserve and emphasised more their common characteristics. His perspective was that they were all based on the “disegno” (drawing, draft), which decided the quality of the work. The portrayal of the youth drawing his shadow beside the chimney has already been interpreted in this spirit, but also the portrayal of the allegories of the arts, which frame the main scenes on the walls of the Sala Grande, should be understood in this context. In addition to the allegories of painting, sculpture and architecture, two further allegories have been added: Those of poetry and of music. For Vasari, the poet extracted his material from nature, similar to the way the artist did, to then “continue to draw” it with the help of inspiration. In contrast, the allegory of music is a 19th century addition, that was added after one of the doors of the Sala was shut.

In the second edition of “Lives”, which was published in Florence in 1568, Vasari had not only extensively revised and added to the book, but also preceded the individual lives with a woodcut showing a portrait of the respective artist. These representations were used as templates for the portrait medallions in the upper frieze in the Sala Grande, for which Vasari selected from the total of 159 lives thirteen artists who he held in particularly high admiration: Cimabue und Giotto as forerunners, Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Masaccio as the founders of Renaissance art, followed by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and finally Michelangelo, who Vasari admired throughout his life. Further portraits here are of Raphael’s followers Perin del Vaga and Giulio Romano; Andrea del Sarto, one of his teachers, and Rosso Fiorentino, whose art was a powerful influence on Vasari’s early works; and finally, Francesco Salviati, who had worked together with Vasari in Rome. With this sequence of pictures, which can be assigned to the tradition of the “uomini illustri”, Vasari succeeded in creating an impressive illustration of the newly earned self-assurance of the artist in the 16th century.'

See also: Exhibition of the Photo Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut
The online exhibition presented here is dedicated to the Casa Vasari in Florence. It was the residence of the painter of Duke Cosimo I of Tuscany, but was previously little-known among the public for various reasons and was also relatively neglected by the academic world until now. From Vasari’s original residence, which is not easily accessible even today, only the frescoes in the Sala Grande (around 1572) have survived, and they are in a precarious state of conservation.

Giorgio Vasari’s Florentine residence is a stone’s throw from Santa Croce in the street of the same name, Borgo Santa Croce, house number 8.

This article incorporates material from the Wikipedia articles Le Vite, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno and Giorgio Vasari published under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Le Vite and Giorgio Vasari.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.
The Lives of the Artists (Oxford World's Classics). Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-283410-X
Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, Volumes I and II. Everyman's Library, 1996. ISBN 0-679-45101-3

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