We C Stome. ; “ Giorgte Vasrzpy- ‘ GD), Givi 7 Gi ane De Qwr0bame Be, 3Liana De Girolami Cheney 10 Vasari Bye Ftomes of Gro x PETER LANG New York * Washington, D.C./Baltimore * Bern Frankfurt am Main * Berlin * Brussels * Vienna * OxfordLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cheney, Liana. The homes of Giorgio Vasari / Liana De Girolami Cheney. . em. Includes bibliograph I references and index. 1. Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Mural painting and decoration, Italian—Italy—Arezzo—Themes, motives. 3. Mannerism (Art)—Italy—Arezzo. 4. Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574— Homes and haunts—Italy—Arezzo. 5. Casa Vasari, I, Title. ND623.V2C47 759.5—dc22 2004027472 ISBN 0-8204-7494-0 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek. Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de/. Cover illustration: Giorgio Vasari’s Coat-of-Arms, Casa Vasari, Arezzo, Chamber of Fame The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council of Library Resources. © 2006 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 29 Broadway, New York, NY 10006 www peterlang.com All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited. Printed in the United States of AmericaCONTENTS Preface. Acknowledgments. Introduction... Chapter I: A Survey of the Literature on Vasari Chapter II: Background on the Homes of Vasari Casa Vasari, Arezzo. Casa Vasari, Florence . Casa Vasari, Arezzo: The Chambers The Chamber of Fame The Chamber of Abraham . The Chamber of Fortune. The Corridor of Ceres. The Chamber of Apoll Casa Vasari, Florence, The Sala Vasari . Chapter III: The Stylistic Position of the Homes of Vasari in Italian Decorative Cycles .... Arezzo and Florence Chapter IV: Vasari’s Early Decorative Cycles and His Homes. Veneti: SSI mber of Abraham......... Neapolitan Commissions Roman Commission... Aretine and Florentine Commi s The Chamber of Fortune and The Sala Vasari. The Corridor of Ceres. The Chamber of Apoll: Chapter V: The Iconography of the Homes of Vasari Casa Vasari, Arezzo... The Chamber of Fame The Chamber of Abraham... The Chamber of Apollo. The Corridor of Ceres.Viii CONTENTS The Chamber of Fortune.. The Ceiling The Upper Part of the Walls The Lower Part of the Walls Précis Casa Vasari, Florenc The Sala Vasari. Chapter VI: Vasari and His Homes Appendix A: The Contract for the Casa Vasari, Arezzo. Appendix B: Chronology of Events Related to Vasari Illustrations. Selected Bibliography. Index. .image not availableimage not availableimage not availablePREFACE This study examines the Maniera style and emblematic and Neoplatonic symbolism in Giorgio Vasari’s homes located in Arezzo and in Florence. Between the years 1541 and 1554, Vasari built, designed and painted the Aretine home or Casa Vasari, and from 1561 and 1569, he acquired, restored the Florentine home, but completed decorations only in one room, or Sala Vasari. The introduction to this book explains the role of Vasari as an exponent of Mannerism or the Maniera style, as well as the significance of his early decorative cycles in the sixteenth century in Italy. Chapter one briefly surveys the literature on Vasari’s art. Chapter two discusses the background germane to Vasari’s homes in Arezzo and Florence. The first part deals with the Casa Vasari at Arezzo, focusing on with its purchase and construction. The second part of chapter two describes external and internal architectural changes of the Aretine home. These alterations, which occur throughout the history of the house, were initiated by various owners after Vasari’s death in 1574. The third part of chapter two describes the decorations of the piano nobile. It analyzes each room in the Casa Vasari at Arezzo, which received its appellation from the theme depicted in its ceiling: the Chamber of Fame, the Chamber of Abraham, the Chamber of Fortune, the Chamber of Apollo and the Corridor of Ceres. With the exception of the Chamber of Fortune, where decoration is also found on the walls, these rooms have decorations only on their ceilings. These ceilings and walls are painted in different media: fresco, tempera and oils. And their various ceiling structures—tetto a vela, coffered and flat— further enhance the decoration of the house. The fourth and final part of chapter two examines Vasari’s second house, the Casa Vasari in Florence, in particular the Sala Vasari. Although he acquires this home already built, Vasari manages to restore and beautify it, commencing decorating the interior, in particular the reception hall, the Sala Vasari. Because of various occupants residing in the house after Vasari’s death and present private ownership, it is difficult to assess the physical and aesthetic worth of the entire house and attain an indication of what other rooms are or were decorated. However, the Sala Vasari’s stylistic and iconographical innovations are analyzed here in connection with the aims of Vasari’s earlier house at Arezzo. Chapter three examines the stylistic position of the homes of Vasari in Italian decorative cycles and presents his style as being representative of theimage not availableimage not availableimage not availableINTRODUCTION The aims of this research are to place the paintings of the Casa Vasari and Sala Vasari within the development of Vasari as a Maniera artist, so as to demonstrate the way in which they exemplify the Maniera style. Further intent is to decode the imagery’s iconography or emblematic symbolism in the cultural and philosophical context of their time, and to consider, as well, Vasari’s ideas about aesthetics and art, especially in relationship to his works in the Casa Vasari and Sala Vasari.' All of these tasks begin with the problem of identifying and recognizing Mannerism as an historical and stylistic category. The pejorative character of this term for designating a stylistic category, acquired in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, is waning. That connotation arose because Mannerism was considered a decadent movement following the High Renaissance. Some measure of this pejorative attitude persists among contemporary art historians, impeding a better understanding of the stylistic changes in sixteenth-century art or Cinquecento. The problem is neither semantic nor methodological, but historical. There is much to be clarified about historical events, their causes and circumstances, preceding and surrounding the art known as Mannerist. Adequate investigation once lacking on the position of the Cinquencento artist in relation to the Church, patrons and government, is now ongoing. In the field of art history, the study of Mannerism is no longer in its embryonic stage; with the emphasis being placed either on questions of aesthetics (Smyth, Shearman and Freedberg) or on ideology (Hauser and Hartt). Among art historians of Mannerism, Freedberg and Smyth have opened a new avenue in the understanding of this field by acknowledging the integrity of the Maniera style.? Now, there is a need to probe into the emblematic, historical, the patronage and cultural circumstances in which Maniera art arose and thrived. This book does not pretend to solve these problems, but seeks instead to focus on what appears to this writer to be insufficiently studied aspects of Mannerism and the Maniera movement. The Maniera style has been considered, if at all, as part of the general movement called Mannerism. The relationship between the artists of the Maniera style (Agnolo Bronzino, Francesco Salviati, Jacopino del Conte and Giorgio Vasari) and the so-called early Mannerist artist (Parmigianino, Jacopo Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino) can be expressed as follows: although there is a fundamental stylistic continuity from one to the other there is also a major difference between them, namely, that the Maniera painters present stylisticimage not availableimage not availableimage not available6 CHAPTER ONE Karl Frey’s contribution to the understanding of Vasari relies not on a study of the Vite, but rather, on an examination of the relationship to Vas other writings.* Frey published in various volumes a collection of Vasari’s correspondence that disclose various types of letters. Some are mere notes— written in haste and revealing Vasari’s fleeting ideas and afterthoughts. Other Vasari’s letters are exchanges with his literary friends in Rome, Florence and Venice, such as Annibale Caro, Paolo Giovio, Vincenzo Borghini, Duke Cosimo I and Pietro Aretino. Besides gathering most of Vasari’s correspondence, Frey analyzes and relates these letters to Vasari's published works, including the Vite, the Carteggio, the Ricordanze and the Zibaldone? Frey exhaustively compares the extant publications of the Vite, primarily the Milanesi’s edition," with the letters, presenting not only a philological approach to the documentation, but a technical evaluation of treatises, terminology and even anecdotes. The Vite, particularly the prefaces, are crucial to the understanding of Vasari’s art and theory. Thanks to Frey’s study, they are no longer considered to be mere biographies, but as statements of critical and aesthetic ideas. Since their original publication, approximately 200 of the Vite have been published; with translations in eight languages. The frequently used, albeit not the most accurate, edition is that of Gaetano Milanesi. Other less popular editions, but which contain stimulating commentaries, are those of Ragghianti'' and Rossi.” The recent opus magna project of Bettarini- Barocchi’* is the first collated printing of the original two versions of the Vite, containing as well extensive philological and historical commentary. For the first time, Vasari’s Ragionamenti were studied in detail. Their significance is revealed by J. L. Draper’s scholarly work, Vasari’s Decoration in the Palazzo Vecchio: The Ragionamenti Translated with an Introduction and Notes."* Draper’s analysis reveals how to view Vasari as both artist and writer. The Ragionamenti is a written description of the artist’s paintings for the Palazzo Vecchio. Draper demonstrates how the Ragionamenti enables us to understand the mid-sixteenth century concept of patronage. The close relationship between a patron, Cosimo I de’ Medici, Duke of Tuscany, and a painter, Vasari, is greatly clarified as the relevant letters and the Vite are considered alongside the Ragionamenti. Several scholars believe the importance of the Ragionamenti rests not on their intrinsic value—as Draper does—but as a reference work useful in an overall study of Vasari’s literary work. Frey cites the Ragionamenti in his collection and analysis of Vasari’s letters; Kallab refers to them in his Vasaristudien,'> and Julius von Schlosser-Magino'® evaluates their general literary significance in Vasari’s time and their likeness to previous writingsimage not availableimage not availableimage not available10 CHAPTER ONE fresh information about the known works. In parallel with her interest in Vasari the painter, Barocchi opens new avenues of study with respect to Vasari’s artistic career, particularly in such subjects as Vasari’s drawings and his followers (Naldini, Morandi, Gherardi and others).*’ Furthermore, Barocchi relates her observations on Vasari’s paintings to his writings. In so doing, she reevaluates Vasari’s own ideas and clarifies certain obscure comments made by Vasari himself and by other scholars on the meaning of his paintings. Barocchi’s recent opus magna is a comparative reproduction of the Vite’s editions, with commentaries and indexes. Other scholars such as Laura Corti and Umberto Baldini have composed a visual catalogue of most of Vasari’s paintings, which assist in understanding his stylistic career as a painter. These efforts, although commendable, are in need of iconographical analysis.©” Paul Barolsky’s recent books explain Vasari’s anecdotal manner and literary diction to recount biographical aspect of artist’s costumes and culture.” Thus making Vasari’s accessible to today’s readers as well as his art as a raconteur. Patricia Rubin's Giorgio Vasari: Art and History expands on Boase’s project of explaining Vasari the “man” through the history of the Vite.°' In contrast Alice Kramer’s dissertation focuses on the origin of artistic terminology and its theoretical sources in Vasari's Vite. The aforementioned scholars have certainly generated an interest in Vasari as painter, their approach has been encyclopedic, formalistic, historical, literary and, in part, iconographical. However, the emblematic study of Vasari’s early decorative cycles has been overlooked. While numerous exhibition catalogues and articles have been written on the subject, they exhibit a partiality toward Vasari’s drawings rather, than his paintings, though understandably so, since Vasari’s drawings are superior, in both style and technique, to his paintings.” The P. N. Ferri’s™ 1890 catalogue of Vasari’s drawings at the Uffizi (incorporating E. Santarelli’s® catalogue of 1870) and C. Goguel-Mongeig’s study on Vasari’s drawings remain to this day fundamental sources for the general attribution and stylistic analysis of Vasari’s drawings. More recent studies on Vasari’s drawing are found in catalogues of exhibitions. These exhibitions were devoted to the study of Vasari’s drawings in connection to his paintings,” his school and his era. In these catalogues of drawings, he analysis reveals two issues: a_ stylistic examination of artistic attribution, such as Mannerism, Maniera or Tuscan art of the Cinquecento,” and a thematic discussion on the history of the Florentine Drawing Academy.”'image not availableimage not availableimage not available14 CHAPTER ONE % n 8 2 3 4 pp. 47-56; Ernest H. Gombrich, “Vasari's Lives and Cicero's Brutus,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (1960), pp. 309-11; L. Venturi, History of Ant Criticism (New York: Dutton and Company, 1964), pp. 99-105; Schlosser-Magnino, La Letteratura Artistica, pp. 323-32; Anthony Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy: 1450-1600 (New York: Oxford University Press: 1968), pp. 86-102; R. Klein, La forme et Vintelligible (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), pp. 341-52; A. Gambuti, Storia e critica dell'architettura nella storiografia Vasariana (Florence: Leo. S. Olschki, 1976); Alpers, “Ekphrasis and aesthetic attitudes in Vasari’s Lives,” pp. 190-215; Prinz, “I ragionamenti del Vasari sullo sviluppo e declino delle arti,” pp. 857-67; and Z. Wazbinski, “Le idée de Vhistorie dans la premiere et la second edition des vies de Vasari,” in I! Vasari: Storiografo e Artista (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1976), pp. 1-25. See T. S. R. Boase, Giorgio Vasari: the Man and the Book (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). See Rubin, Giorgio Vasari: Art and History, passim. See the series of publication by Paul Barolsky, Michelangelo's Nose: A Myth and its Maker (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990); Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991); and Giotto’s Father and the Family of Vasari's ‘Lives’ (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992). Vasari begins collecting drawings long before writing the Vite. In 1528, when he is only 17 years old, he acquires, from Vettorio Ghiberti, his first art teacher, drawings by Lorenzo Ghiberti (Vettorio’s ancestor), Giotto and other Renaissance artists. See Licia Collobi-Ragghianti, Vasari Libro dei Disegni (Milan: Architettura, 1974). This study includes and discusses the most complete collection of Vasari’s book on the drawings of artists. See A. Wyatt, “Le ‘libro dei disegni’ du Vasari,” Gazette des BeauxArts (1859), pp. 338- 51. See Erwin Panofsky, “Das erste Blatt aus dem “libro” Giorio Vasaris eine Studie uber die Beurteilung der Gotik in der italienischen Renaissance; mit einem Exkurs uber zwei Fassadenprojekte Dominico Beccafumis,” Staedel Jahrbuck (1930), pp. 25-72. See Otto Kurz, “Il libro dei disegni di Giorgio Vasari,” in Studi Vasariani (Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1952), pp. 225-28; Otto Kurz, “Il libro dei disegni di Giorgio Vasari,” Old Master Drawings (1937), pp-1-10; and Otto Kurz, “II libro dei disegni di Giorgio Vasari,” Old Master Drawings (1937), pp. 32-42. Kurz explains that today’s admiration for drawing is based on Morelli’s artistic theory, which claims that drawings are liked because of their spontaneity, illusionism and inspiration. See also E. Popham, “Drawings from the collection of Giorgio Vasari,” British Museum Quarterly (1936), pp. 153-55; and E, Popham, The Italian Drawings of the XV and XIV Centuries in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle (London: Phaidon, 1936); B. Degenhart, “Zur Graphologie der Handzeichnungen,” Kunstgeschichtliches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheka Hertziana, pp. 34-48, B. Degenhart and A. Schmitt, Methoden Vasaris bei den Gestaltung seines “libro” Studien zur toskanischen Kunst, Festchrift fur L.H. Heydenrich (Munich: Georg Miiller, 1964); R. Bacou and C. Monbeig-Goguel, Vasari et son temps (Paris: Editions des Musée Nationaux, 1965); Collobi-Ragghianti, Vasari Libro dei Disegni; and Per Bjurstrém, Italian Drawings from the Collection of Giorgio Vasari (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 2001), pp. 7-9. See Julius S. Held, “The Early Appreciation of Drawings,” in Studies in Western Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1963), pp. 72-95. Held discusses how drawing collectors, such as Vasari, Vincenzo Borghini and Niccold Gadi, intentionally established a need for a drawing’s market in the second half of the Cinquecento. See Bjurstrém, Malian Drawings from the Collection of Giorgio Vasari, pp. 7-9. Other museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum Art in New York and the Galleria deiimage not availableimage not availableimage not available18 CHAPTER ONE 38 2 a a 8 6 o @ See Bettarini and Barocchi, ed. Giorgio Vasari Vite. See Laura Corti, Vasari. Catalogo completo dei dipinti (Florence: Cantini, 1989) and Umberto Baldini, Giorgio Vasari Pittore (Florence: Il Fiorino, 1994). See Barolsky’s books on Michelangelo's Nose: A Myth and its Maker, Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales and Giotto’s Father and the Family of Vasari's ‘Lives’. See Rubin, Giorgio Vasari: Art and History, passim. See Alice Kramer, “Giorgio Vasari” (PhD dissertation Columbia University, New York, 1995). See F, Antal “Drawings by Salviati and Vasari after a lost picture of Rosso,” Old Master Drawings (1939), pp. 247-49; A. Forlani, “Disegni del Vasari e della sua cherchia.” Id Vasari (1963), pp. 178-82; Eugene Carroll, “Lappoli, Alfani, Vasari, and Rosso Fiorentino” Art Bulletin (1967), pp. 297-304; F. Stampfle, “A Ceiling Design by Vasari, Master Drawings (1968), pp. 26671; and C. Monbeig-Goguel and Vitzthum, “Dessins inedits de Giorgio Vasari,” Revue de l'Art (1968), pp. 88-93; for articles on drawings for the Palazzo Vecchio, see previous citations. See P.N, Ferri, Catologo raissuntivo della racccolta di disegni antichi e moderni, posseduti dalla R. Galleria degli Uffizi di Firenze (Rome: Biblioteca d’Arte, 1890). See E, Santarelli, Catalogue della raccolta di disegni autografi antichi e moderni (Florence: Gonelli, 1870). For a recent general reference on Vasari’s drawings at the Uffizi, see C. Gamba, / disegni della R. Galleria degli Uffizi: Disegni dei Maestri Tosco- Romani del secolo xvi (Florence: Salimbeni, 1912-21) and Bemard Berenson, / disegni di pittori fiorentini (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961). For Vasari’s drawings found in collections outside of Italy, see A. E. Popham and J. Wilde, The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle (London: Phaidon, 1949); K. T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings at the Ashmolean Museum, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952); R. Bacou and C. Monbeig-Goguel, Giorgio Vasari: Dessinatoeur et Collectionneur (Paris: Cabinet des Dessins, Louvre, 1965); C. Monbeig-Goguel and W. Vitzhum, “Dessins inedits de Giorgio Vasari,” Revue de Art (1968), pp. 89-93: C. Monbeig-Goguel, “Giorgio Vasari et son Temps,” Revue de Art (1971), pp. 105-11; and C. Monbeig-Goguel, Vasari et son temps Inventaire General des dessins Italiens du Musee du Louvre (Paris: Editions des Musée Nationaux, 1972); Edmund Pillsbury, “Review of Catherine Monbeig Goguel “Vasari et son tempy’,” Master Drawings (1973), pp. 171-75; Collobi-Ragghianti, libro de Disegni del Vasari; and Bjurstrém, Italian Drawings from the Collection of Giorgio Vasari. See Goguel-Mongeig, Vasari et son temps, 105-11 See Baldini, Mostra dei Bozzetti delle Gallerie di Firenze and Petrioli, Mostra di disegni Vasariani: Carri Trionfale e Costumi per la Genealogia degli Dei. See Barocchi, Mostra di disegni del Vasari e della sua cerchia; W. P. Chrysler, Bacchiacca and His Friends (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1961); I. L. Zupnick. The Age of Vasari: A Loan Exhibition (Binghamton: Notre Dame College, 1970); Ragghianti-Collobi, 1! Libro de Disegni del Vasari; and Bjurstrém, Italian Drawings ‘from the Collection of Giorgio Vasari. Goering and Gazzola, Mostra del Cinquecento Toscano. pp. 61-62, 70, 84 and 104-5; A. Mongan and P. J. Sachs, Drawings in the Fogg Museum of Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946), pp. 104-5; Forlani, Mostra del disegno Italiano di cinque secoli, pp. 54-55; Italian Drawings from the Collection of Janos Scholz (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1964); Bean and Stampfle, Drawings from New York Collections: 1. ltalian Drawings (New York: The Metropolitan Museum and the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1965); Edmund Pillsbury and J. Caldwell, Sixteenth Century Italian Drawings: Form and Function (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974).image not availableimage not availableimage not available22 CHAPTER TWO for dates and descriptions is still Vasari himself, in his autobiography, letters and ricordi. In 1574, Vasari dies in his house in Florence and is buried in the Church of S. Maria delle Pieve at Arezzo.’ In his last testament, he deeds the Casa Vasari to his brother Pietro and his descendants, stipulating that at the death of the last member of the Vasari family, the Casa Vasari is to become the property of the Pia Fraternité di Santa Maria, a lay order in Arezzo. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we may assume that from the time of Vasari’s death onward, the house passed from one member of the family to another. In 1687, Francesco Maria Vasari, unable to keep up with the expenses of the house, auctioned its furniture—whereupon the Pia Fraternité di Santa Maria contested ownership of the property and forced Francesco to relinquish the house to them.’ Between 1692 and 1695, litigation ensued that dealt with the rights to the paintings Vasari had purchased for the Casa Vasari.” By 1767, the Casa Vasari was empty of furniture and easel paintings."” Not much else is known about the Casa Vasari during the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the guides of Arezzo provide some general information about the house’s tenants and owners. One guide states, “a noble family named Paglicci, lived in the Casa Vasari in 1871.”"' Another mentions, “a member of the Paglicci family, Count Orlando Paglicci, had purchased the house in 1910.”" In 1911, the Ministerio di Stato in Arezzo obtains the house from the Paglicci family in order to convert it into a Vasarian archival library and museum." But this transition does not actually occur until after World War II. Meanwhile, records relate that a family by the name of Mantuati or Montuati occupies the Casa Vasari in 1926." In 1945, the Casa Vasari opens to the public as a museum. In the same year, a small wing, which is added to the north side of the house to functions as a library, it contains Vasari’s original writings, correspondence (including letters from Michelangelo), ricordi and other archival material relate to Vasari and his time. Since the death of Vasari, the Casa Vasari has undergone architectural changes and numerous restorations of its painted ceilings and walls, In Vasari’s lifetime the original facade was painted.” It contained five windows, each at the second story and piano nobile levels. The main doorway was located in the center of the facade. The post and lintel structure of that door was, and still is, framed with a gib a surrounding motif. This doorway opened to a loggia in the basement of the house. From the loggia, a staircase led to the piano nobile."® Alterations of the original facade began inimage not availableimage not availableimage not available26 CHAPTER TWO provides a lodging for him by granting access to this home on May 30, 1557." Vasari then moves his family from Arezzo to Florence and begins decorating his house in 1558 with portraits of his deceased teachers, including Andrea del Sarto.” On September 1, 1560, he requests from the duke to waive his annual rent in lieu of the renovation and decorations he wishes to undertake in the house in Borgo Santa Croce, I wish that Your Honor would agree with what he wished to grant me, as discussed many times and told me that you would cancel my [house rent) expenses... asked you for working accommodation in the house where I lived or another house...because I need to arrange according to my working needs the rooms with appropriate lighting to compose cantons and paintings and other drawings and other similar matters... Your Honor as you deliberate on your wish, my desire is to be include them [rent expenses] as part of my work.” On June 20, 1561, Duke Cosimo I finally grants Vasari’s request and he stops the annual rent.” Some documents indicate that Vasari painted the large canvas for the palco of the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio in the workshop of his house.” Vasari’s Florentine home, referred in the documents as “casa a schiera” was originally built during the late Middle Ages, with a fagade of 7 meters of length and 14 meters of depth. Information about the structure of the house when Vasari resided in it derives from the contents listed in his last will.” The two-story house consists of a first floor with a room facing the street (“camera terrena sulla via”) a Medieval loggia (“loggia terrena”) (presently covered up by walls), and a room facing the garden (“camera sull’orto”) (presently rented to a publishing company). The basement contains an extended area, including the painter's workshop and a laundry section. During the seventeen and eighteen centuries, numerous poorly recorded transformations occurred. In 1842, the Morrocchi family acquires the home, making numerous transformations: the addition of an internal staircase, the expansion of the Cinquecento fagade, and the addition of another floor. Today, Vasari’s Florentine home is still in existence at 8 Borgo Santa Croce (Borgo dei Greci). Unlike the Casa Vasari of Arezzo transformed into a museum and belonging to the Aretine cultural state since 1911, the Vasari’s Florentine home is less fortunate—it is still privately owned and the decorations of the Sala Vasari are in need of further restoration. The records for the description of the scenes in the Sala Vasari in Florence originate with Francesco Bocchi, Le Bellezze della Citta di Firenze (1587), which describes some of the images depicted in the chamber.image not availableimage not availableimage not available30 CHAPTER TWO personifications depicting the Arts: Architecture, Poetry, Painting and Sculpture. The five personifications depicted on the ceiling are all dressed as females in attires of the sixteenth century. With the exception of Sculpture who stands, all are seated. A feeling of suspense and concentration is created by the disposition of the figures. For example, the foreshortened figure of Fame vigorously blows her trumpet (Fig. 9). The figure of Sculpture is portrayed at the moment of hitting a chisel with a hammer (Fig. 10). In the marble block, only the head of a statue of a man has yet been carved out. Architecture, seated at her drafting table, is working with her compasses on an architectural plan (Fig. 11). Her head is turned the right, as if to observe an edifice she is copying or viewing for inspiration. An artist painting the portrait of a man on a canvas personifies Painting (Fig. 12). The only winged figure is that of Poetry, whose head is crowned with laurel (Fig. 13). She is deeply involved in her reading and holds a quill in her right hand. Like the figure of Fame, she is barefoot. These Fine Arts are enclosed within a pentagonal structure. Framing each personification are two lunettes, each containing an ovato (Fig. 8). On the east wall, the figure personifying Sculpture is situated between a lunette on the right and on the left, the latter containing an ovato with Vasari’s self- portrait (compare Figs. 14 and 15). On the south wall, the personification of Architecture is between a lunette on the right containing a portrait of Luca Signorelli” and a lunette on the left containing a portrait of Spinello Aretino. On the west wall, the personification of Poetry is flanked on the right by a lunette with a portrait of Bartolomeo della Gata,” and on the left by a round arched window. On the north wall, the figure representing Painting is framed on the left by an ovato containing a portrait of Michelangelo,” and on the right, an ovato with a portrait of Andrea del Sarto." Above the window is a small lunette painted in fresco. This shows a winged putto holding an escutcheon; at the top of the escutcheon are two dragonheads, painted on a blue background, and at the bottom are criss- crossed gold and red bands.” This is Vasari’s coat-of-arms (Cover Image). In the Chamber of Fame, Vasari paints the portraits of artists after the personifications. He does not depict portraits of leading artists in the ovati, as he originally intended, instead he portrays those artists who lived or worked in Arezzo at sometime during their lives (Bartolomeo della Gatta, Spinello Aretino and Vasari himself); who taught the arts to Vasari (Michelangelo and Andrea del Sarto); and who are related to him by blood (Lazzaro Vasari and Luca Signorelli). The portraits in the ovati are bust-length representations,image not availableimage not availableimage not available34 CHAPTER TWO up of two parts: first, painted beams running horizontally and vertically across the ceiling, and which are filled with grotesque and boss motifs; second, a series of receding moldings that framing the recessed paintings or caissons. These moldings bear bead, cable, and ovule motifs. In addition, the wooden framework of this ceiling is united with the walls of the room by means of a decorated frieze, which consists of a wooden corbel alternating with painted mask and shield motifs. This ceiling proves very complex in its geometrical structure (Figs. 32 and 33). Its center (palco, Fig. 35) is octagonal and both the wooden frame and the painted scene, (the latter showing personifications of Envy, Fortune, and Virtue) project from the ceiling. Envy is portrayed as an aged female: she is nude, with large and ugly breasts, and is seen in the act of falling. Two serpents enwrap her body. Fortune, in the center, holds fast to a blowing sail. Although she is otherwise clothed, her breasts are bare. The winged figure of Virtue pulls at her long hair. Virtue contrives to kick Envy into an abyss, at the same time beating both her and Fortune with a club. Virtue is crowned with laurel; her breasts, too, are revealed. Around this trio of personifications are arrayed the four ages of man or life or the four seasons; these hold various garlands with fruits and vegetable motifs are seen into a wooden frame (Fig. 32). The first age of man, Childhood or Spring, is represented by a seated youthful nude who embraces a garland filled with spring flowers. A nude young man who, though seated, amply conveys an impression of alertness and energy depicts summer or Youth. He embraces a many-fruited festoon. Adulthood or Fall is depicted by a mature male nude who is embracing a grape garland. Seated, he inclines his head to the right, as if anticipating, the Old Age of Winter. An aged male nude who is surrounded by a garland of radishes and onions portrays this last season or age of man. This old man is pensive—an attitude conveyed by his grasping of his long white beard.” These four “L” shaped fields are encircled by eight rectangles containing paintings of the celestial deities; their attributes and zodiacal signs are depicted (Fig. 32). These full-length figures, male and female, are seated in shallow rectangular spaces. These planetary figures stylistically recall the reclining personification of the Chamber of Abraham. These planetary figures recede into the wooden frame much as the four ages of man or seasons do. On the north wall Diana and Apollo are portrayed. Diana, a clothed female figure, holds a moon; a Crab symbolizes the zodiacal sign of Cancer. Apollo, a semi-nude young boy, is crowned with laurel and holds a lira. His respective zodiacal sign is Leo, the lion.image not availableimage not availableimage not available38 CHAPTER TWO. The south wall is quite interesting, in that it combines architecture, sculpture, and painting (Figs. 28 and 29). In the lower part of this wall is a fireplace framed between two doors. Between the posts of the doors and on each side of the fireplace are painted two herms in profile, as already seen in the lower section of the north wall. A long vertical console parallels the rectilinear molding of the fireplace (cavetto). The mantle contains a broken frieze of four triglyphs alternating with three metopes. The center metope bears the carved coat-of-arms of the Pia Fraternita (a post-Vasarian addition). The other two metopes each contain an inscription or memento mori: “Ignem Gladio Ne Fodito”(Tho shalt not poke fire with a sword) and “Homo Vapor Est” (“Man is smoke”). And on each side of the mantle frieze a mask completes the molding decoration. Above the mantle is an actual limestone sculpture of Aphrodite standing on a scalloped shell (Fig. 28). The treatment of her body, contrapposto stance and classical head recalls a Praxitelian Aphrodite. Drapery massed behind her nude body supports the physical weight of the statue. Two stylized dolphins resembling large scrolls are placed horizontally on either side of the scalloped shell. The painted theatrical curtain behind her dramatizes the statue of Aphrodite, as a backdrop to the statue is a large landscape depicting a winter scene of a city burning. To the left of Aphrodite and above the door communicating with the Chamber of Abraham is the personification of Honor (Honore). As mentioned earlier, this figure has suffered such temendous change that its attributes cannot even be made out clearly. Honor’s right hand holds a torch, his left a laurel wreath. Also, his head is crowned with laurel. A basket of fruits or plants (now so faded as to be almost indistinguishable) is placed next to Honor. To the right of Aphrodite and above the door to the Corridor of Ceres sits the figure of Felicity (Felicita Publica or Bonus Eventus). Her right hand holds a cornucopia, her left a caduceus. In front, a wooden wheel is partially covered by her garment. Strong similarities of design exist between the north and south walls of the Chamber of Fortune. The differences involve simulated versus actual structures. For example, the painted statue of Artemis of Ephesus on the north wall is paralleled in the south wall by the limestone sculpture of Aphrodite. And, in the north wall, the painted architectural structure encasing the quadro riportato Helen has been substituted, in the south wall, by the actual architectural structure of the fireplace. Another noticeable contrast is in the landscape scenes: the north wall shows a scene in autumn daylight, the opposite wall is a night scene in winter.image not availableimage not availableimage not availableimage not availableimage not availableimage not availableimage not available46 CHAPTER TWO Twenty years earlier, in his home at Arezzo, in the Chamber of Fortune, Vasari portrays a similar story but from the point of reference of another ancient painter, Zeuxis. However, Artemis or Diana, the Goddess of Nature, is evidently portrayed as a statuesque image standing in front of a landscape scene, revealing the season of Spring. Not by accident, in his Florentine home, Vasari places the night scene opposite to the wall of the fireplace, indicating the different types of illuminations employed by a painter, a natural source of light contrasting with a painted source of burning light, such as oil burners, candles and torches. On the west wall, an exterior scene is portrayed. In the loggia of the painter’s atelier, a landscape, representing the season of Spring contains brooks, trees, foliages, flying birds, and numerous depictions of mills, roads and bridges. Inside the loggia, visitors or friends of the artist have come to view the painting of Diana as a Huntress, unlike the previous version where Diana is depicted as a Goddess of Nature or Lunar Goddess. One invited visitor is commenting on the shoes of Diana, while the painter hides behind the painting to hear his comments. The drawn curtain in this instance is to conceal the presence of the artist. As in the Chamber of Fame, the Sala Vasari contains portraits of artists, including early Florentine artists eulogized in the Vite. The display of these visual renderings follow the format of the book, for example, the first generation is represented with the portraits of Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio, in the north wall, facing Donatello and Brunelleschi, on the south wall. The second generation as well a mentors and teachers of Vasari, with the portraits Andrea del Sarto, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, on the east wall, facing the third generation of painters, such as Perino del Vaga, Giulio Romano, Rosso Fiorentino, and fellow artist Francesco Salviati, on the west wall. These portraits are depicted in an escutcheon format located in a decorative frieze above the niches and narrative stories, not in ovati, and below the personification of the Arts as in the Chamber of Fame. Vasari reminds the viewer to recall the masters of ancient and Renaissance art, in particular the painters of the Cinquecento, who immortalized the ancient painters and indirectly revealed themselves as greater masters, as in the case of Apelles and Raphael. Notes See Cheney, The Paintings of the Casa Vasari, passim. For recent studies, see Alessandro Cecchi, La case del Vasari a Firenze,” in Corti, ed., Giorgio Vasari: Principe, letterati e artisti nelle Carte di Giorgio Vasari, pp. 37-43; A. Paolucci ang A.image not availableimage not availableimage not available50 CHAPTER TWO See Frey, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, Il, Ricordo 273, p. 876: Ricordo come questo anno (1561) non sebbe a pagare nella pigione della casa: che prima si pagava scudi sessanta, et del podere di Montici scudi trenata: che queste crebbe in augumento della provision, che sono scudi novanta. “La pittura de XXI quadri andro dandogly fine per forza, che o pieno et la casa e Santa Croce. Et perche sono sconci a manegiare, vedro di darli fine per potergli metere nel palco, perche patirann di meno; et sgonbrererd le stanze per dar principio a 18 che restano. (The 21 pictures will need completion; my area is full and the house at Santa Croce. And because these [pictures] are difficult to manage, I will try to complete them and place them in the palco, so that they will suffer less damaged; and I will free up space in the rooms so that I can begin painting the remaining 18 pictures).” See Frey Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris Il, p. 885. See Cecchi, “Le case Vasari in Arezzo e Firenze,” pp. 58-59, and P. Jacks, The Vasari and Spinelli Families: Provenance of an Archive (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 5-9. M. Giovanni Cinelli, ed. Francesco Bocchi’s Le bellezze della citta di Firenze, 1587 (Florence: Giovanni Gugliantini, 1677), pp. 305-37. Cinelli’s edition includes additional observations. In 2004, Arnaldo Forni published a new reprint of Cinelli’s edition. See E. Fantorri, Nuova guida ovvero descrizione storico artistico critira della citta e contorni di Firenze (Florence: Gonelli, 1842), p. 277, n. 36. [Nella] casa del Cavalier Vasari sono ancora molte pitture: la sala dipinta a fresco da Giorgio, nella quale tutta la Storia d’ Apelle si rappresenta: nella prima parete a mano manca, & quando impara a disegnare dalla propria ombra volgendo la schiena al lume; Nell’ altra, a man destra ov! e Tesposizione al pubblico di sua opera, quando origliando Apelle, il Calzolaio la scarpa gli censura; nella terza vi @ l'introduzione alla stanza del disegno, ove la mediatrice le donne pid belle per star al naturale conduce, e nell’ altra parte quando scegliendo da ciascuna la parte pid bella, forma leffigie di Diana; nel fregio son dipinti tutti i pittori suci contemporanei.” See Alessandro Cecchi, “La case del Vasari a Firenze,” in Corti, ed., Giorgio Vasari: Principe, letterati e artisti nelle Carte di Giorgio Vasari, pp. 37-43 and Alessandro Cecchi, *Le case del Vasari ad Arezzo e Firenze,” in Ciardi, Case di Ariisti in Toscana, p. 59, for a discussion of the program based on the depictions of Apelles and Zeuxis. Although, I agree with the depictions of the narrative stories associated with Apelles, I think that the first image in the right side of the east wall is Apelles painting Diana with models entering Apelles’ studio to be selected for the image. However, | disagree with the interpretation of the image of Zeuxis painting Juno by selecting the most beautiful women from Agrigento, because I identify the “bird” at the feet of the image as a swan, Diana's sacred bird, and not a peacock. See Bombe, “Giorgio Vasaris Hauser in Florenz und Arezzo,” pp. 55-59; Cheney, The Paintings of the Casa Vasari, pp. 184-86 and 197-99; Jacobs, “Vasari’s Vision of the History of Painting: Frescoes in the Casa Vasari, Florence,” pp. 399-16; Cecchi, "Le case el Vasari ad Arezzo e Firenze, pp. 29-77; and Michiaki Koshikawa, “Apelles’s Stories and the Paragone Debate: A Re—Reading of the Frescoes in the Casa Vasari in Florence,” Artibus et Historiae (2001), pp. 17-25. See Vasari-Milanesi, VII, pp. 667-68: “E per potere cio fare scarico d’ogni molesto pensiero, prima maritai la mia terza sorella, e comperai una casa principiata in Arezzo, con un sito da fare orti bellissimi nel borgo di San Vito, nella miglior aria di quella citta. D’ottobre adunque, I'anno 1540, cominciai la tavola di Messer Bindo che dimostrasse la Concezione di Nostra Donna ” A document dated September 7, 1541 describes the transaction for the bill of sale of the house. See Appendix B (document from the Archivio di Stato Notarile Antecosimiano, Firenze, C655~per Guasparri Comelli, Atti del 1541 al 1542-cc. 99 verso -100 verso).image not availableimage not availableimage not available54 CHAPTER TWO. per colorillo a olio dove sono quattro anguli dentro vi i quattro tempi o le quattro eta e atorno otto quadri a tempera con Giove, Saturno, Marte, Mercurio, Venere, Cupido, et il Sole et la Luna et quatiro quadri dove sono putti dentro et in uno ottangulo nel mezzo a olio dove la Virtu et la Fortuna et I'Invidia che combattano insieme.” See also del Vita (Le Ricordanze di Giorgio Vasari, p. 61, letter 70: “Ricordo come a di 30 (1548) Io ticordo che finimmo la sala di casa mia di dipignierla in fresco et si comincio il palco della sala di sopra dove sono a olio gli dodici segni in quadri larghi Iuno duo braccia per ogni verso” See Cheney, ‘Giorgio Vasari’s Ages of Life,” pp. 25-35. See Barocchi, Mostra di disegni del Vasari e della sua cerchia, p. 57, Figure 32. See Vasari-Milanesi, VIL, p. 671. See Vasari—Milanesi, VII, p. 695: “I’anno 1553 fui forzato a rimanere a Roma, non potendogli mancare a fare a messer Bindo Altoviti due loggie grandissime di stucchi ed a fresco: una delle quali dipinsi alla sua vigna con nuova architettura. . . e l’altra, nel terreno della sua casa in Ponte, piena di storie a fresco.” See Barocchi, “Il Vasari Pittore,” pp. 199-200, n. 3, and Barocchi, Mostra di disegni del Vasari e della sua cerchia, pp. 25-26, Uffizi drawing, N955E. This painting is now in the Palazzo Venezia, Rome. See del Vita, Lo Zibaldone di Giorgio Vasari, pp. 308-9, letter of Vasari to Bemadetto Minerbetti 4.17: “Non prima arrivato, Nostro Signore (Pope Giulio III) mi messe a disegnare storie e far cartoni per la Vigna, e doppo che aro finito e Cerere col carro de” serpenti, carico di biade, le femmine e i putti, et i sacerdoti suoi che gli porgono le primizie e sacrificano gl’incensi del frumento.” See also Barocchi, Mostra di disegni del Vasari e della sua cerchia, pp, 24-25, Figure 10, for the description and comission of the drawings at the Uffizi N651F and N290SF, and at the Louvre 2192 and 2192bis. See del Vita (Lo Zibaldone di Giorgio Vasari, p. 309); Frey, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris. 1, p. 350 and see Barocchi, Mostra di disegni del Vasari e della sua cerchia, p. 306, citing Caro’s comment: “Cerere in habito di matrona in un carro tirato da serpi, coronati di spighe e di papaveri e con un manipolo in mano delle medesime cose: intorno sacerdoti e donne vestite di bianco che gli offerischino latte, vino e miele,” ... “donne con lampade accese e fiaccole, che cerchino Prosperpina.” Some paintings have been saved and are now installed in Palazzo Venezia. See also C. Avery, “Benvenuto Cellini’s bronze Portrait of Bindo Altovito,” Connoisseur (1978), pp. 71-72, and Monica Grasso, “Le storie di Cerere e il ciclo dei mesi,” in Maria S. Sconei, ed. La volta vasariana di Palazzo Venezia restaurata (Rome: Retable Cultura, 2003), pp. 47-63. See Huntley, “Portraits by Vasari,” p. 35. Vasari’s assistant, Jacopo Zucchi, retouched some of the personifications during the early 1570. See Cecchi, "Le case de! Vasari ad Arezzo ¢ Firenze,” p. 31. See Gaio Plinio Secondo, Storia Naturale, V (Libri 33-37) translation and comments by A. Corso, et.al (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1988), p. 391, note 93-1, and p. 395, note 96. See G. de Tervarent, Attributs et Symboles dans L’Art Profane (Geneva: Droz, 1997), p. 172, and Hans Bidermann, Dictorionary of Symbolism (New York: Meridian Books, 1989), p. 333. See Patricia Rubin, Giorgio Vasari: Art and History, pp. 21-59.image not available56 CHAPTER THREE, wall decoration is not only the rarest but also the most complex, for there is a spatial continuum between wall and ceiling: the viewer is totally immersed in and surrounded by an imaginary painted world. An obvious example of this type is Giulio’s Salone dei Giganti in the Palazzo del Te. The second type of wall decoration fuses the wall and ceiling also, but creates spatial relations through the use of grotesque motifs rather than perspectival techniques. Characteristically, small niches containing painted statues are surrounded by all’antica ornamentations, ¢.g., Perino del Vaga’s Loggietta and Stuffetta of Cardinal Bibbiena at the Vatican and the Hall of Apollo in the Castel S. Angelo. The third type of wall decoration is identified by its separation of the illusionistic systems of wall and ceiling. While the wall shows a continuous narrative throughout, the pictorial scene is filled with Latin inscriptions, cappricci, and grotesque motifs, e.g., Stanza della Segnatura and Stanza dell’Incendio at the Vatican, Sala delle Nozze in the Farnesina, Sala dell’Udienza in the Palazzo Vecchio, and the Loggie degli Eroi in the Palazzo Doria. At times, the wall is treated as a tapestry, e.g., Sala di Constantino. The last type of wall decoration presents the narrative in the wall as a quadro riportato. The scene is separated by painted architecture and sculpture. Also, there is no continuous painted space joining the wall and the ceiling, e.g., Sala della Prospettiva in the Villa Farnesina, Sala Paolina in Castel S. Angelo, Sala dei Cento Giorni in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, Sala di Cesare at Poggio Caiano, and the decorative cycles in the Villa Imperiale at Pesaro. Another variation within the wall decoration establishes a further subdivision, this one involving the treatment of the dado (zoccolo or basemento) of the wall. Some walls lack this section, e.g., Sala della Prespettiva. The walls that do have the dado motif vary in type: some have geometric designs, e.g., Sala dei Pontefici, Loggietta and Stuffetta of the Cardinal Bibbiena, while others place simulated statues between herms, e.g., Stanza dell’Incendio. The majority of the walls show a dado containing small narrative plaques, flanked by herms or terms with garland motifs, e.g. Stanza della Segnatura, Sala de Constantino and Sala dell’ Udienza. From the period of the High Renaissance through the middle of the Cinquencento, two major styles of secular ceiling decorations are depicted in Central and Northern Italy. The first style of secular ceiling decoration has yault decoration, and strives for the creation of an illusionistic space or extension of space into the ceiling. In addition, it reveals two variations. In the first variation, the design is in the vault ceiling, containing a geometricCHAPTER THREE 57 pattern of interlocking compartments, as in coffered ceilings, lacking figurative representations. This variation which is based on ancient Roman vault decorations, e.g., Arch of Titus, Basilica of Maxentius, is popular in Central Italy, e.g., Pinturicchio’s Sala delle Sibile of the Appartamento Borgia in the Vatican Palace, and Antonio San Gallo the Younger’s vestibule in the Palazzo Farnese. The second variation of the first secular vaulting decoration substitutes figurative images or history paintings for the geometric patterning in the coffered ceiling, e.g., Sodoma’s and Raphael’s frescoed vault in the Stanza della Segnatura. In this variation, the perspectival illusion is original and significant. Central Italy yields many examples of this type of vaulting decoration, for the Raphael circle and its school had made it popular throughout Italy. This second style of ceiling decorations has three mutations. In the first mutation, the ceiling decoration is completely covered by grotesque motifs in the manner of the Domus Aurea, e.g., Giovanni da Udine’s ground floor in Palazzo Baldassini and Luzio Luzzi da Todi’s Sala di Apollo in Castel S. Angelo, both in Rome. In the second mutation, the ceiling decoration extends down to the upper portion of the wall through a series of lunettes, spandrels and friezes. This second mutation also reveals grotesque motifs and stucco ornamentation with small history panels, e.g., Vatican Loggie, Villa Madama, and many minor rooms in the Palazzo del Te. The third and final mutation has the ceiling decoration with its continuous narrative filled with all types of ornamentation, .g., in Central Italy mostly in Rome (the Sistine Ceiling, Perino’s Sala dei Pontefici, and most of the rooms in the Villa Farnesina, Sala di Galatea and Loggia de Psiche), and in the North of Italy in Mantua (Giulio’s Sala di Psiche in the Palazzo del Te, Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi) in Genoa (Perino’s Palazzo Doria) and in Parma (Correggio’s Camera di San Paolo and Parmigianino’s boudoir of Paola Gonzaga). In the second style of ceiling decoration, the ornamentation is applied to a flat surface, usually of wood or stucco, and so structured as to create— instead of the illusion of space—a rhythm, which continues throughout the composition. While this style is found in Central Italy, it is much more common in the North of Italy, particularly Venice. There are two variations of this design in flat ceiling decoration. In the first variation, the flat wooden beams intersect to create compartments. These compartments are recessed and contain modified geometric patterns and lack figurative subjects (Palazzo Farnese, Palazzo Spada and Palazzo Massimo in Rome; Sebastiano Serlio’s Sala della Libreria of the Palazzo Ducale in Venice). In the second variation, histories or figurative images are within these compartments. It is established first in ecclesiastical rather than in secular buildings. This second58 (CHAPTER THREE variation is developed in Northern Italy particularly in religious ceilings (Pordenone’s ceiling of Stanza Terrena in the Scuola di San Francesco and Pannacchi’s ceiling in the church of S. Maria dei Miracoli, both in Venice). In 1541, Vasari encounters this Northern tradition on his trip to Venice. He is, in fact, the first artist to apply this type of ecclesiastical ceiling decoration to a secular building, the Cornaro Palace in Venice. Later in 1560, Vasari fuses the Central Italian and Venetian traditions in such decorative commissions of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Venice Vasari arrives in Venice in December 1541. By February 1542, he has completed the decorations for the apparato.’ Titian and Sansovino are known to have admired them. Unfortunately, only a few drawings and one engraving of the apparato decorations survive. The Amsterdam drawing (Rijksmuseum, N 1958:42) reveals Adria as a symbol of Venice. She is in the center of the main scene surrounded by four marine deities: Glaucus, Nereus, Thetis and Galatea. On each side, a flanking herm and niche frames the scene. The niches contain two personifications: Fame on the left, Wisdom (Pallas Athena) on the right.” The Berlin drawing (Ehem. Staatliche Museen, N 15260) depicts three seated sea deities or personifications of rivers: Tagliamento, who spouts water from his mouth, Livenza, who holds a cornucopia, and Timavo, who is resting his hand on a Greek vase.'° The third drawing relating to the apparato is in the Louvre (Louvre, N 2168).'' In this drawing, Adria is surrounded by the three sea gods: Thetis, Nereus and Glaucus. Resemblances to the Amsterdam drawing in composition and figure positioning are so strong that one wonders if Vasari, rather than Gherardi, may have executed the Louvre drawing. Vasari describes this drawing in the Vita of Gherardi and attributes a portion of it to that artist, but not the design of the allegorical figure of Adria. Vasari recounts, “In the picture of Adria, Gherardi depicted marine monsters with such a virtuosity and beauty that it stupefied those who admired them.”"? The design of Adria is indicative of Vasari’s careful study of Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling. Vasari’s sculptural and masculine treatment of the body of Adria as well as her outstretched arm, are similar to Michelangelo’s Eve in the Temptation scene. Although the seated position of Adria is somewhat different from Eve, Vasari’s stylistic dependence on the stance of Michelangelo’s figure is remarkable. Vasari applies the design of Adria in another Venetian commission, the personification of Faith in theimage not availableimage not availableimage not available62 CHAPTER THREE From April 14 until July 30, 1545, Vasari is employed in decorating a small loggia for Pietro de Toledo, Viceroy of Naples. In his Ricordanze, Vasari describes the commission. 1 remember how on April 14, 1545 Don Pietro Toledo, Viceroy of Naples, asked me to do for him, by the religious order and letters of Ottaviano de’ Medici (who was with his illustrious son-in-law from Florence, Duke Cosimo 1), a loggia of worked plaster with figures, ornaments, grotesques, foliage, and colorful of stories worked out in fresco, these for whatever price it would cost to put the work up, and that this would cause us to go from Naples ten miles to Pozzuolo by the sea. We decided that Don Pietro should give us rooms, beds and provisions for the period of time it would take.” Paola Barocchi identifies one of Vasari’s drawings in the Uffizi (N 1618E) as a projection for a decorative cycle for the small loggia in the villa at Pozzuolo of Pietro de Toledo.” The central part of this drawing schematically relates to Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling and decoratively to the Vatican Loggie. Its lower part reflects the Bramantesque architectural thythm of the bay decoration for a wall: two niches form a square bay, each containing an allegorical figure or personification, and the side of each rectangle has a niche containing a faun. The lower section of this drawing shows a further stylistic development from the apparato for La Talanta.” The composition—that of an isolated allegorical figure placed within a niche—reveals Vasari’s familiarity with Marcantonio Raimondi’s engravings of Roman sarcophagi. Pietro de Toledo also requests that Vasari decorate two other large loggie. Because of local political intrigues, however, these never materialized.” Walter Vitzthum attributes six drawings in the Janos Scholz collection to Vasari.”° Stylistically, these are closely related to the Uffizi drawing. The six drawings may be further studies for the small loggia of the villa at Pozzuolo or plans for the large loggie in Naples. Vasari never completes either of these commissions. It is interesting to observe that the small drawings identified as the allegorical figures—Aqua, Mercury, Aries, Luna and Sol—likely studies for an area similar to the squares in the central zone of the Uffizi drawing?” On August 10, 1545, after finishing the small loggia for Pietro de Toledo, Vasari begins to work for Tommaso Cambi, a Florentine merchant in resident of Naples. In the Vite, Vasari claims too have painted four walls of a chamber in the house of his close friend, Tommaso Cambi that represent “Time and Seasons, and Sleep on a terrace, where I made a fountain.””* Although these paintings no longer exist, there is a drawing by Vasari (N 2076) for a ceiling that is very close stylistically to the Uffizi drawing (Nimage not availableimage not availableimage not available66 CHAPTER THREE personifications and mythological subjects—quite unlike the ceiling of the Roman room, which is decorated with coffers. The ceiling decoration of the Casa Vasari’s Chamber of Fortune illustrates how easily Vasari is able to incorporate elements of the Venetian tradition into a Central Italian style of ceiling decoration. In contrast with the Sala dei Cento Giorni, the Chamber of Fortune represents Vasari’s decorative formula not only in the walls, but in the ceiling as well. Here, the formula becomes simplified and internalized. One of the components of the formula—the quadro riportato depicting an istoria—is seen on both ceiling and wall. Moreover, the upper and lower zones of the walls show two different types of istoria. The istoria of the former shows a landscape scene: the latter, depictions of classical stories. The other elements of the formula include the framing of the quadro riportato with personifications symbolizing aesthetic and moral values, and the all’antica and grotesque motifs ornamenting the walls and ceiling. Vasari draws for his artistic motifs from his predecessors’ decorative cycles, depicting them in the Chamber of Fortune as an individual, personal artistic conceit. In the Sala Vasari in Florence, Vasari magically fuses the wall decorations of the guadro riportato formula with the Roman ceiling decoration of painted coffers. Further, his decorative virtuosity is revealed when he accentuates the istorie in the quadri riportati as freestanding pictures by the insertions of caryatids and perforated escutcheons containing artists’ portraits and niches with personifications of Liberal Arts, thus creating the illusion of an art gallery or museum. The Chamber of Apollo is an instance of the second type of vault ceiling, as already seen in the Chamber of Fame. In both these rooms, Vasari designs a new type of vault structure called terto a vela, or tent ceiling structure. This vault system reflects Vasari’s desire to apply his knowledge of religious architecture to a secular building—in this case, his own home. In the Chamber of Apollo and in the Chamber of Fame only some elements of the Vasarian decorative formula are employed. One is the use of an istoria illustrated by the painted Muses and Apollo. The second element is the assignment of a specific symbolic meaning to the painted figures, as noted, again, in the portrayal of the Muses and Apollo. In summary, Vasari’s assimilation and application of Cinquecento designs of ceiling and wall decoration is classified as follows. The Chambers of Fame and Apollo are representative of the second type of vault ceiling decoration. The Chamber of Abraham is a quotation from Venetian ceiling decoration. The Chamber of Fortune and the Sala Vasari reflects Vasari’simage not availableimage not availableimage not availableCHAPTER FOUR Vasari’s Early Decorative Cycles and His Homes This chapter examines the stylistic sources for the paintings of the Casa Vasari and Sala Vasari with those of Vasari’s other secular commissions, which have a direct stylistic impact on his work for the homes. Throughout this chapter Vasari’s commissions are variously classified as Venetian, Neapolitan or Roman. These are Vasari’s early decorative cycles. Venetian Commissions and The Chamber of Abraham As observed earlier, the beginning of the Vasarian formula is established in the apparato for La Talanta. It is difficult, however, to assess the stylistic sources for the apparato because only a few drawings for its program are presently available.’ Of Vasari’s Venetian commissions, only the Cornaro Palace can be adequately considered. This commission clearly illustrates Vasari’s stylistic dependencies on the initial development of his formula for decorative cycle. This early version of the formula finds application in the paintings of the Casa Vasari, as will be demonstrated in the discussion of both the Chamber of Abraham (the house’s second painted ceiling) and the east wall of the Chamber of Fortune (its third painted room). Vasari’s ceiling decoration in the Cornaro Palace includes motifs borrowed from Michelangelo. He has studied and sketched Michelangelo’s sculpture in the Medici Chapel, learning how to represent semi-reclining personifications, as in the ceiling of the Chamber of Abraham.” The reclining figure motif is also seen in the Chambers of Abraham and Fortune of the Casa Vasari (Figs. 16 and 32). In addition, Vasari repeats the compositional motif of Justice and Patience, previously seen in the ceiling of the Cornaro Palace and on the east wall of the Chamber of Fortune. While many details are eliminated in the Aretine wall, such as a group of figures and landscape, the design is the same. The main theme portrayed in the center of the ceiling in the Chamber of Abraham, is that of God the Father blessing the child of Abraham. The suspended figure of God the Father is another motif borrowed from Michelangelo, specifically that of God the Father of The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Planets in the Sistine Ceiling. Other stylistic sources for the motif are portrayed in the many suspended figures depicted in the narrativeimage not availableimage not availableimage not availableCHAPTER FOUR, We) well in understanding the style of the Chamber of Fortune in the Casa Vasari, which is painted after the frescoes in the Sala dei Cento Giorni. In the Sala dei Cento Giorni, Vasari reveals the influence of Roman Mannerism as he is guided by the decorative cycles painted by Raphael’s assistants Giulio Romano and Perino del Vaga. Vasari borrows various compositional devices from Giulio Romano. The decorative framework of the composition in the walls of the Sala dei Cento Giorni, the concept of portraiture, the use of allegorical figures, the written Latin inscriptions on the base of the columns and steps, and the all’antica decorations—all are stylistic elements derived from the Sala di Constantino executed by Giulio Romano and assistants between 1521 and 1524.” The illusion of space in Giulio’s paintings for the Sala di Constantino is created in the manner of a tapestry (as seen later in the cycle decorations of the Villa Farnesina and the Palazzo del Te). Here, Giulio avoids the use of a middle ground in his depiction of space. Though influenced by Giulio’s handling of space, Vasari elaborates on the spatial relationships within the foreground and middleground—unlike Giulio—thus creating visualization for his narrative. The step and column motifs in the Baptism of Constantine and Donation of Rome are adopted and elaborated on by Vasari in the scene of the Creation of Cardinals. The framing of a scene by a niche motif, a device Giulio employs in the Sala di Constantino—where a niche contains an enthroned Pope surrounded by associated virtues—is also used, but more simply by Vasari. The niches in the Sala dei Cento Giorni are tabernacles containing figures personifying varioous types of virtues. Many of these personifications standing in the tabernacles or framing coat-of-arms are repeated conceits for the personifications in the Refectory of Monteoliveto, e.g., Charity, Justice, Liberality, Fortitude and Wisdom. The ornamentation of textures, busts, ewers, helmets, trophies and insignia seen in the Sala dei Cento Giorni is evidence of Vasari’s brief experience as a goldsmith in Florence and Pisa.'* In addition, Vasari’s contact with Mantegna’s and Giulio’s paintings inspired his use of dense antique details, while his pomposity for ornamentation relates to the later style of Raphael. The gesticulating figures in the scenes of the Stanza dell’Incendio and in Raphael's cartoons (Saint Paul Preaching and the Healing of the Cripple) are also portrayed, although in a more fanciful, elaborate and extravagant manner, in the figures of the Sala dei Cento Giorni. In Sala dei Cento Giorni, the emphasis is on group portraits and contemporary portraits. In the Chamber of Fame of the Casa Vasari,image not availableimage not availableimage not availableCHAPTER FOUR 79 for other themes. In the Chamber of Fortune, however, he recognizes the landscape as a theme in itself (Figs. 24 and 30). This is especially true of the west wall, where Vasari treats the landscape as a quadro riportato or individual istoria. These sketchy landscape scenes are filled with classical and modern architecture together with imaginary buildings.” Fantasy and reality are combined. The landscapes are imbued with a mood, a season, and a time of day. This aspect is evident in the Sala Vasari, where Vasari contrasts the indoor view as a night scene and the outdoor panorama as a daytime scene. Unlike Polidoro’s works, where the figures interact in the landscape despite their minute dimensions, no figures exist in Vasari’s vedute. But Vasari does emulate Polidoro’s delight in depicting classical buildings in his landscape vedute. Vasari becomes aware of another manner of handling landscape scenes when he visits Giulio’s Palazzo del Te in Mantua in the early 1540s. In the Sala dei Cavalli of the Palazzo del Te, Giulio portrays the landscape scenes as backdrops for the portrait paintings of the Gonzaga horses. These vedute are depicted in a sketchy, free and unclassical manner. The landscape scenes have a touch of regionalism in their portrayal of a Mantuan type of vegetation. Giulio’s treatment of landscape scenes as backdrops differs from those of Polidoro and Vasari. The unclassical portrait or regional quality of Giulio’s vedute contrasts also with that of Polidoro and Vasari, who consider landscape as a classical and poetical representation. But Vasari assimilates from Giulio the free and sketchy handling of landscape scenes and the importance of including them in decorative cycles. In the Chamber of Fortune, the personifications of Virtues, and in the Sala Vasari, the personification of the Arts, are depicted in various positions and stances. In the Aretine room, some of the personifications are seated, as in Roman decorative cycles Sistine Ceiling, Stanza della Segnatura, Sala di Constantino and Sala Paolina. Others are reclining, as in the Sala della Prospettiva and, particularly, in the Cornaro Palace and the Chamber of Abraham.” Another group is standing as simulated sculpture, as in the Sala Paolina, Sala dei Cento Giorni, the Chamber of Fame and the Refectory of Monteoliveto.” Moreover, in the Chamber of Fortune, the personifications portrayed as Religion (Fig. 30), Earth (Fig. 26), Nature (Fig. 24) and Art (Fig. 28) are depicted as simulated statues (Charity, Abundance and Artemis of Ephesus—including the actual statue of Aphrodite)—and are framed by a fanciful theatrical curtain. The stylistic notion of framing a personification with a theatrical curtain derives from the school of Raphael. Cinquecento engravers such as Marcantonio Raimondi, Alberto Cherubini and Antonioimage not availableimage not availableimage not availableCHAPTER FOUR 83 god is seen in the background likewise riding through a zodiac band. Unfortunately, Vasari’s ceiling decoration for this corridor is unfinished. The oil painting and design are sketchy, making it very difficult to comment further on its stylistic merit. The Chamber of Apollo The Chamber of Apollo, a stylistic reflection of Raphael’s Parnassus in the Stanza della Segnatura, reflects Vasari’s familiarity with Raimondi’s and Fantuzzi’s engravings of the muses found in Roman sarcophagi.”” In the Chamber of Apollo, in contrast to the Raphael painting, Vasari separates Apollo from the muses. The treatment of the muses is in a decorative rather than an iconographical manner. Although nine of the muses are portrayed, their attributes are either unclearly depicted or not depicted at all, thus making the identification difficult. In the Chamber of Fame, the physiognomies of the muses are similar in their compositional arrangement with each scene, varying from profile to almost frontal. This compositional profile-frontal view motif illustrates Vasari’s affinity with Piero della Francesca’s paintings of the Legend of the True Cross in the Church of S. Francesco at Arezzo. Piero’s paintings depict two scenes from the journey of the Queen of Sheba display striking juxtapositions of profile and frontal view. Further stylistic influence for the dual type arrangement is found in Correggio’s paintings in the Camera di San Paolo, a work that Vasari saw on his trip to Venice in 1541, where there is a repetitive motif of two cupids interacting in a geometrically defined space. For Vasari, another influence is Raphael’s Sala di Psiche in the Villa Famesina, where a duo, trio motif of figures is repeated in the spandrels. The upper part of the wall decoration in the Sala dei Cento Giorni reveals Vasari’s treatment of ancient bust portraiture, with the lower part presenting contemporary portraits. This fusion of ancient with contemporary portraits is also found in the Chamber of Apollo, where Vasari, zealous to paint his new spouse, Nicolosa Bacci, portrays her as one of the muses in the trio group.** Cosina is surrounded by a group of Aretine women dressed in contemporary garb symbolizing a court of the muses or a queen’s court. Vasari’s idealization of his wife in this ceiling portrait is in striking contrast to her portrait in the Vasari’s Memorial Altarpiece (now in the Badia of Arezzo), where she seems less gentle but more sophisticated and gracious.”image not availableimage not available86 CHAPTER FOUR and 30; G. Becatti “Raphael and Antiquity.” The Complete Works of Raphael (New York: Reynald and Company, 1969), p. 527, n. 103; L. D. Ettlinger, “Diana von Ephesus.” Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschiclte (Stuttgart: Erg. Neuausg. 1954); and H. Tiersch, Artemis Ephesia (Berlin: G. Grote, 1935), p. 1, for other images of Artemis of Ephesus. See Vasari Milanesi, VII, p. 559 and G. Clovio, Farnese Hours (New York: George Braziller, 1976), See Tiersch, Artemis Ephesia, pp. | and 99, and M. Tanner, “Chance and Coincidence in Titian's Diana and Actaeon,” Art Bulletin (1974), p. 340, and Fantuzzi’s engraving of Artemis of Ephesus. Vasari prefers to borrow Polidoro’s motif of the Vatican Artemis of Ephesus in the Chamber of Fortune. For example, the Roman relief of the Frieze of the Borghese Dancers, now in the Louvre, and the Roman Aliar with Festoons in the Museo Chiaramonti of the Vatican. See Becatti, “Raphael and Antiquity.” Figures 86 and 99, respectively. In the second floor of the painted facade of the Milesi Palace (now destroyed), there were vases of the type seen on the east wall of the Chamber of Fortune. Alberto Cherubini did several engravings after these facade paintings. The vases or trophies flanked narrative scenes or military armors, see Marabottini, Polidoro da Caravaggio and Marabottini, Le case romane con facciate, graffite e dipinte. See Zerner, The School of Fontainebleau, Figure PM. Some of Polidoro’s frescoes for the salone of the Villa Lante are now in the Bibliotheca Hertziana. This particular one on Ceres is in the apartment of the Director of the Bibliotheca Hertiana. See Marabouini, Polidoro da Caravaggio, P1. XXV, Figure 1. 37 See Cheney, “Vasari’s Pictorial Musing on the Muses: The Chamber of Apollo of the Casa Vasari,” pp. 135-77 See Cheney, “Amore e baci: Giorgio Vasari's Poems to Nicolosa Bacci,” Italian Culture (Hamilton, Canada: The Symposium Press, Ltd., 1988), pp. 43-53, and Nicoletta Lepri and Antonio Palesati, Fuori dalla Corte (Arezo: Le Balze, 2003), pp. 13-16. Sce Vasari’s altarpiece was originally built for the Church of $. Maria delle Picve and later it was dismantled and reconstructed in the Badia of Arezzo. See Isermeyer, “Die Capella Vasaris und der Hochaltar in der Pieve von Arezzo,” in Festschrift fiir Carl Georg Heise (Berlin: G. Grote, 1950), pp. 137-53. The new documentation on the private life of Vasari indicates that his first love was Maddalena Bacci, older sister of Cosina Bacci. With Maddalena Vasari conceives two children, Alessandra and Anton Francesco. Although Vasari never married Maddalena, he honors their love by depicting her in his family altar and personifying her as Mary Magdalene. This factor explains why Vasari depicts a different physiognomy for the figure of Mary Magdalene in the family altar, and why the portrait of Cosina as Euterpe in the Chamber of Apollo at the Casa Vasari does not resemble the portrait of Mary Magdalene in the altar. See Lepri and Palesati, Fouri dalla Corte, pp. 13-14. a B cy 36CHAPTER FIVE The Iconography of the Homes of Vasari This chapter offers an interpretation of the meaning of the paintings in the Casa Vasari and Sala Vasari. Their symbolism is largely based on Vasari’s humanistic learning. His early classical education is significantly enhanced by his exposure to Cinquecento programs of decorative cycles. A consideration of the influence of these cycles sheds light on the conception and execution of the pictorial program of the Casa Vasari and Sala Vasari. This thematic examination of the program reveals both Vasari’s aims for achieving legitimacy as an artist and the degree to which he fulfilled his prophecy. Born in 1511 of an Aretine family, Vasari begins his humanistic education early. His training as a painter came only later. From the outset, his education is predominantly literary. In Arezzo, he studies Latin under Andrea da Saccone, and ancient history and literature with Giovanni Pollio Lappoli, known as Pollastra.! The year 1524 marks a milestone in Vasari’s education, for in that year, the Cardinal of Cortona, Silvio Passerini, tutor of Alessandro and Ippolito de’ Medici, visits Arezzo on his way to Florence. During this sojourn, Vasari attracts the Cardinal’s attention, not by any artistic ability, but by his attainments in humanistic studies, especially by a recitation of a Latin passage from the Aeneid. Favorably impressed, Passerini invites Vasari to the Florentine court, where he is tutored along with the children of the Medici family. Among his new tutors is the eminent classicist, Pierio Valeriano, who teaches Vasari the art of interpreting symbols and hieroglyphics, in particular, the art of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica (1505) and the anonymous Greek Anthology, and their relation to artistic and literary movements of the sixteenth century.” Vasari’s early association with the Medici children proves most beneficial throughout the rest of his life. In these early years, he also becomes associated with the most important contemporary religious and secular patrons of the time, Pietro Aretino of Arezzo and Venice, Pietro de Toldeo of Naples, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and Pope Paul III of Rome, and, of course, the Medici family of Florence. He also comes in contact with the major humanists of the time, including Paolo Giovio, Andrea Alciato, Annibale Caro, and later, Cosimo Bartoli and Vincenzo Borghini, this last the most important scholar of the Medici court. In addition to the teachings of Pollastra and Valeriano, a personal friendship with the emblematist88 CHAPTER FIVE Andrea Alciato greatly fosters his understanding of symbolic imagery.* His knowledge of emblemata derives from his education in the classics, as he recounts in his autobiography; from his contact with Andrea Alciato in Bologna in 1540, a time when Vasari is painting the Refectory of San Michele in Bosco; and from interactions with the humanists Vincenzo Borghini, Annibale Caro and Paolo Giovio, when he is painting in 1546, the Sala dei Cento Giorni in Rome. Vasari’s long acquaintance with Giovio and Caro, which lasts until the early 1550s, is invaluable to Vasari in that both scholars assist in the creation of many programs for Vasari’s imagery in his decorative cycles. Giovio’s concern for history and art has a significant impact on Vasari’s art, theory and writings. Through his association with the Farnese family in Rome during the early 1540s, Vasari acquires an interest in a biographical study of the biographies of artists.’ Cardinal Alessandro Farnese frequently entertains Giovio, Caro, Adriani, Tolomei and other humanists in his palace. Vasari sometimes attends these intellectual gatherings and participates in their discussions, which sometime are devoted to history and art. Vasari appropriates Giovio’s view of artistic problems in terms of progression and resolution. These artistic theories are indirectly connected with classical writings of Pliny’s Natural History and Vitruvius’ Architecture. In his eulogies on artists, for example, Giovio comments that modern painters such as Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo are not only equal to or surpass the ancient painters; they also solve all the artistic problems formulated by earlier generations of arti: s. This idea of equalization and improving on ancient painters is significant for Vasari’s artistic theory. He visualizes its impact in the organization of the Vite, as revealed in the Prefaces (Proemi).° This notion is relevant to some of the representations in the paintings of the Casa Vasari and, in particular, those of the walls of the Chamber of Fortune, and the Sala Vasari in Florence. Vasari’s acquisition of humanistic learning continued on to the end of his life, especially through his close friendship with the historian, Vincenzo Borghini. This humanist collaborates in and contributes to the most significant program for decorative cycles that Vasari paints, the chambers in the Palazzo Vecchio. Although not a professional literato, Vasari’s iconological program for his homes, Casa Vasari and Sala Vasari, clearly reveals his humanistic affinities. During the sixteenth century, artists consulted emblematic and mythological manuals as a source for their visual conceits. With a moral overtone, these manuals contain verbal and visual representations of virtues, vices, passions and temperaments, revealing as well a NeoplatonicCHAPTER FIVE 89 philosophy.’ The most important manuals then available are Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica (1505), Andraea Alciato’s Emblemata (1542 and 1546), Boccaccio’s Geneologia degli Dei (1547), Vincenzo Cartari’s Imagini delli Dei de gl’ Antichi (1547 and 1556);° Lilio Gregorio Giraldi’s De deis gentium (1548), Natale Conti’s Mythologiae (1567), Pierio Valeriano’s Hieroglyphica (1521 and1 1556), and Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo dell’Imprese Militari et Amorose (1556).’ These texts were compilations of “antique mythology, Egyptian pictorial writing arbitrarily interpreted, Biblical motives, and medieval Christian allegory with all sorts of recondite meanings being assigned to human expressions and actions, to the animals, plants, prescribed colors, and all objects natural and artificial which were their symbolic attributes.””"° These texts include ancient and Medieval mythographies, hieroglyphs and numismatic sources containing traditional moral overtones derived from ancient and Medieval philosophical treatises and served as manuals and recipe books for Cinquecento humanists and artists—a kind of figurative encyclopedia or “dictionary—album for easy consultation when time was lacking to read text and reference in their entirety.”'! Since these manuals were well known to sixteenth-century artists and literati, they freely borrowed or copied information directly from them without acknowledging the original source. In his writings and art, Vasari too, appropriates visual and moral concepts from these manuals. In attempting to elucidate the iconography of the paintings of the Casa Vasari and Sala Vasari, I relied on Alciato’s Emblemata, Cartari’s Imagini, Valeriano’s Hieroglyphica and Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia. The content in the manuals of Alciato and Cartari is integrated and elaborated in Ripa’s Iconologia of 1593, an edition without illustrations and the 1603 edition with illustrations.'* These are the best aids for understanding and interpreting the intentions and significance of Vasari’s symbolism. Alciato’s book is an emblem-book, while Cartari’s, Valeriano’s and Ripa’s are encyclopedias of pictorial and symbolic imageries.'? Vasari is aware of Alciato’s emblems through his personal friendship with him in Bologna. Alciato’s Emblemata is strongly influenced by the Greek Anthology." In 1494, Franciscus de Alopa publishes for the first time this book in Florence. In 1522, Alciato translates it into Latin. According to the scholarly writings of Peter Daly and Daniel Russell, the Greek Anthology is a series of epigrams or hieroglyphs with a moral message, composed by different poets concerned with Greek legend and history. Vasari assimilates these concepts through his studies of Alciato.90 CHAPTER FIVE Vasari’s knowledge of Valeriano’s writings develops during his training with the mythographer. His familiarity with another mythographer’s work, Cartari’s Jmagini, is in the course of his ciation with Annibale Caro, one of the most important literato of the Farnese court.'* Caro, in turn, considers Alciato and Cartari’s books to be iconographical manuals. In the Vite, Vasari praises Annibale Caro, poet and translator of classical literature and secretary to Cardinal Farnese, for his invenzioni “cappriciose, ingeniose e lodevoli molto.”"” Vasar manner of composing images for a program as a compendium of visual iconography is similar to Alciato’s and Cartari’s literary practices and obviously has been influenced by them. Almost 20 years after Vasari’s death, Ripa’s Iconologia is published 1593. This manual consists of a compilation of “antique mythology, Egyptian pictorial writing arbitrarily interpreted, Biblical motives, and medieval Christian allegory with all sorts of recondite meanings being assigned to human expressions and actions, to the animals, plants, prescribed colors, and all objects natural and artificial which were their symbolic attributes” commonly employed in Vasari’s time.'’ As a catalogue of representations of virtues, vices, passions and temperaments, it is both clear and comprehensive. Vasari’s visual assimilation of the Cinquencento mythographic manuals for his programs in the decorative cycles anticipates Ripa’s manual. Later, Ripa continues the Cinquecento’s visual and literary tradition in his Iconologia. For example, in his preface to the /conologia, Ripa comments on how important an influence Vasari’s work in the Sala dei Cento Giorni of 1546 in Rome is on his own literary and visual imagery, particularly for such allegorical figures as Merit. Moreover, Ripa discusses the importance of Vasari’s Ragionamenti, a manual explaining the paintings for the Palazzo Vecchio (1565) in Florence. However, Vasari’s Ragionamenti also reflect Borghini’s invenzioni for the decorative cycles of the Medici Palace. The sixteenth-century theorists hold that the merit of the iconographical invenzioni (allegories, emblems and personifications) lay in the artist’s original and ingenious interpretation of a familiar myth or allegory.!? For example, in the writings of Paalo Giovio’s Dialogo delle imprese militare et amorose (1555), Borghini’s Discorsi (1584), Vasari’s prefaces from the Vite, and Ripa’s Iconologia, their general sentiments concur that the image should provide visual interest by showing beautiful elements and that its motto should be brief (two or three words or a line of verse left suggestively incomplete to intrigue or tease the viewer), In sum, the complex and teasing mening is a Maniera conceit. Vasari and Ripa both strongly emphasize in their writings, particularly in the prefaces of the Vire and Iconologia,aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.CHAPTER FIVE 93 poi s’inalza fino alle stele” (“Fame can as quickly depart or detract from one’s life as it can enter and benefit it in the first place. One danger is the propensity of others to slander those who achieve fame, if fame is to be sustained then the threat of slander must be nullified”).’! It is interesting to note that the artists portrayed beneath the depiction of Fame, each have sustained the fame they achieved in their respective lives. In her affirmative role, the personification of Fame is blowing the golden trumpet in the direction of the personification of Painting. Assuming this is not accidental, one notes how Vasari refers to his early success as a painter, due to his training with Michelangelo and Andrea del Sarto, whose portraits are painted in the ovati, located below Fame and adjacent to Painting. Years later, Vasari depicts a similar iconographical motif of Fame in the Sala dei Cento Giorni. Here, the traditional depiction of Fame, not including the act of discarding a flaming trumpet, is portrayed. But then, it is Paolo Giovio, not Vasari, who formulates the program for this Sala. Fame blows her trumpet to note the achievements of the Farnese family, including their positions in the Church and the contemporary political situation.” The Fine Arts or the Arts appear on the ceiling of the Chamber of Fame as Painting, Sculpture, Architecture and Poetry (Figs. 10, 11, 12 and 13). A personification of the Fine Arts is common in the humanistic art of the Italian Renaissance. Examples include Pisani’s pulpits, the reliefs on Giotto’s Campanile and on the Ducal Palace in Venice, the lost frescoes of the Eremitani in Padua and the Spanish Chapel in Florence, and later the figures in the Tempio Malatestiano, Pollaiuolo’s Papal Tomb, and Dosso’s Sala del Tribunale in Trento.” In describing the Fine Arts, Vasari stresses the element of design as the underlying quality that unites them. In the second edition of the Vite, Vasari continues with this idea and explains what he means by design (drawing) and why it rules creation in the Arts. Seeing that Drawing, the parent of our three arts, Architecture, Sculpture and Painting, has its origin in the intellect and draws out from many single things a general judgment, it seems like a form or idea of all the objects in nature, afterwards, when it is expressed by the hands and is called Design, we may conclude the Design is none other than a visible expression and declaration of our inner conception and of that which others have imagined and given form to in their ideas. Vasari then goes on to observe that in the Arts, ‘The chief use (of design) in Architecture is because its drawings are composed only of lines, which so far as the architect is concerned are nothing else but the beginning and the end of his art. In Sculpture, drawing (design) is of service in the case of all94 CHAPTER FIVE the profiles, because in going round from view to view the sculptor uses it when he wishes to delineate the forms which please him best. or which he intends to bring out in every dimension. In Painting, the lines are of service in many ways, but especially in outlining every figure, because when they are well drawn, and made correct and in proportion, the shadows and lights that are then added give the strongest relief to the lines of the figure and the result is all excellence and perfection.” The addition of Poetry to the realm of the Arts is most revealing, since it alludes to the Renaissance Neoplatonic concept of furor poeticus, poetic inspiration (Fig. 11). This concept derives from the writings of the Neoplatonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino, who explains that there are four forms of inspiration or furor divinus. One of these is furor poeticus or the frenzy of the poet,’ an intellectual force that is intuitive, creative and contemplative.” In Cinquecento art, the paradigm for the pictorial representation of furor poeticus is Raphael's Poetry (Numine Afflatur), in the ceiling of the Stanza della Segnatura. Some years after Raphael’s rendering, this conceit becomes so popular that even Alciato and Ripa have an emblematic entry for personification in their books.” In the Chamber of Fame, the concept of furor poeticus or poetic inspiration is manifested not only by the depiction of Poetry, but by the fact that all the Fine Arts are themselves portrayed in the process of creating an art form. In his writings, Vasari relates the concept of furor poeticus to the creation of visual art. Many painters achieve in the first design of their work, as though guided by a sort of inspirational fire, something of the good and a certain measure of boldness: but afterwards, in finishing it, the boldness vanishes. * Vasari’s explanation of artistic creativity is essentially based on the Italian Renaissance tradition, which considers creativity to be a faculty present in all of human activity.” Vasari’s conception of artistic creativity relates to this theory of painting. He contends that there are two alternatives in a painter’s development or achievement of artistic creativity: imitation (imitazione) and invention (invenzione).”” Imitation is the copying of art as a method of learning, whereas invention is independent of imitation and constitutes the means for conceiving artistic ideas. Imitation serves to guide and teach the artist in composing and creating perfection. For Vasari, imitation draws upon three different sources. The first two are copying from nature (copia dal vero) and selecting from one’s work (imitare se stessi).8' Vasari emphasizes that copying from nature is crucial for the artist because he may learn to create forms that are alive.” It also aids the artist learning how to draw in such a way so that eventually he is capable of drawing anything from memory without the need of a model.*> In theimage not availableimage not availableimage not availableimage not availableimage not availableaa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for 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viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.-Image not — availableGiorgio Vasari was one of the few artists in the history of art who built, designed, and decorated his homes. This book is the first to focus on Vasati’s decorative cycles for his homes in Arezzo and Florence, revealing the significance of the artistic, cultural, and historical milieu of the sixteenth century. This study breaks new ground in two ways: First, in a personal and original manner, the imagery is related to Vasari’s artistic ideas on history painting and the role of the artist. And second, Vasari’s imagery portrays visual galleries applauding his teachers, antiquity and the creation of art Liana De Girolami Cheney, Professor of Art History, Chairperson of the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, is the author and editor of numerous books, including Botticelli’s Neoplatonic Images (1983); The Paintings of the Casa Vasari (1985); Symbolism of Vanitas in the Arts, Literature and Music (1992); Readings in Italian Mannerism (1997); Self-Portraits by Women Painters (2000); Neoplatonism and the Arts(2002); Essays of’ Women Artists: “The Most Excellent” (2003); Neoplatonic Aesthetics: Music, Literature and the Visual Art (2004); and Giorgio Vasari, The Painter of the Vite: Esays on Sacred and Profane Paintings (2006). Her major articles include studies on Giorgio Vasari and Mannerist female painters such as Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, and Barbara Longhi. Her forthcoming books are Giorgio Vasari’s Classical Art and Mythology and Giorgio Vasari’s Prefaces: Theory and Practice www.peterlang.com