Abruzzo & Molise by Lonely Planet

Author:Lonely Planet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lonely Planet Publications

LIVES OF THE ARTISTS

Painter, architect and writer Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) was one of those figures rightfully described as a ‘Renaissance Man’. Born in Arezzo, he trained as a painter in Florence, working with artists including Andrea del Sarto and Michelangelo (he idolised the latter). As a painter, he is best remembered for his floor-to-ceiling frescoes in the Salone dei Cinquecento in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. As an architect, his most accomplished work was the elegant loggia of the Uffizi (he also designed the enclosed, elevated corridor that connected the Palazzo Vecchio with the Uffizi and Palazzo Pitti and was dubbed the ‘Corridoio Vasariano’ in his honour). But posterity remembers him predominantly for his work as an art historian. His Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Time, an encyclopedia of artistic biographies published in 1550 and dedicated to Cosimo I de’ Medici, is still in print (as The Lives of the Artists ) and is full of wonderful anecdotes and – dare we say it – gossip about his artistic contemporaries in 16th-century Florence. Memorable passages include his recollection of visiting Donatello’s studio one day only to find the great sculptor staring at his extremely lifelike statue of the Prophet Habakkuk and imploring it to talk (we can only assume that Donatello had been working too hard). Vasari also writes about a young Giotto (the painter whom he credits with ushering in the Renaissance) painting a fly on the surface of a work by Cimabue that the older master then tried to brush away. The book makes wonderful pre-departure reading for anyone planning to visit Florence and its museums.

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