Art Without an Author: Vasari's Lives and Michelangelo's Death 9780823290949

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Art Without an Author

Art Without an Author vasa ri’s liv es a nd michel a ngelo’s de at h

Marco Ruffini

fordh a m univ ersit y pr ess

New York

2 011

this book is made possible by a collaborative grant from the andrew w. mellon foundation. © 2011 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other— except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or thirdparty Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ruffini, Marco.   Art Without an Author : Vasari’s Lives and Michelangelo’s Death / Marco Ruffini. — 1st ed.   p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index  ISBN 978-0-8232-3455-4 (cloth : alk. paper)  ISBN 978-0-8232-3456-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)   1.  Vasari, Giorgio, 1511–1574—Criticism and interpretation.  2.  Vasari, Giorgio, 1511–1574. Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori.  3.  Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.).  4.  Art—Study and teaching— Philosophy.  5.  Art, Late Renaissance— Italy.  6.  Art and society—Italy—History—16th century.  I.  Title.  II.  Title: Vasari’s Lives and Michelangelo’s Death. N6923.V32R84  2011 709.2'245—dc22 2011006056 Printed in the United States of America 13 12 11 5 4 3 2 1 First edition

For Sara, Angelo, and Pietro

con t en ts

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction

ix xi 1

1. Michelangelo’s Funeral

11

2. After Michelangelo

39

3. The Making of the Lives

72

4. Describing Art

104

5. Art as Language

137

Notes Bibliography Index

161 215 249

illust r at ions

1. Michelangelo’s Tomb (1564–78)

20

2. Interior of the Church of San Lorenzo 3. Agostino Ciampelli, Benedetto Varchi Delivering the Funeral Oration in San Lorenzo (1615–22) 4. Sigismondo Coccapani, Michelangelo, on Clouds, Crowned by the Allegories of Painting, Sculpture, Poetry, and Architecture (1615–22) 5. Domenico Passignano, Michelangelo Presenting the Model of St. Peter’s to Pope Pius IV (1615–22)

22 24

25 26

6. Pontormo, The Deluge

40

7. Pontormo, Christ in Glory

41

8. Pontormo, Resurrection

42

9. Pontormo, The Deluge

43

10. Palazzo Almeni

49

11. Palazzo Almeni 12. Scheme of the Almeni façade, after Christel Thiem and Gunther Thiem, Toskanische FassadenDekoration in Sgraffito und Fresko: 14 bis 17 Jahrhundert

50

13. Bronzino, Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (1565–69)

56

14. Michelangelo, Day (1526–31)

57

15. Alessandro Allori, Last Judgment (1560–64)

60

16. Alessandro Allori, Montauto Chapel, Vault (1560–64)

61

54

x

Illustrations

17. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri. 1550. Title page.

77

18. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori. 1568. Title page.

86

19. Michelangelo, Last Judgment (1541)

108

20. Michelangelo, Last Judgment (1541)

109

21. Michelangelo, Last Judgment (1541)

110

22. Michelangelo, Last Judgment (1541)

111

23. Michelangelo, Moses (1513–15)

113

24. Giorgio Vasari, Sala Grande (1562–72)

116

25. Giorgio Vasari, Sala Grande. Ceiling (1562–65)

117

26. Giorgio Vasari, Sala Grande. Ceiling (1562–65)

118

27. Giorgio Vasari, The Foundation of Florence (1563–65)

119

28. Giorgio Vasari, Siege of Pisa (1563–65)

120

29. Michelangelo, Giacomo della Porta, and Domenico Fontana, St. Peter’s Dome (1587–90)

126

30. Michelangelo, St. Peter’s Dome. Wooden model (1558–61)

128

31. Michelangelo and assistants, Study for St. Peter’s Dome (1547–54)

135

32. Pierfrancesco Giambullari, De ‘l sito, forma, et misure, dello Inferno di Dante. 1544. Title Page.

145

ack now l edgm e n ts

The research and writing of this book have benefited substantially from the help of numerous friends and colleagues. Above all, I am deeply grateful to Claudia Swan for her editorial work and insights. I am also very grateful to Albert Ascoli, Leonard Barkan, Francesco Caglioti, Claudia Cieri Via, Charles Hope, Evelyn Lincoln, Loren Partridge, and Randolph Starn. Many others generously contributed to the making of this book. I hope to remember them all: Giulia Aurigemma, Mario Bevilacqua, Gerd Blum, Cammy Brothers, Francesco Bruni, Wolfger Bulst, Giovanna Capitelli, Benedetta Cestelli, Andrea Ciccarelli, Claudia Conforti, Floriana Conte, Margaret Daly Davis, Charles Davis, Scott Durham, Anna Fenton-Hathaway, Emanuela Ferretti, Bernadette Fort, Michal Ginsburg, Karen Hope Goodchild, Julian Kliemann, Golo Maurer, Ed Muir, Franca Nardelli Petrucci, Alessandro Nova, Armando Petrucci, Stefano Pierguidi, Guido Rebecchini, Patricia Reilly, Manuel Rota, Regina Schwartz, Maddalena Spagnolo, Justin Steinberg, Nora Stoppino, Domietta Torlasco, Marvin Trachtenberg, Bob Williams, and Jane Winston. I am also indebted to a series of institutions whose financial support or facilities were fundamental to this project: Northwestern University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Rome 1 “La Sapienza,” the Warburg Institute, Dartmouth College, Indiana University, and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. This work also benefited from a fellowship from the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities at Northwestern Uni-

xii

Acknowledgments

versity (2008–9) and the H. P. Kraus Fellowship in Early Books and Manuscripts, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University (2008). Finally, I thank Helen Tartar, editor at Fordham University Press, for her interest in this book while still in the making, and Tim Roberts and Judith Hoover, managing editor and copyeditor, for leading it to completion.

Art Without an Author

Introduction

Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects is widely considered the most influential book on art and artists written in the Renaissance. Printed in Florence in 1550 and republished in a substantially enlarged form in 1568, the Lives is a compendium of biographies of the most noteworthy artists from the late Middle Ages to Vasari’s time. Perhaps no other text has exerted such a formidable influence on the discipline of art history, shaping its historical and conceptual categories, principally as an effect of its biographical format and the biological model it follows, charting artistic development from birth through decline. Michelangelo figures centrally and, more than any other artist in the Lives, has encouraged an interpretation of the book as a charter text of Renaissance individualism that fuses the theory of art with the theory of the genius. Michelangelo uniquely exemplifies art as an expression of the individual. Yet at the same time, as this book aims to show, the Lives fashions Michelangelo as the founder of a new, academic era in which art develops collectively as a discipline. Thus the Lives offers an unprecedented celebration of the figure of the artist, while simul-

2

Introduction

taneously delegitimizing the artist’s role in the future of the arts. Paradoxically the celebration of Michelangelo mobilizes a conception of art as teachable and transmissible that is antithetical to Michelangelo’s aesthetic ideals and unique style. Between the publication of the two editions of the Lives Vasari and his friend and principal advisor, Vincenzio Borghini, were also actively engaged in the foundation of the Accademia del Disegno (established in 1563), the first art academy in Europe. Sponsored by Cosimo I de’ Medici and inspired by the medieval guild system, the academy was conceived with the intention of radically reorganizing artistic production in Florence. Its founders aimed to make art teachable: the Accademia was intended to centralize and to standardize the production of art under the aegis of the Medici regime. The founding of the Accademia was one of two major events that followed one another closely and that shaped the second edition of the Lives. The other was the death of Michelangelo in Rome in February 1564. As the establishment of the academy served to institutionalize a corporate model of artistic production, so the death of the divine artist inaugurated a symbolic shift from an era characterized by the outstanding achievements of singular artists, celebrated in the first edition of the Lives, to an institutional course embodied by the academy, endorsed in the second edition. Borghini and Vasari turned Michelangelo’s death, which many would interpret as the end of a glorious age and a harbinger of imminent decline, into an auspicious event and the beginning of a new era of prosperity for the arts. This book, Art Without an Author: Vasari’s Lives and Michelangelo’s Death, offers a new reading of the production and the conceptual framework of the Lives that hinges on this crucial paradox. Previous studies either emphasized the exaltation of individual artists in the Lives without taking into account the fact that Vasari established an academy governed by rules and routines in the same years he was composing the text, or they focused on the academy. No work has yet fully examined the relationship between these two phenomena. Borghini and Vasari’s academic ideal is integral to the Lives. In a letter he wrote to Vasari in the summer of 1564, a few months

Introduction

3

after Michelangelo’s death, Borghini clearly articulated the aim of the second edition: The purpose of your hard work is not to write about the lives of the painters, nor whose sons they were, nor of their ordinary deeds, but only their works as painters, sculptors, and architects, because otherwise it matters little to us to know the life story of Baccio d’Agnolo or Pontormo. The writing of lives is suitable only in the case of princes and men who have practiced princely things and not of low people, but here you have only as your end the art and the works by their hand.1

Invoking classicist rules governing the relationship between genres and subject matters, Borghini criticized the inclusion of biographical data, genealogies, and anecdotes about artists. He believed that artists are ordinary subjects, in and of themselves unworthy of literary treatment; only works deserve commemoration. From the point of view of literary theory, Borghini was not saying anything new, but his claim is rooted in a specific historical context. Over the course of the preceding two centuries, art writers, among them Vasari himself, struggled to elevate the social status of artists by making them the protagonists of an ennobling narrative discourse. But the social and political conditions that this model of culture implies—which would allow for an unlearned artist of humble origins to aspire to honors appropriate to men of letters or rulers—changed under Cosimo I’s regime. In the context of the centralized institutionalization of power Cosimo I promoted, culture became a strategic tool for integrating individual agencies in the political and social structure of the state. The Lives itself projects its ideal continuation not in a biographical compilation dedicated to individual artists, but in a collection of descriptions of the works of art executed by a whole new generation of artists. As Vasari writes in the dedicatory letter to the artefici del disegno of the second edition, “Whoever shall write the remainder of this story will be able to do so with more grandeur and majesty, being able to account for those most

4

Introduction

rare and perfect works—spurred on by the desire for immortality and accomplished by the study of those most divine minds—that the world will henceforth witness emerging from your [artists’] hands.”2 The historical vision of Renaissance historians such as Machiavelli, who understood the present as a continuation of the past, is sundered by Borghini and Vasari, who characterized the present as a new age whose continuity with the past could only ever be symbolic. In this sense the Lives does not provide readers with a genuine historical account of modern art as much as with a mythical construction intended to legitimize a new order of things. If an art based on outstanding authors and works cannot but decline after Michelangelo, an art based on conventional and collective values can overcome individual limitations to enable progress—albeit of a deliberately impersonal kind. A great deal can be said about the coexistence of the institutional rule-bound production of art and the celebration of the figure of the artist in the Lives, fundamental elements that are inseparable and mutually reinforcing. However, a reexamination of the text on philological grounds—a detailed reconstruction of how the Lives was written and edited over the more than twenty years of its production—shows that the celebration of the artist becomes increasingly functional to the representation of institutional values in the book, and not vice versa. If I stress a shift or tilt in the direction of the institutionalization of art, I do so because the value of the individual has been consistently emphasized in the dominant accounts of the Lives. Broadly speaking, to highlight continuities and points of intersection is a formidable tool for undoing cultural clichés, but in the case of Vasari studies it has served to consolidate mainstream interpretations of the book as celebratory of individual artistic values embodied by the figure of the artist. How could a book titled Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects and structured as a series of biographies effectively stage the marginality of the artist? How is it possible to conceive of an optimistic answer to the central question the Lives poses to its readers: What of art after Michelangelo? And what does the making of the Lives have to do with its stance

Introduction

5

on the matter of the artist, or with contemporary political and/ or linguistic and literary concerns? These are among the central questions taken up in the five chapters of this book, each of which examines the Vasarian notion of “art without an author,” whereby art is teachable and not the inimitable product of a genius, or a corporate rather than an individualistic venture. Chapter 1 opens with an account of Michelangelo’s funeral, an artistic enterprise Vasari and Borghini seized on to promote a shift in focus from individual to institution by presenting the art academy as the artist’s sole legitimate heir. Chapter 2 is dedicated to Vasari’s work as an artist in the years immediately preceding Michelangelo’s death and highlights Vasari’s interest in the processes of artistic production and reproduction and his refusal of a conception of art as the individual expression of a unique vision. The following two chapters offer a close analysis of the Lives. Chapter 3 shows the collaborative production of the Lives and how, under Borghini’s direction, the work of art becomes the main thematic unit of the second edition—at the expense of biography. Chapter 4 highlights the prevalence in the second edition of a mode of description that reads the work of art in impersonal terms, as the expression of universal formal and thematic values, in contrast to a descriptive mode focused on mimetic qualities and individual style. By situating the Lives in the context of the contemporary language debate, the so-called questione della lingua, chapter 5 interprets the antiliterary style that characterizes the language of the Lives as a programmatic reaction against a cultural tradition dominated by literary authors and masterpieces. This last chapter connects the making of the Lives and the academic ideal that the book foregrounds with a shared larger vision of cultural production as governed by impersonal principles and rules. Why has the institutional agenda of the Lives been overlooked by modern readers? One answer lies in the fact that the institutional art it promoted had only ephemeral success. In Florence political conditions changed in a brief span of years, and Francesco I de’ Medici, Cosimo I’s successor, harbored a different conception of the relationship between culture and politics. He favored commissioning individual masterpieces that guaranteed

6

Introduction

more prestige than large-scale works with explicit propagandistic content. The contrast between the two major decorations Vasari directed for the father and the son—the grandiose Sala Grande and the Studiolo, the private space Francesco I designated for his collection—is marked in this regard. By contrast, in Rome Vasari’s ideas prevailed even after his death, during the papacies of Gregory XIII and Sixtus V. The reformation of the Roman art academy in 1577 and the design and execution of the large decorative programs in the Vatican Palace must be related to the influence Vasari exerted on the Roman artistic community during his final sojourns in the city. Ultimately, however, Vasari’s ideas became obsolete under the papacy of Clement VIII, when the formation of an “aristocracy of cardinals” fragmented political power and created an elitist system to which culture had to conform. Thus Federico Zuccari’s Idea of Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1607), which offered the Florentine academic ideal theoretical grounds, appeared in a context significantly different from that in which Vasari and Borghini operated. Academic art found proselytes, and several artists and art writers took up Vasari’s artistic ideal. The writings of Giambattista Agucchi and Giampietro Bellori are exemplary in this regard, as in many respects are the works of the Carracci. But the Italian Seicento is a century dominated by individual artists, not academies. The search for individual means of expression prevailed over the search for an impersonal, teachable, and transmissible style. Art became an instrument of political and cultural differentiation rather than exerting a cohesive force. Aesthetic qualities, personal style, and mastery were reestablished as central in art theory and practice, and cultural elitism, art collecting, and the art market further reinforced the association between art and authorship, or individualism. In art production the early Renaissance workshop system was revived and produced a new age of great masters famous for their unique, bizarre, and extravagant personalities. Michelangelo came to be understood not as the last individual artist, but as the model for the propagation of individual artists and styles. Almost every aspect of Seicento art theory

Introduction

7

and practice contradicted Borghini and Vasari’s aspirations and achievements, and nobody wrote the continuation of the Lives they projected. Art literature blossomed throughout Italy and Europe, most of it adhering to the biographical formula. Academic institutions became islands of cultural elites, on the model of the early literary academies of the fifteenth century. Only in the statutes of French eighteenth-century academies and in the theory of modernism in England and Germany do we find points of continuity with Borghini and Vasari’s conception of the social and political function of art institutions. In sum, no theory or history of art was more unsuccessful than that of art without an author; even today art is rarely absolved of authorial agency. Works of art and artists are connected as agents of one theory and one history. Artists produce works of art as indices of authorship or to deny its importance as an established value. Most art historians and critics consider works of art in relation to other works by the same author, as if any particular work were a fragment of an ideal work comprising all the works the artist did and did not produce. In other words, in spite of the conceptual complexity of modern art and its literature, the idea that a work by a given artist can be metaphorically accounted for as a fragment of his or her life still informs our appreciation for and accounts of them.3 Yet to highlight the institutional aim of the Lives is of fundamental importance for art history and criticism. Essentially Borghini and Vasari’s argument challenges the historical legitimacy of any interpretation of art as a form of individual expression after the Lives. It confronts the art historian with the simple and critical question of why he or she should write about artists if his or her goal is to write about art. Regardless of the answer (and there are multiple answers, with theoretical orientations ranging from formalism to psychoanalysis) what really matters is that Borghini and Vasari’s argument violates the systematic integrity of the discourse of modern art at its very origin, asserting a conceptual break between the artist on the one hand and art and the work of art on the other. In so doing the Lives contributes to modern intellectual history in “positive” terms, offering not a

8

Introduction

theory of individualism, but a histoire sans noms, a conceptual model for a history of art as a geography of schools (Luigi Lanzi), pure vision (Heinrich Wölfflin), or social theory (Arnold Hauser). By tracing the transformation of Michelangelo from an artist into a figure who founds and legitimates a new age in art Art Without an Author bridges a long-standing dichotomy in our understanding not only of the Lives but also of Renaissance culture and art. This book departs abruptly from a scholarly tradition that regards the Lives principally as a source for art history. In contrast to many studies, it treats the Lives as a representation of the present in which it was written rather than of the past it describes. For this reason I emphasize the significance of the final sections of the second edition for an interpretation of the book as a whole. I understand the Lives—and art history—as pertaining to a larger cultural history that engages art history as well as literary and historical events and concerns, and therefore studies. I thus interpret the second edition of the Lives in connection with the ideas set forth by its editors in the context of the language debate and the politics of the Medici regime as the expression of a comprehensive model of culture. Art Without an Author is critically engaged with a wide range of studies on Vasari, the Lives, and the Accademia del Disegno, without which it could not have been written. It benefits but also differs from a series of studies largely influenced by the work of Paul Barolsky, which treat the Lives as a work of literature, focusing on its rhetorical features.4 I take into consideration the rhetorical elements of the text, but only insofar as they relate to the historical context in which they were formulated. Some studies, such as the latest monograph by David Cast, The Delight of Art (2009), feature a new-historicist approach nonetheless still based on a conception of the text, abstracted from history, familiar to literary new criticism. All of these studies dismiss central philological questions raised by the Lives, principally how the book was written and edited. In Art Without an Author, by contrast, I acknowledge as fundamental the major lines of inquiry and the results offered by the philological tradition in Vasarian studies. Paola Barocchi’s studies,

Introduction

9

which center on an analysis of the variations between the two editions and the editorial history of the Lives, have served as a touchstone in the conception and writing of this book, as have the 1981 catalogue of the Arezzo exhibition and T. S. R. Boase’s and Patricia Rubin’s exhaustive monographs dedicated to Vasari.5 Zygmunt Waźbiński’s 1976 article and Bob Williams’s study on Borghini’s influence on the second edition are fundamental resources on the differences between the two editions that this book emphasizes.6 Rubin, John Shearman, and Williams have analyzed Vasari’s reevaluation of Raphael as a proto-academician in relation to Michelangelo in the second edition of the Lives in ways that are also crucial here.7 Claudia Conforti’s reading of the increasing role architecture plays in the second edition also resonates in this book.8 Readers interested in the academic legacy of the three arts, especially the role architecture plays in academic art, should refer to Matteo Burioni’s recent monograph on the subject.9 My discussion of authorship and the Lives is influenced by Albert Ascoli’s work on Dante, whose results are symmetrical to this study, and more broadly by the literary criticism and philosophical discussions of the topic.10 Charles Hope’s and Thomas Frangenberg’s recent studies of Vasari have allowed me to reconsider the question of the book’s authorship and the consequences of this question for my reading of the text.11 By relying on their claim that Vasari wrote much less than is commonly believed and that the Lives should be regarded as a collaborative enterprise, I make a philological case for jettisoning a comprehensive reading of the book as a coherent linear narrative. At the same time, I explore those themes, motives, and general changes in the Lives that defy the book’s multiple authorship, such as the increasing marginalization of the figure of the artist and the shift of attention from mimetic to diegetic art in the description of the work of art. The founding principles Borghini and Vasari develop in the academic program and the Lives—the definition of art as a discipline, teachable and transmissible, and the distinction between design and execution in the production of a work of art, with the former having clear priority over the latter—also feature in Marvin Trachtenberg’s studies on Alberti, which trace the archi-

10

Introduction

tectural vision of the humanist artist.12 On a pragmatic level Raphael’s workshop—and his practice of signing works that were designed, painted, and occasionally engraved by his assistants— is the crucial precedent to Borghini and Vasari’s academic enterprise. Nonetheless Alberti and Raphael are only tangentially treated here. As I said earlier, my focus is not properly the representation of academic art in the Lives as much as its connection with the myth of the artist. For the same reason I do not offer an exhaustive treatment of the Accademia del Disegno (for which readers should refer to the multiple studies on the subject, especially by Waźbiński and Karen-Edis Barzman).13 As regards the connection between the later editorial agenda of the Lives and the politics of the Medici regime, I have relied on the work of Randolph Starn and Loren Partridge, who have made explicit the connection between Cosimo I’s politics and the academic artistic program he endorsed.14 Also fundamental are a series of historical works dedicated to the rise of the modern state in the Italian peninsula, among them studies by Paolo Prodi, Giorgio Chittolini, Anthony Molho, and Pierangelo Schiera, Eric Cochrane, Furio Diaz, Giorgio Spini, and Elena Fasano Guarini, which are more specifically dedicated to the structure and operations of the Medici state.15 It is clear in fact that the academic ideal is inscribed in a comprehensive model of culture that in turn shapes and is shaped by the political transformation of the Medicean state. The academic ideal successfully responds, at least in principle, to the necessity of figuring a new relationship between culture and political power. While Art Without an Author takes its inspiration from the studies just mentioned, which have enabled both a broad view of the descriptive prerogatives of the text of the Lives and a detailed analysis of the book’s production over the course of two decades, it is also intended to offer an integrated account of the text in relation to the crucial matters of singular artistic mastery such as Michelangelo (still) embodies, an institutional legacy and its aspirations and failures, and the matter of Vasari’s authorship in the context of the institutionalization of art.

ch ap t er one

Michelangelo’s Funeral My thoughts of love once vain and happy, what is their faith as two deaths approach? Of one I am certain, the other menaces. michelangelo buonarroti 1

In 1564 Michelangelo, the undisputed hero of Vasari’s Lives, died in Rome. His death occurred between the publication of the first and second editions of the Lives (1550 and 1568, respectively) and on the threshold of the foundation of the Accademia del Disegno in Florence by Vasari himself. Following Michelangelo’s death, Vasari and his friend and advisor, Vincenzio Borghini, employed the members of the academy to organize a spectacular funeral for the artist in Florence. The ritual and the decorative program staged a transfer of authority in the figurative arts from the deceased master to the newborn institution. In this chapter I analyze Michelangelo’s funeral as a representation of the symbolic relationship Vasari and Borghini established between the figure of the artist and their vision of the present state and future of art. Drawing from Ernst Kantorowicz’s classic study The King’s Two Bodies (1957), I consider Michelangelo’s body as a symbolic fiction that plays a pivotal role in the funeral ritual. As we read in the Lives, Vasari and Borghini revealed the artist’s corpse as miraculously uncorrupted twenty-two days after his death, and asked the academi-

12

Michelangelo’s Funeral

cians to ritualistically touch it. Vasari and Borghini celebrated the physical integrity of the master as a symbol of the new corporate body, hoping to confer cohesion of the one on the other. As we learn from a contemporary description later inserted in the Lives, the ephemeral funeral decoration further related the art of Michelangelo to Vasari and Borghini’s conception of institutional art: the decoration represented the symbolic shift from an idea of art as individual expression to an idea of art as collective production, teachable and based on rational principles. Designed by Vasari and Borghini and executed by the young academicians, the decoration exemplified a conception of art not as individual style but as a discipline informed by standard principles and parameters.

1. On the last day of January 1563 the founders of the Accademia del Disegno held their first official meeting. One of the first outcomes was the unanimous election of Michelangelo as the “head, father, and master” of the institution. Vasari immediately wrote a letter to the aged artist, then resident in Rome, to inform him about the nomination. 2 The Accademia del Disegno, founded by Borghini and Vasari and endorsed by Cosimo I, was the first academic institution devoted to art in the West. The founders aspired to revive the medieval corporate system for the advancement of art and artists while responding to the growing institutionalization of culture promoted by the Medici regime. Many Florentine masters were conflicted about the academy, even though they participated, often as prominent members. Benvenuto Cellini, for example, feared the concentration of power in Borghini and Vasari’s hands under the Medici regime. 3 With its direct endorsement from Cosimo I, there was a risk the academy might monopolize the management of commissions and compensations. Early modern Florence was distinguished by a competitive and hostile artistic environment. Vasari himself experienced the hos-

Michelangelo’s Funeral

13

tility of the Florentine artists in 1536, when they refused to collaborate with him on his first important public commission for the Medici.4 And in his correspondence with Vasari, Borghini laments the attempt of a few artists to sabotage the fledgling academy.5 A special affiliation with Michelangelo, whose authority was recognized throughout the community, would legitimize the institution and mitigate the resistance of the Florentine masters not allied with Borghini and Vasari. In the letter informing Michelangelo of his honorific nomination, Vasari also asked for instructions to complete the sacristy of San Lorenzo, which Michelangelo had left unfinished when he left for Rome in 1534.6 Vasari envisioned the sacristy as the academy’s headquarters; its completion, Vasari believed, would cement the otherwise purely nominal affiliation between the master and the school.7 For his part Michelangelo never showed any interest in the academic title, nor did he send any instructions. It would seem that Vasari had little hope of capturing Michelangelo’s interest, given the artist’s ostensible disdain for artistic collaboration. In the Lives we read that Michelangelo dismissed the best Florentine artists who came to Rome to assist him, instead carrying the weight of the decoration of the Sistine Chapel entirely on his shoulders.8 We know that Michelangelo’s hermetic isolation and cultivated solitude are more a function of the myth of the artist than actual fact. As William Wallace’s studies on the sacristy of San Lorenzo show, Michelangelo was not as opposed to artistic collaboration as Vasari leads us to believe. The artist directed a large workshop for the realization of this major work with entrepreneurial drive.9 Nonetheless it is still implausible that Michelangelo would have enthusiastically embraced Vasari’s academic initiative. His correspondence with Vasari prior to this letter reveals a diplomatic attempt to distance himself from Cosimo I and Vasari’s political and artistic programs. Eleven months after the foundation of the academy, on February 18, 1564, Michelangelo died. The artist spent his last hours in the presence of his friends Diomede Leoni, Daniele da Volterra, and Tommaso dei Cavalieri and

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Michelangelo’s Funeral

his doctors Gherardo Fidelissimi and Federico Donati. The Roman confraternity of San Giovanni Decollato, which Michelangelo had joined fifty years earlier, took charge of the burial. One of the functions of the pious confraternity was to organize the funerals of its members (mainly Florentine artists resident in Rome, along with a smattering of doctors and lawyers). The next evening the lay brothers transported the artist’s body from his Roman house in via Mozza, close to Trajan’s column, to the nearby parish church of Santi Apostoli, where they mourned the loss of one of their most renowned members. Documents indicate that Michelangelo’s funeral was not exceptional. According to their register (Giornale del Provveditore), the members, the governor, and six confortatori of the confraternity deposited the artist’s body in the church, registered their attendance, and then retired. The following day, a Sunday, they attended the funeral mass and returned to their chapter house to conduct their usual business. As was customary they paid the chaplain six bolognini to celebrate a second mass the following morning and paid the carter two for the body’s transportation on the confraternity’s bier.10 Meanwhile in Florence Borghini and Vasari treated the artist’s death as a state affair. Three days after it occurred Borghini asked Vasari to employ the academy to organize a special funeral to celebrate the artist.11 Although Cosimo did not manifest any specific interest in the artistic agenda of the funeral, he was certainly aware of its political significance.12 Michelangelo’s permanent residency in Rome since 1534 was interpreted by Medici opponents as a voluntary political exile, and it cast a shadow on Cosimo I’s regime.13 Michelangelo expressed a genuine disinterest in politics, but his sculpting of the David (1504), the heroic symbol of the Florentine Republic, and his departure from Florence two years after the Medicis’ definitive return earned him the reputation of a committed republican.14 Cosimo I had repeatedly invited him, directly and through Vasari, to return to Florence in the last years of his life.15 Repeatedly the aged artist diplomatically declined. His health was too frail, he replied, and work at St. Peter’s demanded his presence in Rome.

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Vasari supports this claim in the Lives, adding that the artist’s stay in Rome was not politically motivated and that he had always been willing to return to Florence.16 Nevertheless Cosimo I understood that only the return of Michelangelo’s body to Florence and an official funeral in his honor would finally reconcile the artist’s legacy with the Medici regime. Cosimo I’s interest in Michelangelo was known to the artist’s close friends. They were probably alerted by Cosimo’s ambassador to the papal See, Averardo Serristori, who, in a letter to Duke Cosimo on February 19, acknowledged his orders to keep Cosimo informed on the status of the artist’s health and possessions.17 The night Michelangelo died two of his friends who witnessed his demise wrote letters to Florence. Diomede Leoni informed Leonardo Buonarroti, Michelangelo’s nephew and legitimate heir, reassuring him that his uncle’s close friends were taking care of the house and its contents while waiting for his arrival in Rome.18 Meanwhile Gherardo Fidelissimi informed the duke.19 Michelangelo died intestate, but, Fidelissimi wrote, the artist’s last wish was that he be buried in Florence. A month later, on March 17, Daniele da Volterra confirmed this wish to Vasari; according to Volterra, Michelangelo had repeatedly expressed his desire to be buried in Florence, even as recently as two days before his death. 20 There is no reason to doubt that this was indeed Michelangelo’s wish, but Volterra’s persistence further highlights the importance of the matter in Florence. Leonardo Buonarroti arrived in Rome six days after Michelangelo’s death. As the only individual entitled to deal with the practical matters concerning his deceased uncle, he soon found himself in a difficult position, mediating between family and Florentine interests.21 Leonardo intended to bury Michelangelo in the family church of Santa Croce, keeping his death a private matter in deference to the artist’s disdain for pomp and ceremony. Borghini and Vasari, on the other hand, intended to give the artist’s death the widest possible recognition in order to promote the academy—and Vasari made no bones about it.

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For example, he had no scruples about requesting access to Leonardo’s private correspondence between Florence and Rome. On March 4, while still in Rome, Leonardo received a letter from his friend Zanobi Gini in Florence informing him that Vasari had visited Leonardo’s wife, Cassandra, and asked her for a letter Leonardo had sent to her from Rome on February 24. Vasari claimed, Gini reported, that Francesco de’ Medici wanted to read it. Gini concluded with a warning to Leonardo about writing letters to anyone in Florence: Giorgio Vasari asked Monna Cassandra for the letter you sent to her on the twenty-fourth saying that the Prince wanted to see it. She does not know for what purpose but she gave it to him immediately and he has not yet returned it. I do not know if he will want to see other letters. Remain aware of this when you write letters. This I advise to you. 22

The letter in question is now lost, but we know from Vasari’s letter to Leonardo of March 4 that Leonardo’s letter to his wife contained a description of Michelangelo’s funeral by the confraternity in Rome. Most important, it confirmed that the body was ready to be brought to Florence. Vasari’s letter also reported that Francesco de’ Medici was reassured to know the artist’s remains would soon arrive: After your departure I offered my services to your wife Cassandra. She, who is very kind and lovely with all friends of yours and of Michelangelo, sent me the letter you wrote her about the death of Michelangelo and about the honors he received there, and that his body was in a deposit in the Church of Santi Apostoli ready to be carried to Florence. In the midst of such great loss and sadness it was a joy and a comfort in the minds of those who love virtue, that while we could not enjoy his presence when alive, now, he has died to ornament his homeland through his memory, and keep alive the fame of his very noble family, now illustrious thanks to his rare virtue. I assure you that our Illustrious Prince wants his body, or better his bones, to come to Florence. 23

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By praising Leonardo’s merits and the importance of his mission in Rome on behalf of Florence and the Florentines, Vasari once again reminded Leonardo of the higher stakes of what the artist’s nephew considered a family matter. Vasari’s intention and persisting interference were clear to Michelangelo’s close friends. On June 10 Diomede Leoni wrote from Rome to Leonardo in Florence that Michelangelo would not benefit from the occasion of the exequies: not only was he dead, but his renown was already sealed by his works and deeds. The celebrants—which is to say the academy—would, however, benefit greatly: “The exequies— which depend on others than you—will be more honorable for their celebrants than for him, who does not need worldly glory to make him more famous than what he himself did living with his marvelous virtues.”24 Leonardo’s double role as a Buonarroti family member and as a Medici subject soon became unsustainable (if not dangerous). Writing from Florence, Vasari gave him detailed instructions on how to please the duke, instructions that no one in Leonardo’s position could have ignored. Vasari recommended that Leonardo donate Michelangelo’s artworks and drawings from his Roman house to Cosimo I and speed the transportation of his body to Florence. After having arranged the transportation between Santi Apostoli in Rome and Santa Croce in Florence, Leonardo requested of the priest Giovanni di Simone of Santa Croce that a repository be construed to secure the corpse immediately after its arrival. On March 4 Giovanni replied, assuring Leonardo that the body would be locked in the noviziato of the convent: I will not fail to operate according to your will regarding the construction of a deposit for his body. Immediately after I received your letter I visited the guardian and showed your letter and what you request. Willing to do whatever possible, he replied that he will do what you ask, and added that we will put [the body] in the noviziato, which will be locked immediately after. 25

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Leonardo’s worries were legitimate. On the night of March 12, two days after the body’s arrival in Florence, thirty-two academicians gathered at the Compagnia dell’Assunta, where the body was temporarily located.26 Bearing torches and led by Borghini, they carried the body on their shoulders to the Church of Santa Croce. The procession drew such a large crowd that the church’s sacristy, where the coffin was laid, was filled to overflowing. Against Leonardo’s wishes and counter to Vasari’s promises, Borghini ordered that the body be disclosed. What was found exceeded all expectations: the body had not decayed—a true miracle, Borghini exclaimed, considering that the artist had died twenty-two days earlier. Borghini ordered the academicians to pay homage to the artist by touching his head, one by one. Ritual had already become an important part of the academy’s modus operandi and was much in evidence in bureaucratic business (for example, in transporting the body of Jacopo Pontormo to the headquarters of the academy one year before the formal foundation of the institution). 27 But the ritual in Santa Croce was crucial in affirming their solidarity. The miraculous integrity of their putative father embodied the unity of their corporate identity. A small booklet titled Esequie del divino Michelagnolo Buonarroti, published by Jacopo Giunti in Florence in 1564, offers a detailed account of the event, emphasizing the solemnity and religious silence with which the academicians paid homage to the artist: We all, and he [Borghini] too, believed that we would find the body putrefied and disfigured because it had been in the coffin for twenty-two days or more, and from the day of his death twenty-five days had passed [actually twenty-two]. But after opening it they found no bad smell whatsoever, and you would have sworn that he was resting in a sweet and quiet slumber. The same features of the face, the same mien except for the colour, which was that of death; not one limb decayed or revolting. When touching his head and his cheeks, which everyone did, they found them to be soft and life-like, as if he had died only a few hours before, and filled everyone with amazement. 28

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In an apologetic letter dated March 18 Giovanni di Simone explained to Leonardo that he was unable to secure Michelangelo’s corpse as he was charged. He and his brothers even tried to forbid the academicians’ entrance to the church, but they were eventually forced to obey Borghini’s orders. “I know that this has been contrary to your wishes,” Giovanni wrote, “but you have to bear in mind that one cannot disobey the wishes of his Excellency’s ministers.”29 Eventually even Giovanni had succumbed to the power of the ritual: “If you only knew the immense satisfaction which this gave to the spedalingo (rector) of the Innocenti [Borghini] and to all the academicians who had come to pay their honours!”30 Only after Michelangelo’s body had served in the academy’s ritual did Vasari return it to the Buonarroti family. In a letter dated March 26 Vasari wrote to Leonardo, who was still in Rome occupied with the business of his uncle’s estate, and reassured him that the corpse would not be moved from the Church of Santa Croce. The academicians, Vasari added, had to work on the funeral, which would have taken place later in San Lorenzo, and Leonardo was free to attend to the sepulcher: “Do not think that the body of Michelangelo will move again from where it has been placed, because now the Academy has to do its work in the Church of San Lorenzo, and you can do whatever you like in Santa Croce.”31 The reference here is to Leonardo’s intention to build Michelangelo’s tomb in Santa Croce (Fig. 1). Vasari had even promised Leonardo financial support from the duke for the project, to compensate for his tribulations and disappointment. Vasari, however, interfered later, forcing Leonardo to transfer the commission for Michelangelo’s tomb from Daniele da Volterra and the Roman artists, whom Leonardo had hired, to the academy.32 Leonardo’s business in Rome took longer than expected, as did the preparations for the funeral, which was originally planned for Easter but postponed twice. Leonardo returned to Florence on May 12 and eventually participated in the funeral on July 14. Michelangelo’s corpse did not; it remained in Santa Croce, having already made its public appearance. The body was

Figure 1. Michelangelo’s Tomb (1564–78). Florence, Church of Santa Croce. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

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substituted by two vivid portraits placed at the center of the catafalque in San Lorenzo.33 Michelangelo received two funerals—one in Rome and, five months later, another in Florence—each honoring a different sort of death. The simple function celebrated by the confraternity of San Giovanni Decollato in Rome mourned the loss of Michelangelo as a lay brother; the exequies Borghini and Vasari organized honored the artist while simultaneously endorsing the Medicean state and the academy. The rituals in both revolved around Michelangelo’s body, but each of the ceremonies performed a discrete symbolic function. If the Roman funeral celebrated the body’s physical death as the precondition for the soul’s afterlife and final resurrection—as all Christian funerals do—the Florentine funeral celebrated the body’s lasting integrity and its transformation into the corporate body of the new academic institution. Although staged in a church as a religious ceremony, the exequies were, as Leonardo had feared, an extraordinarily worldly spectacle.

2. Unlike the spontaneous ritual at Santa Croce, Michelangelo’s funeral in July was the result of almost five months of planning. The academicians’ symbolic appropriation of his body and spirit and the affirmation of their own solidarity were translated into a spectacular allegorical program that comprised the highest homage ever paid to an artist. The publication of the detailed description by Jacopo Giunti around ten days after the celebration of the funeral, which was later included in the Lives as the concluding portion of Michelangelo’s biography, gave the event even wider and longer-lasting resonance.34 The exequies first became a concrete project when Cosimo I received confirmation that Michelangelo’s corpse was on its way to Florence. In response to a petition he allowed the academicians the use of the Church of San Lorenzo (Fig. 2), the most Medicean

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Figure 2. Interior of the Church of San Lorenzo. Florence. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

of the Florentine churches, usually reserved for official celebrations, and ordered Benedetto Varchi, the renowned humanist famed for his rhetorical skills, to compose and recite the funeral oration.35 On March 22 Vasari wrote to Leonardo in Rome that the celebration, then still fixed for April, would be more magnificent than those reserved for the greatest men: “It will be something that neither popes nor emperors ever had. It is sufficient to say that if you had sent here the bodies of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, you would not be equally praised, nor would these princes, citizens, our arts, and the whole population of Florence be so obliged to you.”36 Vasari and Borghini’s leadership in the organization of the exequies has long been acknowledged. Original documents distinguish Borghini’s role as the general supervisor and Vasari’s as the practical executor.37 However, given the aim of the funeral to demonstrate the strengths of the academy and to express the

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solidarity of its members it was crucial to involve academicians at all levels, from planning to execution. On March 16 the academicians elected four artists to direct and supervise the decorations: Vasari and Agnolo Bronzino the paintings, and Bartolomeo Ammannati and Benvenuto Cellini the sculptures. Zanobi Lastricati was appointed for record keeping and general supervision. These individuals met several times to design the program and determine the arrangement of sculptures and paintings in the Church of San Lorenzo. The decoration was carried out in the Medici Chapel, transformed for the occasion into a studio placed at the academicians’ disposal.38 Twenty-five artists contributed to the decorative program’s execution, primarily the most promising young members of the institution: Jacopo Zucchi, Jan van der Straet, Giovambattista Naldini, Federico Sustris, Bernardo Buontalenti, Alessandro Allori, Giovanni Maria Butteri, Stefano Pieri, Lorenzo dello Sciorina, and Santi di Tito. Margot and Rudolph Wittkower argue that the young artists were chosen because they would work without salary, yet there was also an institutional advantage to employing them. The fame and the personal styles of established masters would have contaminated the depersonalized identity Borghini and Vasari envisioned for the academy. It was crucial at this juncture to emphasize collective participation and the identification of the academy with the youngest generation of artists. As Borghini writes, the funeral’s aim was “to honor art and exhort young artists.”39 A full five months after Michelangelo’s death the decoration was unveiled and the exequies formally celebrated. The decoration, now entirely lost, survives in the text of the Giunti booklet, its transcription in the Lives, and a few other contemporary descriptions.40 Two sheets representing (on recto and verso) four of the paintings hanging in the nave and one reproducing two subjects of the catafalque (the painting Lorenzo il Magnifico Receiving the Young Michelangelo in the Garden of St Mark and the epitaph’s corniche) constitute the principal visual remains of the decoration. These drawings, probably executed by a contempo-

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Figure 3. Agostino Ciampelli, Benedetto Varchi Delivering the Funeral Oration in San Lorenzo (1615–22). Florence, Casa Buonarroti. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

rary viewer, were part of an album containing copies of the major subjects of the decoration.41 On the basis of this album Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger later commissioned the decorative cycle at Casa Buonarroti and dedicated it to his great-uncle. The cycle, composed of ten canvases executed by Florentine artists between 1615 and 1622, is thus a partial representation of the funeral’s decorative program (Figs. 3–5).42 For the event itself the interior of the Church of San Lorenzo

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Figure 4. Sigismondo Coccapani, Michelangelo, on Clouds, Crowned by the Allegories of Painting, Sculpture, Poetry, and Architecture (1615– 22). Florence, Casa Buonarroti. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

was covered with black drapery. The first four spans of the central nave were alternately decorated with skeletons and skulls and Michelangelo’s impresa, composed of three laurel wreaths bound together, symbolizing the union of painting, sculpture, and architecture. The decoration also included a series of eight paintings dedicated to salient moments in Michelangelo’s life and death. The four paintings placed within the fifth and sixth spans of the central nave depicted the artist with eminent men: Michelangelo with Cosimo I de’ Medici, Michelangelo with Pope Julius II, Michelangelo with Pope Julius III, and Michelangelo Visited by the Venetian Nobles. The four in the transept area were Michelangelo Teaching Young Artists, Michelangelo in the Elysian Fields,

Figure 5. Domenico Passignano, Michelangelo Presenting the Model of St. Peter’s to Pope Pius IV (1615–22). Florence, Casa Buonarroti. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

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Francesco I de’ Medici Offering a Chair to Michelangelo, and Michelangelo Mourned by the Rivers of the World. The Giunti description does not indicate the significance of the paintings’ arrangement, but the criterion dividing them between nave and transept is self-evident. Episodes from Michelangelo’s life, focusing on the major honors he received, were placed in the nave. The transept, on the other hand, contained scenes representing his death and its aftermath: his passing and universal mourning, the special position he occupies in the afterworld among artists of all ages, and the continuation of his work in the world thanks to the young generation of artists, who represent the collective personification of the institution. Also fitting this pattern is the scene representing Francesco I’s homage to Michelangelo, which relates more to the future of the arts than to the artist’s life. Indeed given Cosimo I’s abdication that same year, the academicians’ hopes for the future rested squarely on the young ruler’s continued support. To embellish the pulpit on the right Vincenzo Danti designed and executed the allegory Fame Triumphing over Time and Death. The pulpit on the left, from which Benedetto Varchi delivered the funeral oration, was already decorated with Donatello’s magisterial reliefs. In the central nave of the church, under the eighth span, stood the fifty-three-foot-long catafalque. A drawing attributed to Zanobi Lastricati in the Ambrosiana Library represents an early concept for the catafalque modeled as a parietal tomb. It was later transformed into a higher, freestanding structure similar to one that appears in a drawing attributed to Borghini. (The drawing is now in Munich.)43 On top of the pyramidal structure stood a trumpeting personification of Fame with a foot poised on a globe. Below was the relief portrait of Michelangelo. At the base reclined the personifications of the Rivers Arno and Tiber. The catafalque was composed of two square pedestals, a smaller one resting on a larger base. On the larger were four paintings, three of which represented episodes from the life of the artist that testified to his devotion to Florence and the Medici: Lorenzo il Magnifico Receiving the Young Michelangelo in the Garden of St Mark in the center,

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flanked by Pope Clement VII Commissioning from Michelangelo the Sacristy of San Lorenzo and the Library and Michelangelo Designing the Fortifications of San Miniato During the Siege of Florence.44 The back (west) side of the catafalque was decorated with an epitaph in Latin composed by the humanist Pietro Vettori. The inscription credits the academy and Cosimo I for the realization of the funeral, which was meant to repay the greatest of all artists for the benefits the institution received from his works.45 On the corners of the lower base stood four wooden statues, painted to resemble marble, representing the virtues overcoming vices: Wit conquers Ignorance; Christian Piety overcomes Vice; Art subdues Envy; and Study bests Idleness. The four sides of the upper pedestal showed four episodes from the life of Michelangelo corresponding to the four arts: Michelangelo Presenting the Model of St. Peter’s to Pope Pius IV, Michelangelo Painting the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Michelangelo Discoursing with an Allegory of Sculpture, and Michelangelo Flanked by the Muses Crowned by Apollo. On the corners of the upper pedestal stood sculptures personifying Architecture, Painting, Sculpture, and Poetry.46 On the base of the obelisk, below Michelangelo’s portrait, was the Latin motto Sic ars extollitur arte (Thus art elevates art).47 The motto references the vertiginous height of the catafalque, thus declaring the reciprocity between Michelangelo’s art and the funeral decoration, which mutually supported one another. What is not clear is how the academy’s achievement related to the sublime art of the master. The funeral decoration, a temporary production made by young apprentices in less than five months, exalted Michelangelo but could not hope to emulate his work. Thus the motto presents us with the paradox of the funeral: the continuity between Michelangelo’s work, the highest form of art as individual expression, and the collective achievements of the academicians.

3. What might it mean for art to elevate art? A passage taken from

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the Giunti booklet, which was slightly revised and inserted in the second edition of the Lives, reads, “In truth, since honor was to be paid . . . to such a man as Michelangelo, and by men of the profession he created . . . it must be done . . . through inventions and works full in spirit and beauty that come from knowledge and from the clever hands of our artists, honoring art by art.”48 This passage, which recalls the guiding principle followed by Vasari and the other academicians in charge of the decoration’s planning, resonates with the motto (Sic ars extollitur arte) while also declaring that the decoration consists of inventions and works born of the “knowledge” and the “clever hands” of the academicians. To understand what this might mean, we must examine it in light of Giunti’s original text, which differs slightly from its later iteration in the Lives. Whereas the text in the Lives states that works of art come “from knowledge,” in the Giunti booklet they are said to come from “the depth of our hearts.”49 This small editorial intervention points to a central notion expressed in the funeral decoration itself: art derives from knowledge, not from emotion. Distinguishing knowledge from the senses and emotions, the passage in the Lives suggests that the academicians operate on a rational basis and not, as per Giunti, according to subjective principles. This change is not the result of a systematic revision of the text. On the contrary, the reference to the emotional bases of the work is consistent with the transcription of Vettori’s epitaph, which states that the decoration was created with “heartfelt affection.” But in the Lives the editor of the Giunti text implicitly insists on this point by omitting the following passage from the booklet: “Painting and sculpture evoke love and reverence in the beholder and bestow distinction and amicability on the maker.”50 These references to affective qualities as the fundamental principles of artistic creativity, and indeed as the qualities that observers derive when they view works of art, clash with the academic idea that art is a rational discipline. Art produced by feelings, which in turn evinces “love” and “reverence,” resists structures and conventions. Art based on knowledge, however, renders art teachable and transmissible.

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The idea of art as knowledge was anything but new. The major early Renaissance artists—Piero della Francesca, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Leon Battista Alberti, Albrecht Dürer, and Leonardo—sought to give art the status of a rational discipline, as if it were a science. They tried, as Julius Schlosser put it, to confer upon art “an objective nature, subtracted from the categories of space and time as well as from the subject.”51 The insights of Alberti form the most important precedent to the academic ideal (from the Accademia del Disegno to modernism), but Borghini and Vasari considered them too learned and abstract.52 Alberti is never credited in their writings and in the Lives is criticized for having written too much and done too little as an artist.53 Borghini and Vasari’s academic enterprise attempted to institute the Albertian idea that art can be reduced to standard parameters as a practice.54 Although the academy’s curriculum studiorum included anatomy and mathematics, little can be found in the institution’s statutes regarding the theoretical principles informing academic art.55 In a draft for a lecture to be delivered to the academicians in 1564 Borghini remarked that the institution was an “academia di fare et non di ragionare” (an academy of doing rather than discussing).56 No manifesto of what academic art is or should be was ever produced by Borghini and Vasari. The artistic collaboration exemplified by the decoration of the exequies exemplifies this pragmatic understanding of art as a discipline. The funeral decoration also put into practice the Albertian ideal of the learned artist, versed in literature, the humanist evoked in his De pictura: “Piacerammi sia il pictore . . . huomo buono et docto in buone lettere” (“I would have the painter first of all be a good man, well versed in the liberal arts”). 57 While we know little about the formal qualities of the lost decoration, its contemporary descriptions emphasize the role of textual knowledge. Some of the figures on the catafalque, for which there are no pictorial or sculptural precedents, derived from emblem books. Emblematic literature, a genre closely linked with figurative arts, flourished in the Cinquecento after the publication of Andrea Alciati’s Emblematum liber (1531). Narrowly defined, an emblem is

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a tripartite combination of word and image, usually comprising a picture, a motto, and a sonnet, with a moral significance whose interpretation requires an intellectual effort, both by its designer and the reader.58 Vasari’s “Study Bests Idleness,” featured on the catafalque, was inspired by the emblems “Eloquence” and “Poverty” from the illustrated Lyons edition by Mathias Bonhomme of Alciati’s collection, Diverse imprese (1551). Vasari describes the figure of study as “a spirited and vigorous youth, who had two little wings at the end of his forearm above his wrist signifying swift and incessant work. Below him, as if a fallen prisoner, was Idleness in the shape of a dull and listless woman, in all her movements slow and lethargic.”59 The decoration as a whole suggests that three aspects of emblematic imagery were especially important. First, the emblem implied the preeminence of the “invention” of its subject matter over its formal “execution.” Second, emblematic literature provided artists and art lovers with a set of rules and a vocabulary of symbolic forms that indicated how to structure an “invention” in a conventional, shareable, and transmissible way. Third, the emblem was primarily conceived as a visual form of knowledge that required an integration of literary understanding with visual imagination. Thus the production of emblematic images implied collaboration between artists and men of letters, much as Alberti had recommended and which Vasari considered essential in artistic practice. With the help of learned advisors and friends such as Giovanni Pollastra, Pietro Aretino, Paolo Giovio, Annibal Caro, Cosimo Bartoli, and Borghini, Vasari designed a repertoire of emblematic and allegorical images that accelerated the contemporary tendency in the figurative arts toward a textualization of visual forms. Vasari’s portraits Lorenzo il Magnifico and Alessandro de’ Medici (1553–54), the Allegory of the Immaculate Conception (1540–41), the Allegory of Justice (1543), Patience (1551–52), and the multiple allegorical inventions in the Sala dei Cento Giorni (1546), the Sforza Almeni façade (1563–64), the Sala Regia (1572–73), and in the monumental decoration of Palazzo Vecchio (1555–74) are all

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significant instances of his interest in the work’s content and textual articulation.60 Many of these inventions can be found in the Zibaldone, a repertoire of images Vasari used and reused in his major works.61 His increasing textualization of his visual repertoire was highly influential in the context of a wider shift in the Cinquecento visual arts from symbol to allegory, which produced an unprecedented codification of images.62 Vasari’s art informed a new forma mentis regarding the combination of image and text, which increasingly conditioned the eye to the presence of mottoes, poems, and explicative prose on decorative programs. For the decoration of the exequies Vasari appears to have required that the academicians exercise a command of textual knowledge and the ability to translate such knowledge into graphic terms. This orientation toward the images’ textual extension led artists to devise extremely complex allegorical pictures. A representative example is the subject painted by the promising young academician Bernardo Buontalenti, who forged a combination of allegorical images largely based on such mythographic works as Vincenzo Cartari’s Le imagini con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi (1556) and Pierio Valeriano’s symbolic compilation Hieroglyphica (1556). The painting, also no longer extant, is described in the Giunti booklet. Buontalenti’s canvas pictured the rivers of the world, the Nilus, Ganges, and Po, mourning the Arno. Each was characterized by specific attributes. Nilus, for example, was distinguished by a crocodile and a garland of ears of corn. A personification of Fame led the rivers to Arno. The sky above pictured Michelangelo’s soul in the guise of an angel heading upward, holding the motto Vivens orbe peto laudibus Aethera (Living in the wide world, I fly with my praises to heaven).63 On the margins of the canvas two figures drew back a curtain, as if revealing the scene to the viewer. On the right stood Haephestus, wielding a scythe to subdue Hate, symbolized by a vulture. The figures were accompanied by the inscription Surgere quid properas odium crudele? Iaceto (Why do you hasten to rise, cruel Hatred? Lie prostrate). On the left side stood Aglaia, one of the three Graces, and Vulcan’s

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bride, who symbolizes proportion. Under her lay the personification of disproportion, signified by a monkey. This composition’s motto was Vivus et extinctus docuit sic sternere turpe (Alive and dead he taught to subdue what is ugly). Below the rivers were inscribed the verses Venimus Arne tuo confixa en vulnere maesta / Flumina, ut ereptum mundo ploremus honorem (We, sorrowful rivers, united with you, Arno, in your grief are coming to lament that honor that left the world).64 It is not surprising that the artist—Buontalenti would become renowned for his theatrical inventions for the Medici—used a fictive curtain to reveal the painting’s content. From the description, however, it becomes clear that the device was not used in an illusionistic sense. The curtain does not trick the eye, but rather unveils the allegorical image. The painting is not a living stage but a memory theater, a representation of the artificial order of the mind, which makes reality intelligible and memorable. The painting represents the world as a visible text, in which each image can be named and interpreted, as Buontalenti demonstrates, with an inscription. In spite of the textual density of such images, we cannot now comprehend the details of the exequies’ iconographic program without the aid of description. And it would be wrong to suppose that things were much different for Vasari’s contemporaries. Florentines expressed great enthusiasm for the celebration, but apparently no one understood the specific allegorical messages on display. Anton Francesco Grazzini, called “il Lasca,” a former member of the Florentine academy, praised the work as a whole but was so overwhelmed by the knowledge displayed that he (ironically) added that no pen or mind would have been able to write or even imagine such inventions.65 An anonymous frustrated spectator began his description of the funeral decoration with an admission of ignorance. It was impossible, he wrote, even to come close to an understanding of such conceits, produced by “such brilliant and witty minds.” Of Buontalenti’s painting he wrote, “I could not interpret it, nor could I find anybody able to explain it to me.”66 Giovanni Maria Tarsia, the au-

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thor of a funeral oration delivered to the academicians after the exequies, offered a generic and arbitrary interpretation of the images and was not able to single out even the simple personification of Poetry.67 The partial incomprehensibility of the meanings of the images in the exequies and the other allegorical decorations Borghini and Vasari designed for the Medici was an index of inventiveness, and it fostered a form of art appreciation that increasingly became an act of textual deciphering. This way of conceiving and understanding images blurred the distinction between artistic creation and interpretation, which coincide when author and interpreter are the same person. Vasari, for example, interpreted his own work at Palazzo Vecchio in the Ragionamenti (1588), adding meanings he had not originally conceived. (This was not dissimilar to the free interpretation of the exequies offered by Tarsia.)68 Thus the textual character of the images enabled the viewer to resort to his or her literary knowledge as a form of artistic expertise and creativity. Contemporary viewers offered neither commentary on the decoration’s style nor the artists’ names, but were nonetheless impressed by the overall theatrical effect and by the erudition displayed. Although unable to offer precise explanations, viewers cited allegorical figures and Latin mottoes as signs of wondrous learning. In short, the incomprehensibility of the program’s details was not an issue. What mattered most was to convey: the shift from a conception of art as individual expression to a conception of art as a rational discipline. In this regard the decoration was transparent. The central allegory of the funeral—the celebration of the academicians, the representation of the four arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, and poetry) as impersonal and partial aspects of Michelangelo’s “body artistic”—was also made very clear. A poem by Benedetto Varchi, hanging on the coffin in Santa Croce, could hardly have been more explicit. Quis iacet hic? Unus: qui unus? Buonarotius: unus Hic vere est: erras: quattuor unus hic est [Who lies here? One. Which one? Buonarroti. Yes, truly one. You are mistaken: four in one]69

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Varchi’s poem distills the allegorical discourse of the exequies to a central point: the physical integrity of Michelangelo’s body and its conceptual division into four arts. Eventually the significance of the exequies’ details would become clear when the Giunti booklet was distributed throughout Italy, reaching a much wider audience.70

4. The identification of Michelangelo with the Accademia del Disegno was of strategic importance for the consolidation of the newborn institution. To legitimize the academy Borghini and Vasari needed an authority that they neither possessed nor could hope to attain. Cosimo I’s support was fundamental but ultimately insufficient to create the spontaneous consensus in the artistic community necessary to realize the project. Neither political power nor financial means could generate the cultural capital necessary for the operation. Only the fashioning of Michelangelo as the spiritual founder of the academy could grant the institution universal recognition. Vasari himself had contributed to Michelangelo’s authority by celebrating him as the hero of the history of outstanding masters in the Lives. Ironically the artist Vasari celebrated for his sublime art, heroic isolation, and disdain for any mode of artistic collaboration would become in the exequies the spiritual founder of an institution that promoted art as a discipline and collective production. Paradoxical as it may seem, Michelangelo’s fate in Borghini and Vasari’s hands is a familiar stereotype. From Virgil’s Aeneid to Machiavelli’s Prince, a long-standing tradition in literature and political theory imagines institutional values to be generated by exceptional individuals. Yet to be fashioned as founder, the individual must acquire mythical status. Only heroes, magicians, and prophets, people with superior and transcendental forms of power and knowledge, are able to transform those values into institutional forms. Vasari had already transformed Michelangelo’s

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life into myth and legend in the Lives. In the exequies he needed to reinforce this exceptional status and forge a clear and sustainable link to the academy. The celebration of Michelangelo’s moral and physical integrity was crucial to this end. Vasari fashioned the artist’s identity as intact across time, faithful to stable principles, and uncorrupted by the pressure of external events. As described in the Lives Michelangelo’s uncompromising character and his indifference to patrons’ demands and worldly pleasures came to signify a wholeness that finds full expression in his work as an artist. As we will see in chapter 4, this quality resounds in the Lives in the descriptions of Michelangelo’s major sculptural works. The integrity of the artist celebrated in the Lives was confirmed when his body appeared miraculously intact after its arrival in Florence. Borghini’s exclamation, reported by Giovanni di Simone, that this was a divine sign resonates with the legend of the divine artist and the celebration in the Lives of his work as the emanation of divine creativity. Immutability is the main principle by which Michelangelo’s integrity and authority are deeply interwoven and interdependent.71 Most important, integrity and authority apply to both individuals and institutions and can be transferred from one to the other. The king’s two bodies (the natural body of the ruler and the body politic) and the relationship between the body of Christ and the Church in the Roman Catholic ritual are perhaps the most obvious examples of this founding principle in Western politics and theology. What these examples also show is that there is always a gap between personal and impersonal manifestations of integrity and authority. Natural and institutional bodies relate to discrete notions of space and time. Allegory, given its peculiar ability to fuse conflicting values, is the only way to bridge this gap. In the exequies allegory enabled the identification of the natural body of Michelangelo with the artistic body of the academy. Likewise it transformed Michelangelo’s unique skill in mastering painting, sculpture, and architecture into the fundamental academic principle of the unity of

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the three arts. Finally it connected Michelangelo and academic art—the one subjective and emotional, the other collective and rational, structured on conventional bases. The allegory of the exequies was first and foremost a practice connected to material and even tangible facts. Twenty-two days after his death Michelangelo’s corpse could hardly have been intact, nor could the odors emanating from it have been sweet (as the description of the ritual insists). In fact the exequies evoked the disunity of the arts by reigniting the paragone, that never-ending Renaissance debate about the relative merits of the arts. Benvenuto Cellini, famous for his intemperance in championing sculpture, was so belligerent during the preparation of the funeral that he was eventually excluded from the project.72 Vasari tried his best to hide the fact that the solidarity among academicians was achieved by coercion, as the following passage of the original Giunti text of the exequies—conveniently omitted from the Lives—reveals: “It was said that whoever was found out the next morning in the Company to have failed the night before (without legitimate reason) to come and pay honours to the deceased, was dismissed from their society, because he who did not contribute readily to the homage paid to such a genius was not deemed worthy of the brotherhood.” 73 During the exequies Borghini and Vasari firmly directed the academicians to fulfill specific roles within the funeral rites, since they themselves were part of its allegorical frame of reference. In keeping with the statutes of confraternities that govern the members’ attendance to funerals and meetings, Borghini obliged them to participate actively in the ritual and to pay homage to the dead artist in Santa Croce under the threat of exclusion from the institution. Borghini’s directions further instantiate the contrast between the corporate values of the academy and those embodied by the artist. They indicate how Borghini and Vasari shaped the collective identity of the academicians in the first place by asking them to give up their identity as free subjects, the very identity they attributed to Michelangelo and celebrated in the ceremo-

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nies. We would be wrong, however, to believe that the foundation of the academy occurred at the expense of artistic freedom. The myth of Michelangelo as the free artist is no less ideological than the foundation of the academy. What we witness in the exequies is the substitution of one artistic ideology for another, and thus of one artistic subject for another. The progress of the arts as represented in the funeral rites enacts a metamorphosis of power and knowledge in which Michelangelo plays the role of the classical hero, the elected human actor whose sacrifice subverts the order of things and initiates a new age.74 The second edition of the Lives continues to exalt the messianic quality of his coming to the world while also foregrounding institutional values, as we shall see in chapters 3 and 4. In the exequies a poem by Ippolito Rossi of San Secondo, bishop of Pavia, also celebrated the artist as the mediator between divine and human knowledge.75 Dispensing divine knowledge and removing the veil of error, Michelangelo is the founder of a new epoch, in which art can progress as a rational discipline under the emancipated aegis of the consortium of men.

ch a p t e r t wo

After Michelangelo I may perchance be able, as well with the pen as with the brush, to unfold my ideas to the world. giorgio vasari 1

“After Michelangelo” refers to the decade that preceded the artist’s death (1554–64) rather than to the aftermath of his demise. In this span of years the major Florentine artists competed to produce exemplary works to rival the fame of Michelangelo’s Roman masterpieces. This was also the time when, after an erratic career in the major Italian cities, Vasari returned to Florence with the intention of gaining the favor of Cosimo I de’ Medici. This chapter highlights how Vasari’s artistic production radically departed from that of the major contemporary Florentine artists. While Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, and Alessandro Allori all retained the idea that artistic values reside in the material execution of a work and in its status as an object, Vasari subordinated his works’ stylistic and material aspects to their advanced formulation and design. According to Vasari, a master distinguished himself not by creating unique works, but by his ability to produce fully intelligible designs that could be reproduced by different artists in different media. This idea was realized, for example, in the decoration for the palazzo of the duke’s first chamberlain, Sforza Almeni. The façade’s chiaroscuro decoration was designed by

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Figure 6. Pontormo, The Deluge. Five figures. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, 6753F. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

Vasari and almost entirely executed by his assistant, Cristofano Gherardi. I conclude that Vasari’s innovative approach, which found immediate application in the serial artistic production commissioned by Cosimo I for Palazzo Vecchio, was integral to Vasari’s immediate and long-standing success at the Medici court.

1. Pontormo’s cycle of frescoes in the choir of the Florentine church of San Lorenzo, a monumental program illustrating man’s creation, death, resurrection, and final salvation, was, according to the Lives, one of the greatest failures in Italian Cinquecento art. No longer extant, the cycle was begun around 1546, interrupted by Pontormo’s death in 1557, and completed by his pupil Agnolo Bronzino one year later. 2 Although nothing of the cycle survives in situ, the frescoes’ subject matter and their articulation on the choir’s three walls have been reconstructed on the basis of visual records and literary descriptions. A few preparatory drawings and approximately sixteen other contemporary drawings by anonymous artists reproduce details of the frescoes (Figs. 6–9).3

Figure 7. Pontormo, Christ in Glory. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, 6609F. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

Figure 8. Pontormo, Resurrection. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, 6528F. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

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Figure 9. Pontormo, The Deluge. Ten figures. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, 6752F. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

The only visual record of the program survives in a detail of an engraving dedicated to the exequies of Philip II of Spain, which were celebrated in the church on November 12, 1598.4 The limited pictorial evidence notwithstanding, what we know of the cycle is still striking for the originality of its iconographic program and overall composition. According to Philippe Costamagna’s reconstruction, the cycle comprised seventeen scenes depicting (upper band, from left to right, south choir) Offerings of Cain and Abel, and Murder of Abel, Noah Designing the Ark, Moses Receiving the Tablets of the Law, Expulsion from Paradise; (west choir) Christ in Glory, Creation of Adam and Eve, Original Sin; (north choir) Four Evangelists, Sacrifice of Isaac, Labors of Adam and Eve; (lower band, from left to right, south choir) The Benediction of the Descendants of Noah, Rainbow in the Sky as Witness to the Covenant between God and Men, Deluge; (west choir) Ascension of Souls from Purgatory, Skeletons with Torches, Martyrdom of St. Lawrence; and (north choir)

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The Resurrection of the Dead.5 Bronzino completed the cycle by painting some figures in the lower area of the Flood, a large portion of the Resurrection of the Dead, and the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, where the artist included a portrait of Pontormo to honor his memory. The complexity and peculiarity of the iconographic program have no parallels in earlier or contemporary figurative cycles. Its emphasis on Old Testament scenes and lack of references to mediating figures to link the faithful with Christ have led art historians and historians, from Charles de Tolnay (1963) to Massimo Firpo (1997), to interpret the fresco as a manifesto of the Valdesian heresy.6 It has been argued that Pontormo may have shared this heretical conviction with the elite of the Medici court, particularly with Cosimo I’s majordomo, Pierfrancesco Riccio, who favored Pontormo for the commission.7 The completion of Pontormo’s frescoes was freighted with expectations. The work was the most important ducal commission to date on account of its monumentality and its privileged location. Built by order of Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici and further enriched by the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII, the Church of San Lorenzo had become a mausoleum of the Medici family and a symbol of their long-standing patronage. These expectations were only heightened by Pontormo’s secrecy: the artist had worked in isolation for almost eleven years. According to the Lives, Pontormo protected the choir from intruders by building an impenetrable turata (an enclosure for scaffoldings, which artists would use to conceal works in progress). Vasari wrote that no one, with the exception of a group of irreverent youths who had dismantled some of the roof tiles, had seen the work in progress.8 When the chapel was finally unveiled on July 23, 1558, it was not to great acclaim but to disparagement. In spite of the excellent quality of some of its particulars, the fresco appeared disordered and disproportionate. As we read in the artist’s biography in the Lives: Although there may be in this work some part of a torso, with its back turned, or from the front, and some side views, executed with marvelous care and effort by Jaco-

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po . . . nonetheless as a whole it is alien to his usual style and, as it appears to almost everyone, lacks correct measurements. . . . So it seems that in this picture he paid regard only to certain parts, and of other, more important parts, he took no account whatsoever.9

While conceding that some anatomical details, such as shoulders in torsion and muscular definition of flanks, were beautifully executed, this passage claims that Pontormo emphasized these details at the expense of other elements of the decoration. The overall result lacked measure and proportion. The Lives calls attention to this deficiency by claiming incomprehension at Pontormo’s composition: “I have never been able to understand the significance of this scene. . . . It does not seem to me that in a single place he gave a thought to any order or composition, or measurement, or time, or variety in the heads, or diversity in the flesh-colours, or, in a word, to any rule, proportion, or law of perspective.”10 This passage overlooks the emotional and expressive quality of Pontormo’s work, focusing exclusively on pictorial conventions and the illegibility of the iconographic program. According to the Lives, the overall result Pontormo achieved in San Lorenzo was even more regrettable because he was a learned painter: “Aveva ingegno da sé e praticava con persone dotte e letterate” (“He had sufficient wit himself, and also associated with learned and lettered persons”).11 Two decades later Francesco Bocchi too criticized the San Lorenzo frescoes for their lack of clarity. He claimed that Pontormo should have followed more faithfully the Bible and the conventions of verisimilitude in painting: “Surely, had he imitated in conformity with verisimilitude, reading in the Sacred Scriptures, and considering in his mind how things could in fact have happened . . . Jacopo would have equaled the achievements of the very greatest artists and perhaps even surpassed them.”12 The Lives also suggests that Pontormo’s San Lorenzo cycle acquired a negative reputation even before it was begun. Pontormo was widely thought to have seen in the prestigious commission an occasion to demonstrate his superiority as an artist:

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Some people say that Jacopo, when he saw the work was being commissioned from him . . . must needs pronounce that he would show the world how to draw and paint, and how to work in fresco, and moreover that the other painters were ten a penny, and other such arrogant and overbearing words. . . . Although these utterances went around, especially among our craftsmen, I nonetheless hold firmly to the opinion that they were the words of malignant men.13

Attributing malicious gossip is a rhetorical strategy repeatedly deployed in the Lives to criticize contemporaries. The biography goes on to suggest that Pontormo’s failure was rooted in his attempt to compete with Michelangelo, a confrontation inherent in the commission itself. Not only did the ecclesiastical complex of San Lorenzo contain Michelangelo’s most important Florentine works—the Medici tombs in the New Sacristy and the Laurentian Library—but commissioning Pontormo’s cycle was tantamount to soliciting a Florentine response to the Roman work of the master, the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, which included the recently completed Last Judgment (1541).14 According to Costamagna, the relationship to Michelangelo’s masterpiece was so plain that it is possible that Pontormo even visited Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel in Rome before undertaking his work.15 The decoration of the Sistine Chapel is also evoked by the subject of Pontormo’s frescoes: the history of mankind from the Creation to the Last Judgment. Indeed the cycle’s largest and most identifiable scene, the Resurrection of the Dead, occupied the whole north wall of the choir, and from the time of its creation to the eighteenth century (in the years close to the decoration’s destruction) the cycle was commonly referred to as the “Last Judgment.”16 Pontormo’s biography is rich in information about the circumstances of the commission, and its reference to Michelangelo’s Roman work in particular. In fact in criticizing the decoration the Lives refers sarcastically to the episode of the Resurrection of the Dead: “On the other wall is depicted the universal Resurrection of the Dead, which is to be on the last and glorious day, with

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such variety and confusion that the event itself will perhaps not be more real or, so to say, true to life than Pontormo has painted it.”17 In other words, Pontormo rendered a depiction as turbulently and with as much wild abandon as was expected of its very subject, the Final Days. This disparaging critique of the frescoes has generally been interpreted as both a genuine and a calculated misunderstanding of Pontormo’s art. Whereas the former interpretation is mainly the product of the romantic reevaluation of Pontormo’s style, the latter relates to the commission’s historical context. Certainly Vasari’s aversion to Pontormo’s work was influenced by his friendship with Francesco Salviati, whose candidacy for the decoration of the choir was refused by Riccio, a long-standing supporter of Pontormo.18 More dubious, in my view, is the opinion that this assessment of the frescoes in the Lives was rooted in a condemnation of the heretical implications of the iconographic program, and that this criticism stemmed from the radicalization of the orthodox position of the Roman Church and its political alliance with the Medici state. Vasari scholars have in fact claimed that he feigned incomprehension of the cycle’s content in order to disassociate himself and the members of the Medici court from its heretical implications.19 I agree instead with Luciano Berti, who understands the criticism expressed in the Lives to be wholly based in aesthetic principles. 20 As Berti notes, nothing seems more foreign to Vasari’s inclination toward variety and order in art, than Pontormo’s obsession with the human figure. The frescoes’ preparatory drawings and copies may to some extent justify the criticism we read in the Lives. Three drawings attributed to Pontormo, now at the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, which were probably preparatory to the scenes of the Flood, the Ascension of the Souls, and the Resurrection of the Dead, show interlaced bodies, dramatically lighted, forming a dense, writhing, largely undifferentiated organic mass (Figs. 6–9).21 As we read in the Lives, Pontormo’s corpses seem to drive the viewer toward a sense of rapture and morbid attraction: “For I truly believe I would drive myself crazy

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to become embroiled with this painting, just as, it seems to me, in the eleven years he spent on it, Jacopo sought to embroil himself and whoever looks at it with those extraordinary figures.”22 The human figure, a “soggetto . . . miracoloso e divino” (miraculous and divine subject), as Pontormo himself declared, contains an inner overwhelming force.23 Like the sirens’ chant, its seduction leads to insanity and self-destruction. This interpretation of the nude relies on the same psychology of perception, based on theories of the imagination, that informs the description in the Lives of Michelangelo’s figures. The primary focus is on the figures’ terribilità, the combination of fear and attraction that they evince in the viewer. This fear derives from a recognition of the figures’ inner power, and their attraction is generated by the fierce control the artist exerts on them through the means of art. 24 Pontormo’s imitation of Michelangelo is a case in point of the potential dangers of the figure’s power, which only a supreme artist such as Michelangelo is able to control. As we read in the Lives, Pontormo was so overwhelmed by his own figurative world that he could no longer even master himself, as the contrast between the poor results of these frescoes and the measured beauty of his early works testified. 25 He failed precisely because he dared to compete with divine powers—which only Michelangelo could manage. As we read in the biography of Raphael, “When he has done his best a painter should not try to do even better in order to surpass those whom God and nature have made so gifted that their work seems almost miraculous. . . . In our time (only a short while ago) the same misfortune befell Jacopo Pontormo.”26

2. While Pontormo was at work in San Lorenzo Vasari was seeking to gain the favor of Cosimo I and secure his return to Florence after three years of disillusionment at the service of Julius III in Rome. 27 His friend and patron Bernardo Minerbetti, bishop of Arezzo, initially tried to endorse Vasari to Giovambattista

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Figure 10. Palazzo Almeni. Florence, Via dei Servi 12. Photo by the author.

Ricasoli, Cosimo I’s counselor and the bishop of Cortona, who was planning the façade decoration of his palace at the Ponte alla Carraia. 28 Unsuccessful with Ricasoli, who opted instead for Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, Minerbetti succeeded with Sforza Almeni, Cosimo I’s steward and chief chamberlain, who decided to

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Figure 11. Palazzo Almeni. Florence, Via dei Servi 12. Photo by the author.

decorate the façade of his palace in Via dei Servi in competition with Ricasoli (Figs. 10–11). Vasari received the Almeni commission while still in Rome in the fall of 1553.29 The façade decoration was ideal for Vasari’s purpose of acquiring immediate recognition and gaining the duke’s favor. All façade decorations, given

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their public exposure, were automatically considered to be under the duke’s jurisdiction, and in the case of the Almeni façade, the commission was explicitly conceived in homage to Cosimo I.30 Apart from wishing to surpass Ricasoli, Almeni had no specific requests regarding the decoration, leaving to Vasari the duty and privilege of determining its subject matter and design. 31 Reassuring the chief chamberlain about the competition, Vasari claimed that his façade would differ significantly from others, both past and present. 32 His aim, he said, was to create an original work, a new kind of façade decoration that would establish itself as a model for the genre. At the same time Vasari was concerned with satisfying the current taste of the Medici court. In this he was helped by his friend and learned advisor Cosimo Bartoli, who was a member of the Almeni circle and provided him with the literary source for the decoration. 33 Vasari also succeeded in involving the duke in the decoration’s planning. He asked Almeni what subjects Cosimo I would like to see in the lower band of the façade, a section he had intentionally left unresolved until the end. 34 Only after Cosimo I expressed his preferences and his satisfaction did Almeni give his final approval for the design. 35 The resulting plan was a complex allegorical program centered on the theme of human life, “the whole human life: all ages . . . from birth to death, even to the Resurrection after death.”36 The decoration was divided into three parallel bands along the three stories of the building, and into seven vertical bands placed between the six windows of the second and third story. This organizational schema accommodated the expansion of the traditional three ages of man to seven (Birth, Infancy, Adolescence, Youth, Virility, Old Age, Decrepitude), which Vasari featured on the central and most visible horizontal band. The ages were accompanied by the theological and cardinal virtues; the seven liberal arts, which were represented on the horizontal band below; and the seven planets, along with their respective astrological signs, on the upper band. At the ground level, near the portal, Vasari represented builders, architects, and stonecut-

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ters before the gate of Cosmopolis, a city built by Duke Cosimo on the island of Elba with a view of Porto Ferraio. To further ingratiate himself Vasari included the duke’s horoscope on the same band. Concerned with the ephemeral character of the decoration, which he feared “may not enjoy a long life,” Vasari included a lengthy description of the façade (filling more than three pages) in the biography of Cristofano Gherardi, Vasari’s faithful assistant, who carried out its execution.37 Notably the description emphasizes the order of the figurative elements and its integration with the architecture of the façade. It offers no information on the pictorial style of the figures, apart from the vague notation that they were “executed by Cristofano with much grace,”38 and no mention is made of the emotional effect they had on the viewer (on which the Lives commented at length in the case of Pontormo’s frescoes). This is one of the multiple examples of descriptions based on preexisting iconographic programs written by Vasari’s learned advisors, in this case Bartoli, included in the second edition. It is the intellectual nature and contents of the fresco that the description emphasizes; figures are largely identified by lists of attributes. For example, “Self-knowledge,” one of the virtues that characterize the Age of Youth, is described as “surrounded by sextants, astrolabes, quadrants and books, and looking in a mirror.”39 From the base of the building to its top the description accounts for an impressive and apparently unrelated variety of subjects, such as war, pestilence, famine, death, resurrection, human labors, landscapes of cities, artists, philosophers, lakes and rivers, and virtues subduing vices. The description highlights both the variety and the order of the composition, casting the theme of human life as a visible and intelligible totality. As we read in the Lives, the decoration is a compendium of science, exemplary of the virtuous life of Sforza Almeni, as well as a moral lesson for every man. The Almeni decoration was an immediate success. Vasari satisfied Cosimo I and his entourage to such an extent that while

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Gherardi was still completing the façade, the duke absolved Vasari from his duty as prior of the city of Arezzo and summoned him to Florence. One year after the completion of the decoration, on December 13, 1555, Vasari began designing the decoration of Palazzo Vecchio, the largest and most ambitious artistic work undertaken under Cosimo I’s regime, for which Vasari received the yearly provision of three hundred scutes.40 In the 1570s, “having been extraordinarily pleased by that [the façade decoration] of messer Sforza,” Antonio Ramirez de Montalvo, chief chamberlain of the duke, commissioned Vasari to decorate the façade of his palace in Borgo degli Albizi.41 (Montalvo succeeded Almeni after the latter’s violent and mysterious death in 1566.) For this project Vasari, aided by Vincenzio Borghini, developed another complex iconographic program centered on the theme of ben servire (good courtly service), which, as Charles Davis notes, largely derives from the Almeni façade.42 (Borghini was increasingly taking over Bartoli’s function as learned advisor. Bartoli left Florence for Venice in 1563 as Cosimo I’s agent.) Beginning in the mid-1550s Cosimo I entrusted Vasari with the organization and direction of the most important public commissions of the state.43 Within a decade of his return to Florence Vasari had become the de facto artist of the Medici regime. The Almeni façade and Pontormo’s work at San Lorenzo were in some regards comparable works: both were large-scale public commissions sponsored by Cosimo I, and both represented mankind from birth to death (one in religious and the other in secular terms). Such similarities notwithstanding, the two programs differed fundamentally. The architectural structure of Vasari’s design contrasted with the empty frames into which Pontormo released his nudes. According to the decoration’s description in the biography of Gherardi, Vasari’s design possessed variety, order, and intelligibility; Pontormo’s frescoes had none of these. We can gain a richer sense of the differences between the two works by comparing Pontormo’s preparatory drawings (Figs. 6–9) to a schematic reconstruction of the iconographic program of the Almeni façade (Fig. 12). Painted in a monochrome palette, the Al-

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Figure 12. Scheme of the Almeni façade, after Christel Thiem and Gunther Thiem, Toskanische Fassaden-Dekoration in Sgraffito und Fresko: 14 bis 17 Jahrhundert (Munich: Bruckmann 1964).

meni façade was no doubt less demanding in its production than the choir of the Medici church. In significance and cost the two programs also differed substantially. And of course a comparison between sixteenth-century drawings of details and a twentiethcentury schematic reconstruction of the whole façade is rather arbitrary. Nevertheless Vasari’s contemporaries were surely able to compare the two decorations, and indeed as manifestos of two antithetical conceptions of art. Whereas Pontormo deployed the material qualities of the details to produce emotional effects in the viewer, Vasari emphasized structure and order, highlighting the work’s intellectual content. In these ways the respective artists and their works embodied, in Pontormo’s case, an emotional conception of art and, in Vasari’s, a linguistic model. One of the few eyewitnesses who left a written account of the Almeni façade

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decoration, the Florentine academician Alfonso de’ Pazzi, author of the satiric sonnets directed against Benedetto Varchi (collected as the Varcheida), ironically claimed that the decoration “resembles a lecture by Benedetto Varchi.” Pazzi added that, in his opinion, “the painter from Arezzo [Vasari] and the academicians aim to teach sciences through painted walls.”44

3. In the 1550s Pontormo was the foremost follower of Michelangelo, but certainly not the only one. Among Florentine artists who considered themselves privileged interpreters of the achievements of their fellow citizen, Agnolo Bronzino was also prominent. In contrast to Pontormo’s introverted interpretations, Bronzino tried to translate Michelangelo’s style into a formal purism by establishing a new stylistic canon based on a linear definition of the nude immersed in a radiant crystalline light.45 One decade later, however, precisely because of his collaboration on the San Lorenzo frescoes, Bronzino’s purism was influenced by the late style of his master, Pontormo. The resulting formalism remained impeccable, but, at least according to Vasari’s point of view, it tended toward an excessive dependence on expressions and gestures, which led to a loss of clarity, measure, and narrative force. The predominance of the nude and its formal isolation from the other elements of the painting sometimes created a sense of vacuity and of excessive artifice. These stylistic features characterized Bronzino’s later works, such as the Nativity for the Church of the Cavaliers of Santo Stefano in Pisa (1564), the Resurrection of Jairus’ Daughter in the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence (ca. 1570), and especially the monumental Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, commissioned by Cosimo I in 1565 and painted in the left nave of the Church of San Lorenzo (Fig. 13). Bronzino’s fresco depicting the death of St. Lawrence was inspired by his painting of the same subject on the lower band of the west wall of the choir, painted in 1557 to complete Pontormo’s cycle. This work is a well-known manifesto of Michelangio-

Figure 13. Bronzino, Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (1565–69). Florence, Church of San Lorenzo (1565–69). S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

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Figure 14. Michelangelo, Day (1526–31) Florence, Church of San Lorenzo, New Sacristy. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

lism, containing several quotations of and references to the work of the master. For example, the figure of the saint refers directly to Adam in the Creation on the Sistine Chapel. The figure painted in the foreground right corner evokes Day in the Medici chapel (Fig. 14).46 When the fresco was publicly unveiled on the feast day of St. Lawrence on August 10, 1569, the event must have engendered excitement similar to that surrounding the unveiling of Pontormo’s frescoes ten years before. No sources relating the work’s contemporary reception survive. But an unfavorable opinion on the part of the duke would explain the fact that Bronzino’s name does not subsequently appear in the official payroll. (Bronzino had hoped that his work would win him back the yearly stipend he had received regularly until 1564, when, for reasons that remain unknown, the payments ceased.)47 In the Lives Vasari makes positive mention of the work while it was still in progress; he writes that he is confi-

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dent that the artist “will prove the excellent Bronzino that he has always been.”48 However, this brief allusion and the minor role Bronzino played in the Lives are disproportionate to his actual fame among contemporaries, especially given his prominent affiliation with the Accademia del Disegno.49 Open criticism of the fresco appeared only after the artist’s death, in Raffaello Borghini’s Il Riposo (1584), a book representative of contemporary art taste in Florence in the last quarter of the century. Echoing Vasari’s judgment of Pontormo’s work in the choir, Borghini praised the execution of formal details but criticized its composition, color, the rendering of spatial depth, and the figures’ postures. 50 In the second half of the century major Florentine artists such as Pontormo and Bronzino, spurred on by competition and perhaps affected by the apprehension that the golden age of art was waning with Michelangelo, aspired to create exemplary works for a new generation of artists. However, both Pontormo’s introverted and hallucinatory forms and Bronzino’s extreme formalism turned out to be sterile models. Devised as artistic innovations, these efforts were instead received by artists and critics as signs of imminent decline.51 Neither expressionism nor pure formalism seemed to offer potential for the future. Calls to redefine the means and ends of art became increasingly widespread; as Vasari suggested with regard to the Almeni decoration, profound reassessment was in order. The creation of unique exemplary models was not sufficient; innovation required a new artistic theory and practice. One key corollary for Vasari’s initiative was that art would come to be more intimately linked to the grammatical and rhetorical principles of language and literature. Consider, for example, Alessandro Allori, who took Pontormo’s and Bronzino’s imitation of Michelangelo a step further. In his Libro de’ ragionamenti delle regole del disegno (Discussions on the Rules of Drawing), an early version of which was written in the year prior to March 1566, Allori proposed a linguistic notion of disegno based on Michelangelo’s stylistic device ditornare, the delineation of the contours of a nude figure.52 By claiming a substantial equivalence between “drawing” and “writing,” Allori aimed

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to translate Michelangelo’s inimitable style into a structured model—transforming, as Patricia Reilly has shown, Michelangelo’s art into a “figurative language.”53 Contrary to his masters Bronzino and Pontormo, Allori understood that the development of the figurative arts had to be inscribed within the institutionalization of culture promoted by the Medici regime. Albeit modestly, his treatise echoes the normative principles contemporary Florentine intellectuals attempted to impose on the vernacular language in the same decade. The role Michelangelo played in Allori’s “figurative language” was similar to that played by Dante in Leonardo Salviati’s position in the language debate, where Salviati claimed that the standard parameters of language were related to the authority of exceptional individual achievements.54 In both cases the institutionalized normative practices were grounded in the imitation of unique exemplary models. One example of Allori’s interpretation of Michelangelo’s art is the unusual altarpiece after Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, which Allori executed for the Montauto Chapel in the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence between 1560 and 1564 (Fig. 15).55 The painting is not a copy but a reproduction of the masterpiece, based on multiple studies of the frescoes. As Elizabeth Pilliod has noted, the extensive signature, Alexander Allorius civis Flor. Bronzini alunnus inventum optimi pictoris Bonarrotae haec sedulo pinxit (Alessandro Allori, citizen of Florence, pupil of Bronzino, thus zealously painted the invention of the excellent painter Buonarroti), identifies the altarpiece as if it were an engraving after Michelangelo’s work.56 By the later sixteenth century it was an industry standard to identify the artist responsible for the design (the “inventor”) and the engraver (the “sculptor”) by name, in sequence, and in Latin. 57 Thus, in contrast with a copy, which attempts to imitate in toto another work’s invention, design, and execution, Allori’s altarpiece makes clear the separation between invention and execution and, at the same time, the principle that the latter is replicable. Similarly Allori conceived the fresco decoration of the chapel as a translation of the Sistine Chapel, adapted to the space and context of the com-

Figure 15. Alessandro Allori, Last Judgment (1560–64). Florence, Church of Santissima Annunziata, Chapel of the Crucifixion. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

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Figure 16. Alessandro Allori, Montauto Chapel, Vault (1560–64) Florence, Church of Santissima Annunziata. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

mission: the pendentives are decorated with Michelangiolesque prophets and sibyls, the key-vault with a scene representing the Original Sin and the Expulsion from Paradise (Fig. 16), and the three walls with original scenes inspired by Raphael’s Stanze but populated by figures distinctively and deliberately reminiscent of Michelangelo.58 Whereas Pontormo created in San Lorenzo what Berti calls a “negative Sistine Chapel,” thus enacting the impossibility of re-creating a similar work, Allori went another route. 59 He did not try to surpass or even to equal the Roman masterpiece, but offered instead an example of one of its many possible translations. With this commission, the first he received after his ultimate return from Rome, Allori created a new manifesto of Michelangiolism: not a free, individual interpretation of his work, following Pontormo’s and Bronzino’s examples, but one draw-

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ing on the vocabulary of linear forms already provided by the master. Allori’s task was in many ways similar to Vasari’s, the fundamental difference being that Vasari considered it impossible to reduce Michelangelo’s style to a language. For Vasari, the two terms were mutually exclusive. (The extraordinary formal and emotional qualities of Michelangelo’s art resisted structuring and, when imitated, tended to degenerate into solipsistic interpretations.) Pilliod has convincingly shown how tendentious is the treatment in the Lives of Pontormo, Bronzino, and Allori, a trio of artists whose legacy she restored as an artistic genealogy. Indeed it was Vasari’s sustained and programmatic reaction against any direct imitation of Michelangelo’s style that prompted this critique.60 This is not to say that Vasari wished to distance his art from Michelangelo’s. On the contrary, and more so than Allori, Vasari consistently worked to establish a unique and exclusive relationship between himself and the master. He did so primarily by claiming that his work received Michelangelo’s placitus. In Vasari’s correspondence and in the Lives Michelangelo is ever present, offering constructive and positive assessments of Vasari’s major Florentine projects, including the Almeni façade, the model of the Montauto Chapel (which he proposed through Borghini five years before the commission was assigned to Allori), and the decoration of Palazzo Vecchio.61 Michelangelo would have had good reasons to maintain a friendly relationship with Cosimo I’s principal court artist, dictated by his compromised political position and personal interest. As John Shearman has argued, the old artist must have also grasped the tremendous importance of the second edition of the Lives, then in preparation, in the transmission of his fame and reputation. The biography of the artist in the second edition would have in fact eclipsed the “authorized” one by Condivi.62 It should be noted, however, that no external references to Michelangelo’s approval survive to corroborate Vasari’s and Michelangelo’s own claims.63 In other words, nothing could prevent Vasari from invoking the master’s approval and Michelangelo to concede it, even in the case of a form of art distant to

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Michelangelo’s aesthetic. As we have seen, Vasari’s instrumentalization of Michelangelo reached its dramatic culmination in the celebration of his exequies, which ratified artistic principles that had little or nothing to do with the art of the master. Vasari interpreted Michelangelo’s outstanding achievements as able to elevate the arts to an institutional level. In this sense, then, Vasari exalted the works of Michelangelo. But considered literally those same achievements were obstacles to the development of art as a discipline. As Vasari framed it, Michelangelo’s prestige and absolute authority precluded any continuity, other than a symbolic one, between the master and those who followed.64

4. Vasari’s ability to satisfy Medici court taste helps to explain the immediate success of the Almeni decoration. However, how a chiaroscuro fresco executed by his assistant in seven months guaranteed Vasari the position of court artist requires some explanation. The façade decoration represented two innovative aspects of art theory and practice: a clear separation of invention and design from execution, and the privileging of the former over the latter. This was the ground on which Vasari staked the originality of his work, claiming fourteen years later in the Lives that no other Florentine painter would have been suitable for the job.65 In realizing the Almeni façade Vasari presented an original alternative to the conception of art as inseparable from the material realization of an artifact, a conception in which artists like Pontormo, Bronzino, and Allori had a strong ideological investment. Let me clarify this point by restating the artistic principles mentioned earlier in terms of classical rhetoric. According to classical rhetoric, speeches and literary works are characterized by three main qualities: inventio, dispositio, and elocutio. These qualities relate, respectively, to the choice of subjects, the order of their display, and the discursive and stylistic techniques displayed to present them. If invention and design (inventio and dispositio) concern the thematic and formal aspects of a work of art, execu-

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tion (elocutio) concerns the manner in which an artist expresses them. Execution has traditionally played a predominant role in appreciation. Related to the concept of stylistic embellishment (ornatus), it represents an improvement on the subject matter and its disposition in aesthetic terms. It is here that, from classical times onward, aesthetic notions of literature and art as forms of individual expression have often been located. Reconsidered in rhetorical terms, therefore, the subordination of execution to the choice of topics and the order of their display is a groundbreaking change. This principle finds expression in the Lives in the famous concept of disegno, variously defined in the second edition, whose most comprehensive formulation is the “visible expression and declaration of the concept that one has in the mind, which is imagined and created in the intellect by the idea.”66 Vasari illustrates the operations of disegno in a small painting on copper devised by Borghini, the Vulcan’s Forge (ca. 1565–67) at the Uffizi, in which Vulcan (the personification of the artist) imitates what Minerva (the personification of the intellect) shows him. The evolution of the concept of disegno after the Lives, in the writings of Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo and Federico Zuccari, for example, further marked the conceptual separation between design and execution, and the primacy of the former over the latter.67 The subordination of execution to invention and design has a long tradition in art theory and practice before Vasari; its most important precedent is in Leon Battista Alberti’s writings on art. De re aedificatoria in particular aims to provide architects with a rational method capable of reducing intentionality to a minimum in the phase of execution by fixing the invention and design of a work in the planning phase.68 According to Alberti, the more intelligibility the architect confers on the architectural project, the more he is able to prevent mistakes and undesired alterations in the construction. Alberti’s idea is integral and obvious in the case of modern architecture, but much less self-evident as regards painting and sculpture. Yet the same idea was at the core of the artistic practice

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of painters such as Piero della Francesca, Leonardo, and especially Raphael. Differently from Michelangelo and his imitators, Raphael practiced an idea of style as imitable and translatable across different media. His assistants Gianfrancesco Penni and Giulio Romano even made cartoons for paintings that Raphael would consider his own.69 (The separation of invention, design, and execution, and the redefinition of authorship as a function of the former, could not have been more radical.) It is not surprising that Raphael came to occupy a prominent role in the second edition of the Lives, no longer subordinated to Michelangelo, as was the case in the first. The 1568 biography of Raphael commends the comprehensiveness of his art. Instead of devoting himself exclusively to the study of the human body, as Michelangelo and his imitators did, Raphael studied with the same zeal every pictorial subject, thus achieving in his work that variety that Alberti postulated as one of the central values in art.70 Indeed the Lives fashions Raphael as a proto-academician and his workshop as the fulcrum of an ideal history of the Accademia del Disegno (which begins with the foundation of the famous Garden of St. Mark, the Medici art school where Michelangelo received his early training).71 The decoration of the first and second floors of the West Loggia of the San Damaso Courtyard in the Vatican Palace, where different artists with different competencies and backgrounds perfected themselves as artists, stimulated by Raphael’s guidance and honest competition, stands in the Lives as a model of academic practice.72 These corporative aspects of Italian Renaissance art (embodied by the connection between Raphael’s workshop and Vasari’s artistic practice) are widely acknowledged, and yet they remain counterintuitive. As Kendall Walton has noticed, we tend to consider works of art as if their significance resides in their objecthood, even if their maker considered the concept and production more important than their material result.73 This is especially true when we interpret Renaissance art, where the idea of a “masterpiece,” a product of outstanding visible and/or tactile

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qualities, dominates critical and historical analysis. We might instead consider the alternative, namely that the significance of a work of art primarily resides not in its status as an object but in the way it was conceived and designed. To understand the success of the Almeni façade, therefore, we should evaluate the intelligibility of the subject and the importance of its planning to its execution, but also acknowledge the potential for the work’s replication and multiplication in different media. Within Vasari’s social and historical milieu, and especially from the perspective of Cosimo I, who considered art an instrument of political power, the importance of these three aspects is obvious. Documents highlight Vasari’s commitment to the work’s conception. As Christel and Gunther Thiem, and Charles Davis noted, the design of the Almeni decoration was the most lengthy and troubled phase of the project.74 Vasari presented to Almeni the first idea, accompanied by an explicatory letter on October 21, 1553, eight months before the work was begun.75 He produced several designs before settling on the final one.76 But once the design was established, its execution became merely a technical matter, which did not even require Vasari’s continuous presence in Florence. No copies of the decoration executed by Gherardi are known to exist. On the contrary, Bartoli’s invention derived from and was the source of inspiration for numerous works. The theme of human life was the subject of the lost decoration of the garden loggia of Ferrante Pandolfini, which preceded the Almeni façade. Bartoli wrote a capriccio that offered a literary explanation of the iconographic program for the loggia, which was later included in his Ragionamenti accademici (1567).77 The program probably inspired Pirro Ligorio’s decoration of the Loggia of Pius IV in the Vatican, which drew on the same iconographic theme.78 The Vatican decoration was later translated into the Spechio della vita humana, a large engraving printed by Ferando Bertelli in 1566 in Venice, probably on the basis of Sabaoth Danti’s drawings.79 The Ages of Man also became the subject of a series of fourteen tap-

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estries Vasari assigned to Jan van der Straet in 1559, which was completed in 1565 for Cosimo’s Winter Dining Room, as part of the decoration of Palazzo Vecchio. The surviving tapestries representing the Age of Infancy and the Age of Virility, woven by the workshop of Benedetto Squilli and Giovanni Sconditi, feature the different elements of the iconography of the façade as described in the Lives.80 Van der Straet also designed a series of six prints on the same subject (Infancy; Childhood, Youth, Knowledge; Youth; Virility; Maturity; Senility and Death), which were engraved by Peter Furnius and published by Hieronymus Cock in 1570.81 Ilja Veldman argues that the decoration of the Almeni façade inspired a series of drawings on the seven planets by Maarten de Vos, which were later engraved in three different series. The series designed by de Vos, engraved by Adriaen Collaert, and published by Gérard de Jode in 1581 recalls the complex articulation of the façade. Its seven engravings illustrating the seven planets show a similar correspondence between the planets and the Ages of Man.82 These examples indicate the precedents, reach, and influence of the iconographic program of the Almeni façade. This legacy is a measure of the success of Vasari’s treatment of invention and design as elements separate from, and to some extent in spite of, their ephemeral material execution. Whereas the façade decoration was striking for how readily its invention and design were replicated in different media by different artists, the San Lorenzo frescoes were inseparable from the contingent circumstances of their execution. The almost infinite possibilities of reuse of the Almeni decoration, in toto or with small variations, emphasized the advantages of careful advance planning and the marginality of execution in art. Such a shift carries important practical consequences for art making. It may explain, for example, the contrast between Gherardi’s speed of execution and Pontormo’s extensive procrastination. According to Vasari, whereas Gherardi easily completed the façade in the summer of 1554 (he may actually have done it from February to September), Pontormo worked for nine or

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ten years at the choir, with no sign of imminent completion.83 In contrast to Pontormo’s inscrutable and unpredictable process, Gherardi painted the façade without hesitation, proceeding from the top of the building to the bottom, his progress visible to all. The separation between design and execution also redefines the work of the assistant, no longer conceived of as deficient in mastery, but complementary to it. According to the Lives, the assistant, although subordinate in rank, can even surpass the master if valued for his specific competence. For example, the biography of Gherardi states that the artist had no equal in the painting of specific motifs and was superior to Vasari in the fresco technique.84 However, while describing Gherardi as the ideal assistant, the biography also highlights his limitations. It praises him for his unsurpassed ability to achieve outstanding results without any study, but it is precisely this lack of study that prevented him from becoming a master. Often Gherardi was able to obtain the same results as other artists who supported their practice with diligent study.85 However, as the biography promptly remarks, these results depended on chance and not on calculation. The crucial distinction between an assistant and a master, the biography concludes, is that only the latter is able to make preparatory drawings. As we read in the Lives, the cause of Pontormo’s failure at San Lorenzo was not the excessive importance he assigned to execution as much as his inability to separate it from invention and design. The biography insists on this point by recalling the work at Poggio a Caiano, for which Pontormo applied himself “with such great diligence that he overdid it: for destroying and doing again every day what he had done the day before, he wracked his brains for ideas so hard that it was piteous.”86 Pontormo incorrectly deemed invention, design, and execution activities to be performed simultaneously. Preoccupied with invention and design at the phase of execution, his work short-circuited and degenerated into unproductive circularity. The artist’s biography concludes on this note:

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Sometimes when he was at work, he began to think so deeply about what he wanted to do, that he would leave without having done anything else all day except stand in deep thought; and that this happened innumerable times in the work of San Lorenzo can easily be believed, because when he was determined, as an able and experienced man, he never found it at all hard to do what he wished and had decided to put into execution.87

According to the Lives, a lack of organization, an inability to fix the design beforehand, and a mistaken investment in execution resulted in the excessive length of time it took to produce the work in San Lorenzo, and eventually prevented Pontormo from completing it. In combining “study,” which invokes abstraction and conventions, and individual style, to which Pontormo attributed the value of an immanent existential experience, the artist often arrived at a state of paralysis. Because of these characteristics Pontormo’s art was not suitable for the serial art endorsed by Cosimo I, another aspect the biography of the old painter underlines.88 We read in fact that the master failed in designing two (there were actually three) tapestries for the cycle of Saint Joseph destined for the Sala dei Duecento in Palazzo Vecchio: “So Jacopo made two of them . . . but these did not please either the duke or those masters who had to put them into execution, for they appeared strange to them, and unlikely to be successful when executed in woven tapestries. And so Jacopo did not go on to do any more cartoons.”89 According to the biography, Pontormo disappointed the duke and the specialized masters, Nicholas Karcher and Jan Rost, for it was difficult to weave tapestries from his cartoons. This statement is supported by the documents presented by Candace Adelson, according to which Pontormo completed a cartoon for the first arazzo, The Temptation of Joseph, at the end of 1546, and a second, Joseph Holding Benjamin, at the beginning of 1547.90 But a third contemporary cartoon, The Lament of Jacob, was woven by Rost’s workshop only in 1553, one of the last of the series. As Adelson argues, Karcher and Rost had initially decided to substitute Pontormo’s

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cartoon with a new one by Bronzino, but eventually the Pontormo cartoon was used at the last moment, perhaps to complete the series in a timely fashion or due to constraints of budget.91 In any case only three out of twenty tapestries that compose the cycle dedicated to Stories of Joseph, the masterpiece of Florentine tapestry production, were based on the artist’s design. (Bronzino designed sixteen—although Vasari credits him for only four—and Francesco Salviati, before his departure for Rome, one.) In general Pontormo seemed to be unqualified in, or at least uncomfortable with a genre that played a major role in Medici court culture. Pontormo’s inability to produce designs that could be replicated in different media contrasts not only with the fortune of the Almeni façade but also with the consistent definition of mastery in the Lives. Raphael, Giovanni da Udine, Perino del Vaga, and Giulio Romano, the masters who embody the prehistory of the academic ideal in the Lives, are all singled out for their ability to design tapestries. Design’s intelligibility and replication are reciprocally reinforcing concepts and practices, inversely proportional to a unique or idiosyncratic individual style. The Lives makes this point clear in the biography of Taddeo Zuccari, one of the last to be included in the second edition after the artist’s death, in September 1566. The biography praises the painter’s “very great judgment in being able to employ so many different brains harmoniously in so great a work [the decoration of the palace of the cardinal of Mantua] and in managing the various manners in such a way, that the work appears as if all by the same hand.”92 What underlies this defense of the principle of stylistic unity in the Lives is not the idea that individual style is teachable and transmissible, the direction Allori pursued in his treatise. It is instead the restriction of mastery to invention and design, and the idea that execution should be a collaborative enterprise, supervised by a master and executed by assistants. The master’s role is primarily that of guaranteeing stylistic uniformity, by orchestrating—which also implies leveling—the inevitable individual inclinations of his assistants. Vasari remarked on precisely this point when he wrote to Almeni that his direct supervision would guar-

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antee that the execution of the façade decoration would come off like a well-conducted musical composition.93 Vasari considered the means and aims of past mastery, as embodied by Michelangelo and continued by his most eminent followers, Pontormo, Bronzino, and Allori, to be an obsolete tradition, incompatible with the kind of art production he envisioned for the regime of Cosimo I. The conflict between Vasari and the established artists of Florence was therefore unavoidable. The turbulent opposition he encountered in Cellini and Bandinelli is only the most salient expression of a broader general resistance, which also emerges in his correspondence.94 But it was also clear that with the support of Cosimo I and Vincenzio Borghini, and along with a savy reinterpretation of Michelangelo’s fame, Vasari’s programs were destined to succeed. Florentine artists probably perceived the new course art was taking under Vasari as ineluctable. At the same time they must have been aware that to dismiss the artistic tradition of past mastery (to which they belonged) would have meant renouncing the special prestige attached to it. Significantly even an academic thinker like Federico Zuccari, the artist who tried to give full theoretical formulation to academic art in his late Roman years, misunderstood Vasari’s redefinition of mastery when applied to his brother Taddeo. On the margin of his exemplar of the Lives Federico annotated a passage on the decoration of the Frangipani Chapel in San Marcello in Rome with an accusation that Vasari had lied. Piqued by family pride, Federico denied that Taddeo ever benefited from the work of assistants, as the passage stated. Federico claimed instead that his brother had carried the decoration’s burden solely on his shoulders.95

chapter three

The Making of the Lives How few are there who feel interested in knowing all that is said of the artists with so much verbosity by Vasari, Pascoli, or Baldinucci: their low jests, their amours, their private affairs, and their eccentricities! What do we learn by being informed of the jealousies of the Florentine artists, the quarrels of the Roman, or the boasts of the Bolognian schools? . . . Regard should be paid to that respectable class of readers who, in a history of painting, would rather contemplate the artist than the man; who are less solicitous to become acquainted with the character of a single painter, whose insulated history cannot prove instructive, than with the genius, the method, the invention, and style of a great number of artists, with their characteristics, their merits, and their rank, the result of which is a history of the whole art. luigi lanzi 1

Over the course of two centuries, beginning with the erudite Florentine Giovanni Bottari (1689–1775), scholars of the Lives have presented evidence of the fact that Vasari was helped by friends and men of letters in the production of his magnum opus. The implications of the evidence for Vasari’s diminished authorship have, however, never fully been pursued, for a variety of reasons. Historiographical and, inevitably, ideological resistance to challenge Vasari’s role as the founder of modern art history has prevailed. As Schlosser put it, Vasari is the “true patriarch and father of the church of the new art history.”2 Schlosser is also the source of the most authoritative dismissal of the relevance of the collaborative nature of the production of the Lives: the documented collaboration, he claimed in his Die Kunstliteratur (1924), in no way impinges on the integrity of Vasari as the sole author of the book.3 Schlosser’s position on the matter of Vasari’s

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authorship has held sway among the major historians and editors of the Lives.4 In the preface to his edition of the Lives (1759–60) Bottari credited Vincenzio Borghini for having contributed significantly to the second edition. He also included two sixteenth-century sources that undermine Vasari’s authorship: a document by the priorist Giuliano Ricci dated 1595, which mentions the contribution to the first edition of the Lives by Don Miniato Pitti, Vasari’s friend and early patron, and the identification by the friar Serafino Razzi, in his hagiographic collection dedicated to the Dominican saints and blessed (Vite de’ santi and beati dell’Ordine de’ Predicatori, 1577) to his brother Silvano, a Camaldolese monk, as the author of several biographies in the second edition. 5 Bottari’s observations met with criticism. Luigi Lanzi belittled their importance in his Storia pittorica della Italia (1792–96), and Giovanni Masselli rejected them outright in his preface to the Passigli edition of the Lives (1832–38).6 The question of Vasari’s authorship was raised again in a series of publications dating to the first half of the twentieth century. Ugo Scoti Bertinelli remarked in Giorgio Vasari scrittore (1905) on the diversity of style and content in the Lives and published a previously unknown autograph text Borghini wrote for the Lives.7 Wolfgang Kallab’s Vasaristudien (1908), published by Schlosser following Kallab’s premature death, offers a systematic study of Vasari’s sources, highlighting the references to collaborators in the Lives.8 Vasari’s correspondence, located by Giovanni Poggi in the Florentine private archive of the Rasponi-Spinelli family in 1908 and published by Karl and Hermann-Walther Frey in 1923–40, further documented the intervention of Vasari’s friends and advisors to the two editions of the Lives.9 It was such evidence on the collaborative aspect of the Lives that led art historians such as Schlosser to defend Vasari’s authorship. Schlosser’s pronunciation on Vasari’s preeminence as an art historian was prompted by the results of the Vasaristudien (and certainly contributed to disabling the pursuit by other scholars of this aspect of Kallab’s studies). Other scholars criticized the his-

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toricist approach to the question. Reviewing Giorgio Vasari scrittore in the pages of La Critica (1906), Alfredo Gargiulo defended Vasari’s stature as a writer by claiming that the Lives should not be read as Scoti Bertinelli read it, namely with the eye of a philologist.10 Regarding the collaboration documented in Vasari’s correspondence, the question of whether it was strictly editorial or authorial remains the subject of a vivid discussion.11 Recently Charles Hope has revisited the question of the Lives’ authorship and reached the controversial conclusion that Vasari wrote less than half of the first edition and even a smaller portion of the second.12 Hope grounds his argument for the first edition on the dramatic differences in style and content among the biographies and on the fact that the book was written in a short amount of time (too short for an inexperienced writer such as Vasari). For the second edition Hope adduces the fact that the sections dedicated to the art of northern Italy, about which Vasari had scarce knowledge, were printed before Vasari’s famous journey to the area in spring 1566. Hope’s argument raises some concerns. In the first place, to pursue who wrote what in a book as compendious as the Lives is an arduous and often futile task. As we will see, the collaborative process of the making of the book (especially the second edition) renders indistinguishable contributions by informers from those by writers and editors. A notion of authorship that coincides with the historical persona of the writer is also problematic. Not only are all books collective enterprises in principle, but authorship is primarily, as Foucault put it, a function of the text.13 As we will see in chapter 5, Vasari’s authorship is more solidly anchored to the idea, shared by his editors and collaborators, that the Lives should have been written by an artist (a fact that Hope also points out) and in a language then in use among artists, than to the portions of text Vasari actually wrote. These considerations notwithstanding, that Vasari wrote much less than what has long been assumed is a compelling thesis whose importance cannot be emphasized enough, for it has substantial bearing on any interpretation of the Lives. In the first

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place, authorship determines the art historical validity of information provided (for an art history that reads the Lives as a fundamental collection of artistic information). The dating of paintings mentioned in the Lives often hinges on inferences about when and how Vasari could have seen them or collected information about them, and therefore assumes that he is responsible for the passages in which such works are mentioned. The question of what Vasari did write, and even more so of what he did not, also impinges directly on an assessment of how non-Tuscan art is treated in the Lives. It is crucial, for example, to consider the likely possibility that large sections on Veneto art were collected in the region and drafted by local writers. The same holds for the definition of critical terms such as disegno, grazia, and maniera, which often have different connotations throughout the book. In other words, freeing the text from the ingrained assumption that Vasari is its sole author radically modifies how we read and understand the book as a whole—and it does so with important consequences for art history. Reading the Lives as a multiplicity of viewpoints expressed by a single author differs substantially from approaching it as a heterogeneous text written by multiple authors. If the first and most common mode of reading leads scholars to search for a conceptual unity and coherent narrative (which all major studies of the Lives promise is capable of resolving its contradictions and aporiae), the second identifies the presence of mutually exclusive positions as a peculiarity of the Lives. Indeed approaching the Lives as a heterogeneous text, composed by multiple authors, does not prevent our interpreting it as a more or less unified whole. At the same time identifiable shifts in perspective occur between the first and the second edition, shifts set in motion by forces distinct from the prerogatives of multiple authors. These shifts, likewise subtle and profound, concern the centering of the narrative in the figure of the artist (as in the first edition) as opposed to its being centered on the work of art, understood as a self-referential entity independent from the identity of its maker. To some extent both of these models inhere in both editions. And yet a perceptible shift in emphasis occurs in the sec-

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ond edition, compiled after Vasari’s return to Florence. I suggest that this shift reflects the evolution of a whole cultural context and the dialectic between individual and institutional values.

1. The first edition of the Lives was a new kind of art book, one that presented an unprecedented amount of artistic information in a historical frame and simple language. It was published in 1550 in Florence by Lorenzo Torrentino (it is therefore commonly called the Torrentiniana) in two volumes in quarto format under the title Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri: Descritte in lingua toscana da Giorgio Vasari pittore aretino. Con una sua utile et necessaria introduzzione a le arti loro (Fig. 17).14 The title page credits Vasari, and him alone, as the author of the book. The Torrentinia-na was nonetheless the result of a collaborative effort between Vasari, learned advisors, and professional writers. The process of collaboration was fundamental in shaping some of the book’s distinct features: its biographical structure, the emulations of literary forms (especially in the first edition), and the adoption of popular narrative and linguistic forms. In a famous passage in the second edition, published eighteen years later, Vasari described the book’s genesis.15 The idea, he wrote, came to the famous historian Paolo Giovio in the summer of 1546, at the Roman court of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, where Vasari had recently completed the decoration of the Sala dei Cento Giorni (1546). Giovio conceived of the book as an extension of his Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita, a collection of short biographies of famous men of letters published in Venice by Michele Tramezzino in 1546. The Elogia was an ideal legenda for the section dedicated to literati of Giovio’s collection of portraits of illustrious men of all times displayed in his villa in Como and known as the Museum.16 Having recently compiled a section dedicated to men of war (published in Florence by Lorenzo Torrentino in

TI, PITTORI, E"f . SC TORI ITALIANl, DA CtM 1

I N SIN 0 A T n M P I N 0 S T 11. I : D n S C R I Ttcin lingua Tofcana,da G 1 oll. GI o vASA 11. z

Pittorc Aretino. Con vna fua vtilc & n~ceffaria introdu'l.'l.ionc a lc arti loro.

Figure 17. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri (Florence: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1550). Title page. Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence.

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1551), Giovio spoke of dedicating a new section to the finest modern artists, from Cimabue to the present. The compilation, Giovio proposed, would follow in the tradition of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis historia (77–79 ce), the major source of information on classical art. Giovio, Vasari wrote, presented the book in the form of a speech to the cardinal and the courtiers, among them the humanists Annibal Caro and Francesco Maria Molza. When consulted by Cardinal Farnese, Vasari commended Giovio’s initiative but also noted numerous imprecisions and mistakes. In Vasari’s words, “Although his [Giovio’s] discourse has been marvellous, he has confused and mistaken many things one for another.”17 Subsequently Farnese and his companions assigned Vasari the task of providing Giovio with accurate information to include in his proposed elegies of artists. Things took a dramatic turn when, after Vasari showed Giovio a summary of information in written form, the courtiers invited the former to take on the task of producing the book, making Vasari its (sole) author. Scholars have questioned the veracity of Vasari’s account on the basis of two circumstantial facts.18 First, in the epilogue of the 1550 Torrentiniana Vasari claims to have begun the work ten years earlier—not four, as per the anecdote in the second edition.19 The same information is repeated in a letter dated March 8, 1550, by which Vasari presents the edition to Cosimo I. 20 Second, the poet Molza, whom Vasari mentions, died in 1544, two years prior to the gathering Vasari recounts. However, chronological references in the Lives corroborate the anecdote’s fundamental veracity: Vasari does appear to have started gathering information in a systematic way only after 1546.21 The length of the gestation period he reports in the first edition and in the letter to Cosimo (which can be supported only by sporadic information included in the Lives) was likely exaggerated to underscore the extent of his efforts. As for the anachronistic reference to Molza, perhaps it is simply unrealistic to expect a high level of historical accuracy in Vasari’s anecdotal evocations of past events. The anecdote does square, on the other hand, with Vasari’s repeated contacts with Giovio and Annibal Caro, following his departure

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from Rome.22 Giovio in particular followed the making of the book closely, and even offered to review and revise the manuscript prior to its publication.23 By locating the book’s genesis in the most refined intellectual circle of the time, the Lives secures for Vasari the finest possible credentials. In fact the anecdote suggests that writing such an ambitious book exceeded his given capacities and also makes clear that he undertook the responsibilities implicit in the humanists’ invitation. I would suggest, however, that Vasari became the book’s author not simply by dint of being better informed than Giovio, as the anecdote claims, or because he mastered a different kind of historical practice, as scholars have suggested, but because his collaboration in the writing of the book radically changed its nature and status—in ways that made him an ideal author. 24 Vasari’s intention to collect detailed information on works of art by recent artists, almost all of whom were illiterate and of humble origins, probably made the project less appealing to Giovio, for whom art writing was first and foremost a form of literary exercise. Giovio’s biographies of the three major contemporary artists—Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael—and a few surviving fragments of a dialogue on art compiled around 1525–26, certainly before 1527, elegantly written in impeccable Latin prose, differ remarkably from the form and content of the Lives.25 Vasari concludes the anecdote about the evening at the Palazzo della Cancelleria by claiming that his intention was to have the book published under the name of one of the Roman intellectuals, but it is unlikely that this arrangement would have appealed to any of them. All the same, there is no reason to question Giovio’s enthusiastic response to Vasari’s notes. The humanist saw in them the embryo of a new kind of art treatise of great promise, precisely because of its focus on artistic data.26 Giovio’s biographies, like such contemporary works as Pomponio Gaurico’s De Sculptura (1504) and Paolo Pino’s Dialogo di pittura (1548), scarcely touched on facts relating to artists’ lives or the production of works, their location, or their afterlife. Books by artists tended to

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be pedagogical and theoretical. Precedents to Vasari’s approach to art can be found only in Michelangelo Biondo’s Della nobilissima pittura and in Anton Francesco Doni’s Disegno, published only one year before the Lives, in 1549.27 Other comparable compilations were in manuscript form and had limited circulation. A few of these were written in Latin, but the majority are in the vernacular, and they sometimes lack any refinement of form or composition. Florentine works such as Lorenzo Ghiberti’s second book of his Commentarii (1447–55), the Libro di Antonio Billi (1481–1530), the Anonimo Gaddiano (or Magliabechiano, 1542–48), and Giovambattista Gelli’s Vite d’artisti (ca. 1549) are well known. The most important comparable text produced outside Florence is Marcantonio Michiel’s Notizia d’opere del disegno (1521–43), a guide to the art of the major northern Italian cities. Such compilations differ widely from one another, but all share roots in civic histories and in the genre of the mirabilia, city guides for the use of pilgrims. The Florentine compilations, in which material tends to be organized by artist, were substantially influenced by Tuscan late Medieval novelle, especially Boccaccio’s Decameron, which fostered interest in contemporary art and the cult of the modern artist. All of the Florentine compilations mentioned above, with the exception of the Anonimo Gaddiano and Gelli’s Vite d’artisti, figure among the Lives’ written sources.28 What do we know of Vasari prior to the Lives? He probably collected information in Florence by consulting art experts; the Dominican Timoteo Bottonio recalled in the Annales of the Convent of St. Mark that Vasari would consult the miniaturist Friar Eustachio on medieval artists for the Lives.29 But we know nothing about how Vasari organized his notes, nor do we know how he transformed them into the Lives after he left Rome in the fall of 1546. His correspondence indicates that the manuscript was likely completed in Florence in July 1547, and certainly before his departure to Rimini in September of that year.30 It is baffling to imagine how an inexperienced writer such as Vasari could, unaided, have written a book like the Lives and in such a brief span

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of time. Hope suggests that he was helped by a man of letters, who provided him with the first biographies—which stand out for their literary quality—as a model to follow.31 In a few cases the direct intervention of writers other than Vasari seems certain, for example in the biography of Francesco Francia, which, as Hope notes, is rich with information unavailable to Vasari and the writing of which is characterized by a unique style and vocabulary.32 The same applies to the group of four “Roman biographies,” of Antonio da Sangallo, Sebastiano del Piombo, Perino del Vaga, and Giulio Romano. As Hope points out, Vasari left Rome before these artists died (or immediately after, in the case of Antonio da Sangallo) and thus before it was conceivable to include their biographies in the book.33 Collaborative production on the part of professional writers would also explain the originality of the biographies, which find no parallel in art writing. The formal and narrative articulation of the single lives differs remarkably from the biographical sections of the Libro di Antonio Billi, the Anonimo Gaddiano, and Gelli’s Vite d’artisti, which are little more than repositories of artistic information.34 Biography in the Lives is modeled instead on secular and religious literature. There is a special affinity, for example, as Giovanni Nencioni noted, between the Lives and Vespasiano da Bisticci’s compilation in the vernacular, the Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV (ca. 1485).35 Stronger still is the connection with the hagiographic tradition of the Vite dei santi (Saints’ Lives), biographical compilations, also in the vernacular, for an unrefined audience of devotees.36 Adopting popular literary models effected a signal shift in the book’s audience, from the few men of letters who cultivated an interest in the figurative arts, such as Marcantonio Michiel and Giovio, to the less sophisticated but much wider audience of artists and art lovers. To be sure, however, Vasari and his collaborators emulated literary forms in order to enhance the quality of the compilation. Almost every biography concludes with a fictive epitaph, often in Latin, a formula evocative of Giovio’s Elogia and Giovanni Pontano’s elegiac compilation Tumuli (1505), which

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finds an immediate precedent in Giovio’s Illustrium virorum vitae, published by Torrentino in 1549.37 This emulation was part and parcel of a Cinquecento literary trend, delineated by Nencioni, wherein amateur artists imitated humanistic forms, and humanists indulged minor genres such as anecdotes and facetiae.38 More is known about the making of the book after the drafting of the manuscript than about its initial production. Vasari himself recalls in the second edition that he carried the manuscript to Rimini, where he went to paint the Adoration of the Magi for the Olivetan church of Santa Maria della Scolca, in October 1547. This was one of a series of commissions he obtained from the Olivetan order thanks to the mediation of Don Miniato Pitti, the same Pitti whom the priorist Ricci named as a contributor to the book in 1595.39 While working on the altarpiece Vasari asked the abbot, Gian Matteo Faetani, to revise the manuscript, and he in turn assigned the task to an anonymous monk at his convent.40 Early in December 1547 Vasari was able to send extracts to Giovio and Caro, but the apograph was probably completed in May 1548, when Vasari returned to Rimini to close his business with Faetani.41 The book was intended to be dedicated to Cosimo I as early as January 1548. (Giovio himself sent Vasari a template on which to model the dedicatory letter.)42 However, it was only following Vasari’s return from Rimini that the Lives became a genuinely Florentine production. As his correspondence with Giovio shows, Vasari was still undecided as to the book’s destiny when in Rimini. The option of printing it in Rome was still feasible.43 As soon as the manuscript reached Florence, however, the Lives became a semi-official state affair. The celebration of the artistic primacy of the city greatly attracted the interest of Cosimo I. The duke gave permission to engage his official printer, Lorenzo Torrentino, and ordered Pierfrancesco Giambullari, together with two other members of the Florentine Academy, Cosimo Bartoli and Carlo Lenzoni, to supervise the publication. These academicians edited and printed the Lives in Vasari’s absence. In fact as soon as the manuscript reached the press Va-

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sari left Florence. After a brief sojourn in Arezzo, from where Vasari sent a few directions to the editors, he went to Rome for the election of the new pope, Julius III. This last phase of the book’s production is well documented in Vasari’s correspondence from Rome.44 Letters show that the Florentine editors supervised all editorial aspects of the edition, though their exact interventions in the text are still debated. Scholars have generally assumed that their support was merely technical, but Giovanni Nencioni argued on stylistic grounds for more substantial interventions in the famed theoretical introductions and in large portions of the biographies.45 Recently Thomas Frangenberg has attributed the Proemio delle Vite, the second of the two introductions but the first to be written, to three authors other than Vasari, among them Giambullari and Bartoli.46 The latter may also be the author, Frangenberg argues, of the preface to the whole work, in particular the section dedicated to architecture, a subject on which Bartoli was notoriously well-versed as a practitioner and an editor of architectural texts, most famously Alberti’s De re aedificatoria.47 Frangenberg also attributes to Bartoli the other two prefaces, to the second and third parts, which fully develop the concept of artistic rinascita and its historical periodization in distinct phases, and maniere, which has shaped intellectual histories of the Italian Renaissance from Jacob Burckhardt’s to Erwin Panofsky’s. Although some of Frangenberg’s specific attributions remain hypothetical, his general argument that Vasari wrote very little of the theoretical introductions is convincing. The vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, and especially the lucid structure of the discourse of the introductions, were likely out of Vasari’s reach.48 It is only in the final phases of the printing of the Torrentiniana that Vincenzio Borghini’s contribution is documented in the correspondence. His direct textual interventions appear to have been limited to a few biographies and to the outline and revision (with Giambullari) of the epilogue Vasari wrote in Rome when the book was in press.49 He was principally responsible for the compilation of the indexes (content, biographies, artists’ names,

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and places) and the errata corrige.50 Borghini’s contribution to the Torrentiniana, however, signals a distinctive approach, and one that departs significantly from Giambullari’s. 51 Not inclined to the kind of theoretical speculations that characterize the introductions, Borghini was principally interested in the book as a record of artistic information. The compilation of the indexes for the Lives was laborious work and eventually became a major imposition on the editors, including Giambullari and Bartoli, and their time (they were compiled over the first three months of 1550).52 The result was nonetheless impressive. The twenty-nine–page topographical index has no precedent in book history for length and accuracy. It is hard to say whether it was the task of compiling the topographical indexes that instilled in Borghini a pragmatic vision of the book or the other way around. The division of labor in itself reflects the difference between his pragmatism and the theoretical and historical aspirations for the book on the part of the Florentine editors affiliated with the literary academy. However, Borghini’s contribution to the Torrentiniana is consistent with his vision of the book, as he made clear in his intervention in the second edition, where he proposes it serve first and foremost as an art guide. Over the course of the four years of its production the Lives took shape according to different models and ideas. Of all its orientations the book’s presentation of specific information about existing works of art was, as Giovio and Borghini foresaw, especially significant. The reasons why a book like the Lives had never before been produced are complex, and the challenge of acquiring such data was certainly prime among them. We tend to underestimate how limited horizontal knowledge of artistic production was in Vasari’s time and what an awe-inspiring collection of information the Lives presented to contemporary readers. It is also true that the Lives is often imprecise and at times erroneous and that Vasari did not hesitate to manufacture dates and facts.53 But the fact that most of its readers did not catch this further highlights how scarce common artistic knowledge

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was at the time. Readers reacted strongly to the Lives’ partial views and lacunae, but very few seem to have had the capacity to correct or emend them with precision. Only Ferdinando Leopoldo del Migliore’s historical rigor in the seventeenth century and Gaetano Milanesi’s purism in the nineteenth would enable them to diminish the reputation of the book as an infallible artistic encyclopedia. 54 But this came late, after the Lives had already exerted a strong normative influence on art writing. It changed the course of the printed tradition by establishing a new model of art book and at the same time inhibited the contemporary production of similar compilations. It has been argued that the author of the Anonimo Gaddiano, Marcantonio Michiel, and Gelli stopped working on their compilations on account of the forthcoming publication of the Lives.55 This may not be the case, but certainly the amount of information the Lives offered would remain unmatched for centuries. The Lives provided art history with a solid conceptual framework and detailed documentary accounts, thus building the foundation for modern art history. In so doing, however, it also limited the possibilities for alternative narratives, canons, and periodizations.

2. The historiographical stronghold the Lives has exerted since the time of its production is clear, but the nature of its production is still in question. The collaborative nature of the second edition, amply documented in Vasari’s correspondence and by the fragmentary quality of the book itself, is much less disputed than in the case of the Torrentiniana. Key features include the addition of material while portions of the book were already in press and the lack of systematic editing and revision. A primary aim of the 1568 edition was to consolidate the authority of the book against its detractors. The first edition of the Lives had raised great interest and fierce criticism alike by establishing Florence as the artistic epicenter of the Italian peninsula.56 Especially controversial was the incomplete representa-

Figure 18. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori (Florence: Giunti, 1568). Title page. Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence.

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tion of Northern Italian art and the absence of a biography of Titian, its living champion. In polemical response to the Lives, Lodovico Dolce inserted a biographical account of the Venetian artist in his Dialogo della pittura, intitolato l’Aretino (1557). The publication of the Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti (1553), written by Michelangelo’s pupil Ascanio Condivi, almost certainly at the behest of the artist, eager to correct aspects of his biography, also discredited the Lives.57 To counter such criticism Borghini and Vasari expanded the geographical horizon of the book and included as much new information as possible. The result was an impressive encyclopedic collection of artistic facts, in which the narrative orientation of the first edition played a lesser role. Vasari and Borghini started working on the second edition in the late 1550s. The earliest evidence of their effort is a note by Borghini concerning works of art in San Gimignano and Volterra dated 1557, and their collaboration is consistently recorded in the correspondence from 1562 onward.58 Given the difficulty of acquiring new information and the busy agenda of public celebrations Vasari and Borghini organized for Cosimo I, the revisions took much longer than originally planned. The Lives came out in January 1568, published at the Florentine press of the heirs of the ducal printer Bernardo, the Giunti brothers (and therefore commonly called the Giuntina), with the title Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori, scritte da M. Giorgio Vasari pittore et architetto aretino, di nuovo dal medesimo riviste et ampliate, con i ritratti loro et con l’aggiunta delle Vite de’ vivi et de morti, dall’anno 1550 insino al 1567. Prima, e seconda parte, con le tavole in ciascun volume, delle cose piu notabili, de ritratti, delle vite degli artefici, et dei luoghi dove sono l’opere loro (Fig. 18).59 As the title itself declares, a novelty of the Giuntina was the inclusion of biographies of living artists, a privilege that the Torrentiniana had reserved only for Michelangelo and the blind— and therefore “artistically dead”—Benedetto da Rovezzano. Significantly the augmented edition contained a biography of Titian, more detailed and accurate than Dolce’s, and a revised life of

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Michelangelo, which pointedly countered Condivi’s accusations. The new edition was also illustrated by a series of woodcut portraits placed at the beginning of each biography, an illustrative apparatus originally conceived for the Torrentiniana but not pursued in 1550 due to the requisite labor and cost.60 Overall the Giuntina is twice the size of the Torrentiniana. The third part includes more than thirty new biographies. These additions made the Giuntina more challenging to read but also a much larger and better informed book. For this last reason it is the edition most commonly consulted today. The making of the Giuntina is characterized by extemporaneous editorial procedures. As Rosanna Bettarini has noted, the Giuntina almost certainly never existed in manuscript form. Borghini and Vasari revised the text and added information directly on an exemplar of the Torrentiniana. Substantial revisions and additions, such as new biographies, were probably inserted as fugitive sheets.61 This editorial process must be taken into account when comparing the two editions. Only a limited number of biographies and the later sections of the Lives, containing information after 1550, were compiled independently of the physical template of the Torrentiniana. The early phase of the second edition’s production is sparsely documented. Two letters highlighting its collaborative nature are crucial, however. The first, dated May 9, 1562, indicates that Borghini invited Vasari to collaborate on the Lives at his summer residence, property of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, in Poppiano.62 The second, dated two years later, on February 21, 1564, contains a similar invitation to both Vasari and Silvano Razzi, the Camaldolese monk credited as a principal contributor, as we have seen, by his brother Serafino.63 The compilation of the Giuntina was still in progress in the middle of 1563, when Borghini urged Vasari to gather more information during a trip to central Italy.64 Borghini and Vasari must have considered the work close to complete by the summer of 1564, when they sent the book to the Giunti press.65 Their intention may well have been to complete the second volume (containing the third part) in the

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course of the printing of the first (containing the first two parts). But during the same summer Borghini determined that substantial additions were necessary. Northern Italian art was still, in his view, underrepresented, and the most recent Medici commissions were worthy of inclusion. Thus when the first volume came out in January 1565 Borghini and Vasari were still adding new material to the book.66 The compilation was also interrupted by their work for the wedding of Francesco I, beginning in February 1565, and further delayed by the decision to include a description of its decorative apparati. The end was still not in sight in April 1566, when Vasari undertook a trip to northern Italy and Rome to collect additional information.67 The third part of the Lives had been augmented so greatly that it was split into two volumes. The first of the two (containing the first half of the third part) was printed before Vasari’s return to Florence in May 1566.68 The last sections to be included were the description of the decoration of the 1565 wedding celebration (inclusive of the descriptions of the play performed in Palazzo Vecchio and the chariots’ procession, entitled The Genealogy of the Gods) and Adriani’s Letter on the Art of Antiquity. These ongoing additions led the Giunti to desperation.69 Late in August 1567, the date of the imprimatur, the whole text was likely already printed, with the exception of title pages, dedication letters, and indexes. As was customary, these were added at the last minute and recognizable as such by their unorthodox signatures (crosses, flowers, asterisks, capital letters in italics). Borghini and Vasari’s major preoccupation was with gathering information. Borghini sent Vasari data collected during his trips and expanded the range of written sources, especially for the sections on medieval artists.70 Bartoli moved to Venice as Cosimo I’s agent in 1563, providing Vasari with a conduit for information on that city.71 To gather information from other regions and cities Vasari set up a web of correspondents among art experts and fellow artists, a few of whom we find acknowledged in the text. Marco Medici, for example, an erudite Dominican and amateur architect, who is very scantily documented but was well known

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at the time as an art expert, provided Vasari with information on Veronese art.72 Medici is almost certainly responsible for the new sections on Pisanello, Fra’ Giocondo, and other artists of Verona. He may also have sent scattered information on Paduan artists that was included in the biography of Carpaccio.73 Vasari also mentions Medici’s friend, the Carrarese poet and sculptor Danese Cataneo, another major informant on Northern Italian art who likely provided information on Veronese artists, together with Medici, and on the work of Jacopo Sansovino’s pupils, himself included, that appears at the end of the biography of the artist.74 Giovambattista Grassi from Udine sent news on Friulan painters.75 Borghini and Vasari’s friend and the duke’s agent in Pisa, Giovanni Caccini, searched for information on the Lombard Vincenzo Foppa.76 Giuliano, a goldsmith of Siena, was asked to provide information and portraits of Sienese painters.77 To be sure, the popularity of the Torrentiniana facilitated the establishment of this network of informants and contributors to the second edition. Artists’ interest was aroused by seeing themselves and their masters and friends included in the book. A few correspondents spontaneously sent unsolicited information. From Reggio, in northern Italy, the humanist Gabriele Bombace, cousin of Lodovico Ariosto, wrote a letter to Vasari with information on a sculptor from his hometown, Prospero Clemente, only briefly mentioned in the book.78 This letter was written after the publication of the Giuntina, but Vasari received others in time to include their contents in the edition. Rather famous examples include those sent by the Flemish humanist Dominique Lampson and his countryman and artist Lambert Lombard regarding Flemish and German art.79 Living artists updated Vasari on their recent works, and relatives, pupils, and close friends were consulted as sources: Francesco da Sangallo for his father Giuliano, “Francesco Sanese” (perhaps the painter Francesco Pomerelli) for Peruzzi, Beccafumi for Jacopo della Quercia, Bronzino for Pontormo, and Prospero Fontana for Perino del Vaga.80 Charles Davis has convincingly argued that Francesco Sansovino was the author of the bulk of the biography dedicated to his father, and the

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editor of the Venetian reedition of the biography as an independent publication in 1570.81 Hope suggests that the factual basis of Titian’s biography was provided by a Venetian artist close to the painter (and likely edited by Cosimo Bartoli).82 While organizing Michelangelo’s funeral Vasari requested information on Michelangelo’s late work from the Roman artists in close contact with him in the final years. Daniele da Volterra and probably Antonio del Francese sent information to Florence through Leonardo Buonarroti.83 This material was also used to provide Benedetto Varchi with updated information to compose the artist’s funeral oration.84 Sometimes indirect sources were preferred over direct sources. This is the case of the biographical note on Bronzino, an artist who, as we have seen, is ambiguously treated in the Lives. The biography was updated by his pupil Alessandro Allori and likely never shown to Bronzino himself.85 The wide-ranging acquisition of information documented in the case of the Giuntina is not unusual in contemporary writing. Less usual, however, is the fact that this information was included in the book without systematic revision and editing. This is evident in the book’s frequent repetitions and contradictions and in the variety of its vocabulary. The treatment of the Flemish engraver Jan Steven van Calcar, the illustrator of Vesalius’s anatomical book De humani corporis fabrica (1543), is exemplary. The artist appears three times in the book: in the biography of the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi; at the end of the biography of Titian, where he is included among the painter’s pupils and collaborators; and in a later section dedicated to contemporary artists active in Rome and Naples. The first passage briefly mentions van Calcar as the engraver of Vesalius’s anatomical work: “And even such, likewise [executed in a beautiful manner of engraving], were the eleven large anatomical plates done by Andrea Vessalio and designed by Johann of Calcar [Giovanni di Calcare], a most excellent Flemish painter.”86 The second passage reads as follows: There has been with him, among others, one Giovanni, a Fleming [Giovanni Fiamingo] who has been a much-extolled

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master in figures both small and large, and in portraits marvellous, as may be seen in Naples, where he lived some time, and finally died. By his hand—and this must do him honour for all time—were the designs of the anatomical studies that the most excellent Andrea Vessalio caused to be engraved and published with his work.87

The third passage is: In Naples also, in the year 1545, I came to know Johann of Calcar [Giovanni di Calker], a Flemish painter, who became very much my friend; a very rare craftsman, and so well practiced in the Italian manner that his works were not recognized as by the hand of a Fleming. But he died young in Naples, while great things were expected of him; and he drew for Vessalio his studies in anatomy.88

Multiple clues suggest that the last two passages were written by two different authors. While the second indirectly refers to the engraver, the third claims a direct and close acquaintance: the author recalls when and where he met him, referring to the engraver as amicissimo, and the text records his name with precision. Other differences between the second and third passages include the quality of the writing: impeccable in the second case, poor in the third. Clearly not much was done to reduce these differences in spite of the fact that the third passage seems to acknowledge the content of the first or second in its brief reference to Calcar’s anatomical illustrations. Repetition and syntax appear to have been secondary to the aim of offering maximum information in the name of comprehensiveness. Who wrote these passages is unknown. However, Bartoli seems a likely candidate for the second passage, given his presence in Venice and his participation in the compilation of information concerning Venetian art. In the case of the third passage, the use of the first person, the precise reference to a stay in Naples in 1545, and the poor quality of the writing identify Vasari fairly unequivocally as its author. While the precise attribution of who wrote what in a book

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such as the Lives is very challenging, in one case the direct contribution of professional writers is documented. In 1912 Antonio Lorenzoni identified the Florentine academician Giovambattista Cini as the ghostwriter of the description of the decorative apparatus for the marriage of Francesco I, included in the Lives as the work of an anonymous writer.89 Borghini also obliged Cini to supervise the printing of his own description as well as the last sections of the book.90 We do not know how many figures contributed anonymously to the Giuntina, but certainly, given his authority within Florentine cultural circles, Borghini could easily have manipulated subordinate figures like Cini.91 The identity of the author of the description of Michelangelo’s funeral is still obscure, although, as Margot and Rudolf Wittkower argued, it was likely drafted by Borghini.92 The Letter on the Art of Antiquity by Giovambattista Adriani is the only acknowledged “authorial” intervention to the second edition. Adriani, the official historian of the state, was not as malleable as Cini.93 Borghini and Vasari struggled to obtain the letter, which Adriani delivered only in September 1567, after seven months of solicitations. If it is now clear that the Lives was a collaborative enterprise, it is also evident that the primary challenge of producing the book lay in the collection of information, in the coordination and supervision of collaborators, and in the collation of the heterogeneous material produced—more than in its actual writing. All these activities could be, and were in many instances, performed by different collaborators, but there must have been one principal coordinator and supervisor. Although we have no incontrovertible evidence regarding who played this fundamental role, the obvious candidate is Borghini. His prominent role in each phase of the book’s production is amply documented.94 Not only did he provide information and coordinate authors, editors, and printers, but he is the only one of Vasari’s collaborators with a consistent, clear vision for the book, and it was he who decided what to do and how to proceed. Moreover Borghini performed precisely the functions Vasari could not. The production of the Torrentiniana demonstrated amply Vasari’s structural dependence on advisors and professional writers. Though

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he was clearly Borghini’s closest collaborator, his major editorial interventions, as the correspondence shows, were always subject to Borghini’s directives. Distinctions between Borghini’s and Vasari’s respective areas of competence are worth outlining. Vasari’s primary responsibility seems to have been to collect information. As we have seen, Borghini directed writers such as Cini, but it was Vasari who established contact with informants such as Medici and Lampson. Among other things, Vasari’s knowledge and network of contacts was crucial in determining the geographical horizon of the book. We owe to Vasari the exaggerated importance given to Arezzo, his hometown, and likewise the lack of information about cities he never visited or that he disliked, such as Genoa and Naples.95 As the passage on Calcar confirms, Vasari also wrote large portions of the text, but his writing always required revision. A letter to Borghini concerning his own biography, dated July 30, 1566, is emblematic of Vasari’s contribution as a writer: “In the meantime, I am sending you in a sealed package a précis of my biography, so that you can take from it what is worthy. As for the details concerning the late works, which have recently been accomplished, Your Excellency knows more about them than I do, and I will help you with some matters, so that you will spend some time on it.”96 Vasari submitted his own biography in summary form, expecting Borghini to edit it and add information on works they had recently conceived together. In a second letter, dated September 20, 1567, Vasari likewise excused himself for not being able to assist with his and other biographies in need of work: “I wrote to him [to Giovambattista Cini] that I would like to do what is necessary for my biography and for those still in need but I cannot see how I could do it.”97 In sum the production of the Giuntina was a collaborative enterprise managed with the intention of collecting as much as information as possible. Borghini was the principal editor responsible for all of the major aspects of the book and its final form. Vasari, by his own admission, was unable to carry out such a task. He would partake in some of the editorial decisions, but his

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primary brief was to gather information, directly or through his network of correspondents. It is true that the title page recognizes him, and him alone, as the book’s author, and I will discuss in chapter 5 the significance of his authorial function. Yet, like other contributors, his writing was probably limited to the production of stratti, summaries of information in need of revision. His autobiography, the last documented instance of his collaboration in the Giuntina as a writer, probably differed little from his earliest contribution to the book, the notes he compiled for Giovio twenty years earlier.

3. If Giovio saw in biography a literary genre suited to art writing, Borghini considered the two modes irreconcilable. His clearest statement to this effect is in a letter to Vasari written in the summer of 1564: The purpose of your hard work is not to write about the lives of the painters, nor whose sons they were, nor of their ordinary deeds, but only their works as painters, sculptors, and architects, because otherwise it matters little to us to know the life story of Baccio d’Agnolo or Pontormo. The writing of lives is suitable only in the case of princes and men who have practiced princely things and not of low people, but here you have only as your end art and the works by their hand. Therefore stick to this as much as you can and be diligent, and see that every detail is in its place.98

This letter was written after Borghini began work on the indexes. Having access for the first time to a synthetic overview of the book and of its progress, Borghini felt the need to clarify the edition’s means and aims. His unequivocal opinion was that the Lives should be an informed account of works of art and not a collection of biographies. Biographical and genealogical data and accounts of ordinary pursuits are of little interest, in Borghini’s view, in the case of artists. As one may also note in the light of

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this passage, perhaps it was not fortuitous that Giovio had limited his experiment to the three greatest modern artists, the only ones truly suitable to his biographical model. Certainly practical reasons inhered in Borghini’s dismissal of biography, a narrative form no longer suited to the making of the Giuntina, the production of which was increasingly conditioned by the extemporaneous insertion of information that reached the press irregularly and at various times. The biographies of the Giuntina in fact progressively resemble those few of the Torrentiniana that assemble a variety of information gathered from different sources about different artists of the same region and period.99 But the central point for Borghini is that artists are merely instrumental to artistic production, which is the sole legitimate object of art writing. Indeed he also offers in his 1564 letter clear directions for describing works of art. Location, patronage, and subject matter, he writes, are crucial information and should figure in all descriptions: In compiling the index, I noticed many things, as also in reading the lives, many of which I have notated. There is still time to talk about these matters. I tell you this now, because it will take time to do it: in some biographies (such as that of Pordenone) you write “he decorated a façade on the Grand Canal.” When you are able, I would like you to name the owner of the palace—for example, the Contarini family, and so on. And if you are unable to do this, at least identify the story depicted—such as that of Curtius, which suffices to distinguish it and make it identifiable. Because, if you say, “he made a figure in Santa Croce,” without saying where, or who it is, or what it corresponds to, the reader, not knowing which one it is, would likewise not know that it is there and why; note this.100

The clarity of Borghini’s directions contrasts rather vividly with their limited applicability to a book compiled by multiple authors and already in press.101 On the other hand it attests to the stability of his conception of the book, from the time of his collaboration on the first edition, as an art guide or virtual mirabilia for devotees of Italian art.

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Consider, for example, the text of the Giuntina dedicated to Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, in the larger section on contemporary Italian artists, which lists approximately twenty works by Siciolante, described according to location, patronage, size, technique, and subject matter in one and a half pages (a total of sixty-one lines), with no record of Siciolante’s biographical data other than his birthplace.102 The emphasis on works, not lives, also holds for some additions to the Giuntina that predate Borghini’s explicit directions but are already attuned to them, such as the catalogue of works by Puccio Capanna (in the biography of Giotto), an artist only briefly mentioned in the Torrentiniana. The Giuntina describes twelve works attributed to Capanna with the same precision as in the record of Siciolante’s work.103 Capanna’s biographical information is reduced to a bare minimum and restricted to a short concluding paragraph, which amply fulfills Borghini’s proscriptions against the vanity of “writing about the life of painters” or of knowing “whose sons they are”: “Wherefore it may easily be believed that he was born in Florence, having written so himself, and that he was a disciple of Giotto, but that afterwards he took a wife in Assisi, that there he had children, and that now he has descendants there. But because it is of little importance to know this exactly, it is enough to say that he was a good master.”104 The subordination of biographical data to the record of works of art and a stated indifference for the former is also evident in the following passage, on the painter Bernardino Gatti: “Some say that he was from Vercelli, and others from Cremona; but, wherever he may have come from, he painted a very beautiful altarpiece for the high altar of San Piero.”105 Summarizing contradictory information on Gatti’s origin, this passage claims—in keeping with Borghini’s recommendations—that the question of Gatti’s origin is insignificant relative to the fact that he painted the high altarpiece of a major church, corresponding to the Nativity for the Church of San Pietro al Po in Cremona. The subordination of the biographical principle to the description of the work of art is the most salient feature of the section

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of the Giuntina dedicated to the Florentine academicians, a list of works organized by artist but presented as a continuous narrative. This section is entirely new in the Lives. The headings of the section dedicated to the decorations executed by the academicians for the marriage of Francesco I, where works of art rather than artists appear, signal a reversal of the relationship between biography and the description of the work of art as the narrative harness. A detailed analysis of the works’ subject matter and their allegorical significance is provided, but almost no reference is made to their makers other than their names. The biographical formula, though effective for describing multiple works executed by individual artists, was not suitable for representing the academicians’ collective achievements. The striking disproportion between the topographical index and that of the artists in the last volume offers a final and synthetic example of the dominance of a history of works, not artists, in the Giuntina. Whereas the topographical index was carefully compiled, the index of artists came to be increasingly neglected. Thirty-four out of fifty-three entries refer to only one-seventh (pages 503–97) of the whole text. The biography of Garofalo, at the beginning of the volume, is represented by fifteen entries, and references to it comprise almost one-third of the index. Of the last portion of the book, preceding the biography of Michelangelo, the index records only the names of Primaticcio, Titian, Jacopo Sansovino, Leone Leoni, and Giulio Clovio, which appear in the titles of their respective sections. Overall the index reaches only page 822 (849 in the actual pagination) out of 1012, and thus covers only approximately 65 percent of the third part (considering that the pagination of the last two volumes, containing the third part, is continuous). It skips the entirety of the section on the academicians and does not even record Vasari’s name.106 The expansion of the geographical boundaries of the Lives, a salient feature of the Giuntina, can also be read as an effect of the new emphasis on works of art. Considering the topographical index, Borghini lamented the lack of information on Genoa, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and Naples.107 To fill these lacunae, he urged

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Vasari to undertake a trip. As mentioned earlier, from April to June 1566 Vasari traveled extensively, taking notes on works of art and establishing contacts with fellow artists. Important additions resulted to the biography of Leoni, which is largely based on Vasari’s stay at the sculptor’s house in Milan in May, and to the double biography of Garofalo and Girolamo da Carpi on Giulio Romano and Mantuan artists derived from Vasari’s visit to the city of Mantua a few days later.108 Vasari also stayed in Venice for a few days, visited Titian’s studio, and added what he saw there to the painter’s biography.109 The sections on contemporary artists active in Rome and Naples (Siciolante among them) were likely written on the basis of information gathered during a stay in Rome from the middle of February to the end of March 1567.110 Vasari likely saw much less than what he claims to have seen during his journeys. Much of the new information came from his correspondents, as we have seen, or secondary sources such as engravings.111 However, an important corollary of heightened emphasis on the work of art in the second edition was a dramatic increase in the importance of autopsia, or eyewitness experience of art. Firsthand accounts of works of art were presented as the primary source on which the edition was based, and their availability became a selective criterion.112 Artists were included or excluded and their importance reassessed on the basis of the available information. The Torrentiniana biography of Galasso from Ferrara, for example, was reduced to a brief note and folded into the biography of Niccolò Aretino because no important works could be attributed to him.113 Another example is the reassessment of Bramantino’s identity and fame in the Giuntina. Revisiting the scarcity of works recorded in the Torrentiniana, Vasari confirms the artist’s reputation on the basis of the information he had acquired in the meantime: “I find that he executed many more works than I have enumerated above; and, in truth, it did not then appear to me possible that a craftsman so renowned, who introduced good design in Milan, should have executed works so few as those that had come to my notice.”114 On the principle of biography being secondary to the work, some of the Torrenti-

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niana lives were combined, resulting in multiple collective headings in the Giuntina. Mentioned in passing in the text in the Torrentiniana, Domenico Veneziano was included in the heading of a new double biography together with his rival, Andrea del Castagno.115 The respective biographies of “Paulo Romano e Maestro Mino scultori” and “Chimenti Camicia architetto fiorentino” became the “Vita di Paulo Romano e di Maestro Mino scultori e di Chimenti Camicia architetto.” The resulting multiple collective biographies significantly mitigated the biographical framework of the book. The Giuntina abounds in formal incongruities brought about by the editorial shift in priorities. For example, typographers and typesetters dealt with the structural changes in the biographies explored above by adopting extemporaneous and unsystematic procedures. Sometimes they rendered visible the transition from one biographical section to another by skipping one or two lines, inserting a subtitle, or doubling the size of the initial capital letter of the subsequent paragraph. But in other sections of the book this was much less of a concern; there typesetters simply capitalized the first name of the relevant artist or indented the margin. The placement of the woodcut portraits on the first page of the biographies became less consistent over the course of publication as well, and occasionally they were inserted on the last page of the previous biography. There is no substantial difference between the two formats, but the shift in placement according to the space available creates a sense of haphazardness that diminishes the perception of individual biographies as integral formal units. This is especially true when, as in the case of the painter Sodoma, the portrait is placed at the end of a collective biography (of “Michele S. Michele architetto e d’altri veronesi”). Further irregularities pertain to the insertion of the sections dedicated to works by contemporary artists. A simple line break separates the sections on Italian and Flemish artists, both headed “Di diversi,” from the biography of Giulio Clovio, and a page break separates the description of works by individual academicians from those made for the marriage of Francesco I.

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There are other minor incongruities, not relevant per se but altogether symptomatic of the problematic function of the biographical frame in the Giuntina. Sections entitled “description of the works of,” a title Borghini introduced in order to distinguish living from dead artists, often end with the sentence “End of the life of” and vice versa. For example, the collective heading “Vita di Ridolfo, Davit, e Benedetto Grillandai, Pittori fiorentini” introduces a text that ends as if it were an individual biography, with “Fine della vita di Ridolfo Ghirlandai, pittore fiorentino.” Inversely the “Vita di Michele S. Michele architettore veronese” ends as a collective biography, with “Fine della vita di Michele S. Michele Architetto, e d’altri Veronesi.” Clearly typographers were using formulas intrinsic to the biographical model, which they adopted from the outset of printing the second edition in 1564. It is the very automatism of the typographical practice that renders visible the tension between biographism and antibiographism in the book. I hope this account of the making of the Lives has demonstrated that it is not a book that can be reduced to a single voice or intention. On the contrary, it represents multiple viewpoints that can be subsumed into two prominent conceptions of art writing: as a narrative centered on the figure of the artist and as a comprehensive record of works of art. While the former informs the literary and formal aspects of the book, the latter accounts for the comprehensiveness of the information assembled and presented, especially in the Giuntina. These two conceptions, both integral to the making of the Lives and to some extent inseparable, derive from the discrete contexts and agencies that conditioned the book’s genesis, production, and reedition. If the centrality of the figure of the artist relates to the Roman genesis of the book, its early collaborators’ reliance on hagiographic models, and the historical vision of the Florentine editors, the emphasis on works of art as represented in both editions, and as significantly developed in the second, largely derives from Borghini’s vision of the Lives as a different form of history, an account of works or art guide. Borghini’s editorial directions, or any sense that Vasari’s Lives

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are structured by anything other than a biographical and biological model, seem foreign to modern art historical conceptions of the text. This has much to do with the fact that the reception of the Lives and its publication history after 1568 effectively undermined this latter aspect of the book. Committed to the representation of individual authorial values, critics and editors have looked to the Torrentiniana as the model for the book’s original unity of form and intention. Substantial editorial attention and interventions have been devoted to buttressing the biographical frame. In their 1846–70 edition of the Lives, for example, Vincenzo Marchese, Carlo Pini, Carlo Milanesi, and Gaetano Milanesi lamented the lack of biographical information in the biography of Leone Leoni, and for this reason added a biographical account of the sculptor.116 They also divided the section dedicated to the academicians into smaller biographical sections with subtitles identifying the individual artists.117 This solution was adopted by Ludwig Schorn and Ernst Förster in the German edition of 1832–49 and in the one-volume Trieste edition of 1862.118 Gaetano Milanesi repeated the same format in his famous 1878–85 edition, the most influential of Vasarian studies until the publication of the Barocchi and Bettarini edition (1966–87). Even more drastic was Milanesi’s editorial decision regarding the description of the 1565 wedding, which he published, together with the Ragionamenti and Vasari’s correspondence, as an appendix.119 Overall the occlusion of the antibiographism of the Lives and of Borghini’s emphasis on this in the Giuntina signals the incomprehension of a general model of culture, linguistic and historical, antagonistic to a model rooted in individual authorial values. In spite of the complexity of the text and Borghini and Vasari’s ultimate aspirations, the Lives served as a model for the flourishing of biography as a primary genre in art writing. The cult of the artist in the seventeenth century upheld the same features the Lives attributed to Michelangelo: solitude, saturnine character, and anticonventionalism. The complexity of the art critical discourse as represented in the Lives will bear fruit only in the eighteenth century, in Johann Winckelmann’s Geschichte der

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Kunst des Alterthums (1764), which marks the beginning of the modern scission between the history of art and the history of artists, and in the historical vision of Luigi Lanzi, who in his Storia Pittorica della Italia (1792–96) aimed to separate the anecdotal and particular from what is properly art historical and of general validity, thereby initiating a new understanding of art according to geographical and historiographical principles.

ch a p t er four

Describing Art We do not explain pictures: we explain remarks about pictures— or rather we explain pictures in so far as we have considered them under some verbal description or specification. michael baxandall 1

While ekphrasis, or the verbal description of works of art, is generally construed as an act of preservation that invokes the work of art as a completed, past act, there are also, as the epigraph borrowed from Baxandall implies, significant ways in which description mediates and conditions how works of art come to be understood or explained. Having analyzed the marginalization of the figure of the artist in the conception and composition of the Lives, in this chapter I trace the effect of that turn on the manner in which art comes to be described. I isolate and analyze two modes of description, each of them with reference to the conception of art and of authorship they entail and project. The Lives deploys two different descriptive modes, which in turn relate to discrete conceptions of art and authorship. One of these modes is the description of the work of art as a mimetic feat, which emphasizes the illusionistic qualities of the work and its effect on the viewer. By referring to the work of art as pertaining to the sensible world and as man-made, this mode of description links the figure of the artist to the work of art—and even, as in Michelangelo’s case, links it to pictorial or sculptural ges-

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tures on the part of the artist. A second or diegetic mode of description construes the work of art as the representation of forms and subjects of universal value, which transcend the limited and finite scope of mimetic art. This second mode depends on the notion of the work of art as independent of and even compromised by the recognition of authorship. Moreover it instigates a degree of disjuncture with the biographical narrative. These two primary descriptive modes coexist and, as we will see, are often inextricably connected, yet the latter becomes increasingly dominant in the second edition. Diegetic descriptions do not develop systematically and linearly in the Lives, nor does their inclusion respond to a premeditated editorial intention. Yet their appearance in the Giuntina is integral to the increasing subordination of the biography to the description of the work of art in the book. Broadly speaking, by reading works of art as independent from the psychobiological identity of their maker, informed by rational principles (order and measure) and universal values (historia and allegorical meanings), diegetic descriptions signal an extemporaneous but progressive refocusing of the Lives under the point of view of the academic art. 2 The description of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment serves in this chapter as a representative case of the description of art as mimetic. These formidable passages emphasize the expressive details of the fresco while at the same time asserting its absolute identity with Michelangelo. The description of Vasari’s decoration of the Sala Grande (or Salone dei Cinquecento) in Palazzo Vecchio is exemplary of the second, diegetic descriptive mode. It offers a comprehensive account of the program’s subject matter and overall composition while disregarding expressive and stylistic qualities. If the description of the Last Judgment clearly defines authorship as bound to the biological identity of the artist, the notion of authorship that informs the description of the Sala Grande is elusive. In an attempt to clarify the latter notion of authorship, I analyze a third case, the Giuntina narrative of Michelangelo’s efforts at St. Peter’s, the major architectural work he left unfinished. Inserted in the myth of the divine artist, this narrative

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posits an exclusive association between the work and Michelangelo. At the same time, fixated on the model’s formal features, it was intended to defend the project from changes by the architects who would have realized it after Michelangelo’s death. As a result the narrative of St Peter’s defines individual authorship as an abstract notion freed from the material and temporal constraints of mimetic art and able to survive the artist’s life. Before we look at these examples, let me also make explicit an important point that this chapter raises about the relationship between descriptive modes and artistic genres. It may seem natural or inevitable that the description of a sculpted or painted human figure would be affective and that the description of architecture, an intrinsically mechanical work, would not. This intrinsic affinity between descriptions and works of art is not, however, a given in art writing. Art historians after Vasari described Michelangelo’s architectural work in St. Peter’s in sculptural terms, as if his constructions were human bodies and their structural articulations bones and muscles. Moreover the idea of a “natural” affiliation between description and work of art is especially misleading in light of the fact that the distinction among genres does not hold for academic art. According to Vasari and Borghini, all academic art is “architectural” as it is governed by rational, technical, and replicable principles. The dominance of the diegetic mode in the second edition is in fact inseparable from the increasing importance given to architectural principles in the redefinition of academic art.

1. “Michelangelo’s bodies,” Georg Simmel wrote, “are so completely interpenetrated with Michelangelo’s spirituality and his interiority that even the expression ‘interpenetration’ implies an excessive measure of dualism.”3 The absolute identification of Michelangelo with his art, as Simmel put it in 1910–11, has evolved into a commonplace of art historical and critical accounts of the artist and his work, whose origins lie in the Lives. And that identifica-

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tion was born of a peculiar mode of description, which emphasizes the exceptional naturalism of the figures Michelangelo creates. This is the mode I refer to as mimetic.4 Consider, for example, the description of the Last Judgment, which emphasizes Michelangelo’s supreme ability to represent the human figure and to imbue it with a lifelike presence.5 The description characterizes the multitude of human figures represented in the fresco as a complete catalogue of human emotions (“filled with all the passions known to human creatures”) and psychological characterizations (“the proud, the envious, the avaricious, the wanton”; Figs. 19–22).6 The description presents the work as a fragment of the world, to be experienced as if the actual event were taking place in front of one’s eyes. Nothing is idealized or abstracted: the figures of the sinners do not symbolize but embody perdition; they are so vividly represented that viewers experience their very torments (Fig. 20). Even the music the angels play—the sound of the seven trumpets calling the end of human time—is palpably terrifying (Fig. 21).7 Indeed the mimetic force of the work, the author of this passages writes, renders description impossible.8 A primary feature of this mimetic mode of description is the association it maintains between the work of art and its maker, up to and including specific aspects of the artist’s persona. This characteristic is echoed in the biographies of numerous protagonists of the Lives. The bizarre effects of light in Piero di Cosimo’s Visitation with the Saints Nicholas and Anthony Abbot (National Gallery of Art, Washington), for example, reflect the artist’s strangeness. The pallor of Parri Spinelli’s figures are linked to the fact that the artist had been the victim of violent aggression, the trauma of which, we are told, informed his artistic imagination. In much the same way the dark and mischievous characters of Andrea del Castagno’s figures echo the violent personality of the artist. These and other instances have led art historians to register the identification between art and the artist’s psychology as one of the dominant features of the Lives.9 A similar association of works with their maker is at play

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Figure 19. Michelangelo, Last Judgment (1541). Città del Vaticano, Palazzo Vaticano, Sistine Chapel. Alinari / Art Resource, NY.

throughout the descriptions of Michelangelo’s work. However, whereas the characters and experiences of Piero di Cosimo, Spinelli, and Castagno are related to representations, in Michelangelo’s case the pictorial mark, which creates the mimetic illusion, is the index of personality. Michelangelo’s identity finds expression not in the emotive states of the figures in the Last Judgment

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Figure 20. Michelangelo, Last Judgment (1541). Città del Vaticano, Palazzo Vaticano, Sistine Chapel. Detail. Scala / Art Resource, NY.

or their psychological characterization, but in the very lines and forms he traces on the wall. In fact after having translated the illusionistic qualities of the Last Judgment into words, the description proceeds by looking at the work from a different angle. It examines the figures’ outlines on the surface, concentrating on

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Figure 21. Michelangelo, Last Judgment (1541). Città del Vaticano, Palazzo Vaticano, Sistine Chapel. Detail. Alinari / Art Resource, NY.

the junctures that separate and unite their forms (citing “a harmony of painting that gives great softness, and fineness in the parts”).10 This section of the description, which contrasts with the emphatic exaltation of the emotional effects produced by the figures, redirects the reader’s eye from the illusionistic effect of the image to the bidimensional world of painting, where the very mystery of mimesis takes place. The figures are read as a formal syntax that is unequivocally associated with Michelangelo: “The outlines of the forms [were] turned by him in such a way as could have not have been achieved by any other but Michelangelo.”11 Every detail of the fresco constitutes an unerring sign of a unity of intention, which reinforces the absolute relationship between the artist and the work: “It is extraordinary to see such harmony of painting, that it appears as if done in one day, and with such finish as was never achieved in any miniature.”12

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Figure 22. Michelangelo, Last Judgment (1541). Città del Vaticano, Palazzo Vaticano, Sistine Chapel. Detail. Scala / Art Resource, NY.

Arguably this portion of the description does not refer to the work as mimetic, as it makes no reference to its illusionistic qualities. But the dissolution of the mimetic image into the pictorial mark is a component of the same visual hermeneutic. Indeed mimetic art relies on the interplay of two perceptions: the eye is deceived by the illusory nature of the work of art, and the mind detects the deception and the work of art becomes visible as an object. The description of the Last Judgment is divided according to this split: it accounts for the emotional effect of the figures on the viewer and subsequently investigates the making of the fiction by calling attention to the pictorial marks on the surface of the wall. Whereas the art of Piero di Cosimo, Spinelli, and Castagno is associated with or rooted in one or more specific personal characteristics, Michelangelo is one with his art. Every formal element of his works, be it a human figure or a simple line, issues from and indexes a gesture that he, and only he, can make. This unequivocal referentiality is further strengthened by an evaluation

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of mimesis that is unequaled in any other artist included in the Lives. Michelangelo does not merely imitate but creates nature inspired by “divine grace and knowledge.” Such description of his work redefines the moment of awareness in mimetic art, when the viewer’s mind detects the work as a deception (and the work of art becomes visible as an object), as the acknowledgment of an act of creation. This difference, and the attribution to the artist and his work of a divine creative force, signals a major cultural shift that has been widely explored in the scholarship on Renaissance art, on Michelangelo, and on the Lives. In the late Middle Ages the ennobling attribution of divine creativity derived from the metaphor of God as Divine Author was limited to poets. The idea of God as artist (artifex) was also available, but, as Panofsky noted, the inverse relation, the artist as God, became conceivable only in the culture of the Renaissance. Beginning in the middle of the sixteenth century the artist, more than the poet, increasingly embodied divine creativity.13 At the time Michelangelo’s biography was written the divine status of the artist was a commonplace. Like Vasari, Ariosto, Rosso Fiorentino, Pietro Aretino, Anton Francesco Doni, Condivi, Varchi, and Francisco de Hollanda all attributed to the artist godlike abilities even while he was alive—and in this regard they ennobled the already prestigious status of the artist among his contemporaries. This paradigmatic shift explains the extraordinary narrative of the Moses (Fig. 23), the masterpiece Michelangelo sculpted for the tomb of Julius II, emphatically described as a “divine thing”: The arms with their muscles, and the hands with their bones and nerves, are carried to such a pitch of beauty and perfection, and the legs, knees, and feet are covered with buskins so beautifully fashioned, and every part of the work is so finished, that Moses may be called now more than ever the friend of God, seeing that He has designed to assemble together and prepare his body for the resurrection before that of any other, by the hands of Michelangelo.14

Moses is so complete and so perfectly expresses the figure’s own

Figure 23. Michelangelo, Moses (1513–15). Rome, Church of San Pietro in Vincoli. Scala / Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali / Art Resource, NY.

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divinity and proximity to God that, in a stunning rhetorical twist, Michelangelo resurrects his body, which has been prepared by God himself for the artist. The reference to the Israelites who worshipped the sculpture (“Well may the Hebrews continue to go there, as they do every Sabbath, both men and women, like flocks of starlings, to visit and adore that statue; for they will be adoring a thing not human but divine”)15 makes reference to the biblical account of angels who hid Moses’ body to prevent the Israelites from practicing idolatry after his death.16 The hyperbole of this description underlines the difference between Michelangelo’s creativity, which makes divinity visible, and the mere imitation of nature, which is inherently false (and potentially an incitement to idolatry) that artists practiced before him. The representation of Moses that the angels have been impeding since the age of the old law to prevent the adoration of false idols is now made possible by Michelangelo through his art. The explicit interpretation in this description of artistic style as the “stylus” of God is unique in art literature.17 Positing divinity as a property shared by both the work and the artist, the description of Michelangelo’s work is rhetorically bound to the famous incipit of Michelangelo’s biography, which fashions the artist’s birth as messianic for the arts.18 This semantic interrelation between the artist’s life and work is especially marked in the reference to the Last Judgment as “the exemplar and the grand manner of painting sent down to men on earth by God.”19 Michelangelo is the spirit that God sent down, like his frescoes, a comparison further emphasized in the Giuntina, which added the significant, albeit erroneous, detail that the fresco was unveiled on December 25, the day of the Nativity. 20 In sum the description of art as mimetic—and even more so not as mere imitation but as a sign of divine creativity—makes possible an art historical narrative centered on the figure of the artist. Likewise the identity of the artist, a psychobiological unit that involves singularity and sameness as well as repetition, generation after generation, provides a model for the narrativization of mimetic art and its organization as a historical narrative. Art can be written as the story of what individual artists did and their

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effect on viewers through time, following the classical historiographic models of the lives of “illustrious men” and accounts of gestae (actions). Proceeding from one mimetic invention to another, upholding an ideal fusion of art and the physical world, the history of mimetic art unfolds as a succession of exceptional individuals (great masters) and actions (masterpieces).21 In the Lives the course of mimetic art reaches its apex in the descriptions of Michelangelo’s work, where the identification between the artist and the work of art implies, in Simmel’s terms, an absolute spiritual unity. This total correspondence, which binds mimetic art to the limited temporality of the artist’s biological life, was incompatible with institutional art, with an idea of art as discipline and as a collective product. Mimetic art is inherently subjective, related to what an individual artist did or did not do and to the specific space and time in which he or she lived. Other phenomena and principles that extend beyond the life of an individual artist are also taken into consideration, but they are still ultimately informed by the psychobiological identity of the artist. This is the case of style as a form of individual expression or of the so-called qualità dei tempi (quality of the times), defined in the Lives as the cultural and technical means available to an individual artist at a specific time. Ultimately and inevitably the description in the Lives of art as mimetic clashed with the program of institutionalization of the figurative arts Borghini and Vasari promoted, which favored and necessitated art’s very capacity to transcend time. Mimetic descriptions in the Lives are key to interpretations of Vasari and Renaissance art. Their multilevel reference to human temporality, the vividness they attribute to the work of art, and the absolute identification they pose between the work of art and its maker shape and are shaped by the dominant understanding of Italian Renaissance art and its place in the history of culture. Another descriptive mode, however, capable of challenging these founding principles of Renaissance art, emerges in the Lives, and forcefully in the Giuntina.

Figure 24. Giorgio Vasari, Sala Grande (1562–72). Florence, Palazzo Vecchio. Scala / Art Resource, NY.

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Figure 25. Giorgio Vasari, Sala Grande. Ceiling (1562–65). Florence, Palazzo Vecchio. Scala / Art Resource, NY.

2. As we saw in chapter 1, Borghini and Vasari’s program for academic art envisioned works of art as the product of rationality rather than of emotions and feelings. Art originates “from knowledge” and not from “the depth of our hearts.” The academician does not create under the influence of divine inspiration, as did Michelangelo, but operates on the basis of a progressively acquired knowledge following rational rules. This mode of artistic production is not well-suited to or served by the descriptive mode at play in the accounts of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, with its focus on the work’s naturalism and emotional qualities. But if the description of art as mimetic is unsuited to it, how is institutional art described in the Lives? The description of Vasari’s decorative program in the Sala Grande in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, a work that Vasari immodestly considered “great and most important,” and superior to the contemporary decorations in the Venetian Ducal Palace and in the Sala dei Re in the Vatican

Figure 26. Giorgio Vasari, Sala Grande. Ceiling (1562–65). Florence, Palazzo Vecchio. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

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Figure 27. Giorgio Vasari, The Foundation of Florence (1563–65). Florence, Palazzo Vecchio, Sala Grande. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

Palaces (Figs. 24–28), may provide an answer. Vasari included the description of the ceiling decoration, which he began to design in 1563 and rushed to completion in fall 1565, in time for the festivities of the wedding of Francesco I (on December 16), in his own biography in the Giuntina. 22 The Sala Grande, representing “the history of Florence from its foundation to the present time,” is a monumental “history painting,” a genre long celebrated, from the treatise De pictura by Leon Battista Alberti to the curriculum of European academies in the nineteenth century, as the noblest. 23 The ambitious

Figure 28. Giorgio Vasari, Siege of Pisa (1563–65). Florence, Palazzo Vecchio, Sala Grande. S.S.P.S.A.E. / Polo Museale della Città di Firenze, Gabinetto Fotografico.

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commission involved raising the ceiling twelve braccia (about seven meters) and building a monumental wooden tripartite gilded frame, decorated with thirty-eight panels of different shapes and dimensions. The program features two major themes: the conquest of Pisa and Siena (in the two long lateral bands) and the history of Florence, from its Roman foundation to the present (in the middle band). The two extremities of the ceiling, adjacent to the short walls, are decorated with representations of the Florentine state: two large ovals representing the quartieri of Florence, surrounded by smaller, square panels representing Tuscan cities and territories. For the three small portions of frame that cover the trapezoidal area generated by the oblique wall, Vasari designated playful putti; portraits of his main assistants, Bernardo di Madonna Mattea, Battista Botticello, Matteo da Faenza, and Stefano Veltroni; and an inscription that records the work’s completion in 1565. The decorative program, conceived by Borghini and designed by Vasari, was modified multiple times at Cosimo I’s request. These changes shifted the focus of the decoration from the exaltation of Florence’s republican past to the present rule of Cosimo I. The major change concerned the central oval originally containing the Personification of Florence in Glory, which was replaced by the Apotheosis of Cosimo I, a portrait of Cosimo I surrounded by the symbols of the Florentine arts and métiers. 24 Although the description emphasizes Vasari’s contribution to the decoration, in part in emulation of Michelangelo’s heroic labors in the Sistine Chapel and in part in response to the widespread criticism of Vasari’s indiscriminate use of assistants since the decoration of the Sala dei Cento Giorni at the Cancelleria, the decoration of the Sala Grande was a collaborative work.25 It involved, to various degrees and at different times, his most faithful assistants and prominent young academicians, some of them also active in the decoration of Michelangelo’s exequies: Jan van der Straet, Jacopo Zucchi, Battista Naldini, Tommaso di Battista del Verrocchio, Prospero Fontana, Orazio Porta, Santi di Tito, Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, Alessandro Fei del Barbiere, and the previously mentioned Marco da Faenza and Stefano Vel-

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troni. 26 Two years after the completion of the ceiling Vasari began the decoration of the large walls with battle scenes thematically connected with the ceiling. In the Lives he mentions the work as in progress. We know that he began the first battle scene, Maximilian of Austria Attempts the Conquest of Leghorn, in August 1567, the same month as the Lives’ imprimatur.27 As I mentioned in the previous chapter, Vasari wrote an incomplete précis of his own biography, one of the last to be included in the book, and asked Borghini to add information on the most recent works they realized together. It is thus possible that the following description, although it refers to Vasari in the firstperson singular, primarily is the fruit of Borghini’s pen. And here I will leave it to the judgment of everyone not only in our arts but also outside them, if only he has seen the greatness and variety of that work, to decide whether the extraordinary importance of the occasion should not be my excuse if in such haste I have not given complete satisfaction in so great a variety of wars on land and sea, stormings of cities, batteries, assaults, skirmishes, buildings of cities, public councils, ceremonies ancient and modern, triumphs, and so many other things, for which, not to mention anything else, the sketches, designs, and cartoons of so great a work required a very long time. I will not speak of the nude bodies, in which the perfection of our arts consists, or of the landscapes wherein all those things were painted, all of which I had to copy from nature on the actual site and spot, even as I did with the many captains, generals, and other chiefs, and soldiers, that were in the emprises that I painted.28

The description praises the ceiling decoration for the unprecedented variety of subjects represented. “In short,” the description concludes, “I will venture to say that I had occasion to depict in that ceiling almost everything that human thought and imagination can conceive; all the varieties of bodies, faces, vestments, habiliments, armor, helmets, cuirasses, various headdresses, horses, harnesses, caparisons, artillery of every kind, navigations, tempests, storms of rain and snow, and so many other things that I am not able to re-

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member them.”29 The impressive effect of the work is magnified by its monumental size: “about forty large scenes, and some of them pictures ten braccia in every direction, with figures very large and in every manner.”30 The archetype of the account of the Sala Grande is the Homeric description of Achilles’ shield at the end of chapter 18 (lines 478–608) in the Iliad, where Haephestus shows the shield to the hero’s mother, Thetis. Beginning with a detailed account of its structural and material composition, Haephestus emphasizes the work’s greatness and variety by offering an exhaustive and systematic inventory of its subject matter. The ekphrasis encompasses the whole world, physical and human, symbolically contained in the work’s medium (the four metals) and circular form. As striking as the naturalism of the genre scenes may be, nothing on the shield occurs in a specific space or time. The women “making a porridge of much white barley for the labourers’ dinner,” for example, is a fragment of an ideal view of the world—the representation of everyday life in every countryside at any time. In the same way the “history of Florence” in the Sala Grande is not structured as a narrative commemoration of a specific event or series of events, as in the Quattrocento and Cinquecento Florentine tradition of history painting, but as a universal history of epic magnitude. The only work of art to which the Sala Grande is compared in the biography of Vasari is the Last Judgment, and the differences between the descriptions are striking. Although it enthusiastically records a variety of figurative elements, the description of the Sala Grande does not attempt to re-create what the work “expresses,” but rather refers directly to what it represents and to what any viewer, even today, would be able to observe and identify. As Adolfo Venturi put it, “We do not look for any human or dramatic value here.”31 Nude bodies, so central to Michelangelo’s art, are also present, but as yet another of the numerous components engaged in the decorative scheme of representing everything.32 From a linguistic point of view the two descriptions differ widely as well. The emphasis on literality in the description of the Sala Grande differs markedly from the metaphorical

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language used to describe the illusory and emotional qualities of Michelangelo’s figures. The examples adduced here from the Lives are somewhat unusual in their strict adherence to one or the other of the two descriptive modes under discussion.33 But even when intertwined, as it is often the case in the book, and more so in the Giuntina, they refer to discrete ways of seeing and artistic judgments: one emphasizes individual and particular aspects of a work according to the principle that a part can stand for the whole, and the other understands the work of art as an integrated larger whole, according to the opposite principle that “una parte non è il tutto” (a part is not the whole).34 Whereas the former finds its ideal manifestation in the sculpted human body, a synthetic totality available to the senses, the latter privileges architectural, historical, allegorical subjects (or, ideally, the combination of the three)— analytic totalities perceivable by the intellect.35 Thus where the description of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel praises the terribilità of the figures, the mode, centered on the emotional effects produced by the work’s details, is consistent with that used to describe the Last Judgment. But where the description of the same ceiling highlights Michelangelo’s subordination of the fictive architectural framework to the representation of human figures (Michelangelo “è ito accomodando più il partimento alle figure che le figure al partimento”; he adapted the architectural framework to suit the figures rather than the figures to the architectural framework) the mode is the one used to describe the Sala Grande.36 Whereas the former instance coincides with Michelangelo’s biographical narrative, the latter is independent of it and corresponds to the point of view of academic art. That this commentary on the architectural frame of the Sistine Chapel appears only in the second edition of the Lives is consistent with the fact that the descriptive mode deployed in the case of the Sala Grande takes the upper hand in the Giuntina. Diegetic descriptions are more frequent and more extended in the second edition. We have already encountered a few of them, such as the descriptions of Michelangelo’s exequies (including the account of Buontalenti’s painting) and of the Sforza Almeni fa-

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çade. Other examples include the descriptions of the decoration for the wedding of Francesco I, the Medici villas at Castello and at San Casciano, Villa Farnese at Caprarola, and Palazzo Doria in Genua. Diegetic descriptions were often written independently as iconographic programs and disseminated as independent publications. As discussed in chapter 1, the text of the exequies of Michelangelo, based on Borghini’s iconographic program for the funeral, was published in 1564, soon after the funeral, and included only later in the Lives. The detailed description of the decorative program displayed for the baptism of Eleonora de’ Medici, daughter of Francesco I, which Vasari and Borghini designed and realized in 1568, was published as a booklet in the same year as the Giuntina.37 The Ragionamenti, a description of the decoration of Palazzo Vecchio in the form of a dialogue between Vasari and Francesco I, to which the Lives refers at the end of the description of the Sala Grande, was begun by Vasari in 1558, probably completed in 1567, and published by Giorgio Vasari the Younger after Vasari’s death in 1588.38 The Ragionamenti consists of a collation of iconographic programs by different authors and historical sources used for the decoration of Palazzo Vecchio celebratory of the Medici. The intention and effect of the description are purely diegetic, leading the reader into an abstract time and space informed by an ideal integration of the architectural order and structure of the building with the historical and allegorical meanings the decoration displays.

3. In the Lives the main functions expressed by the two modes explicated here—the definition of authorship as bound to the biological identity of the artist and its counterdefinition as an impersonal value—are dialectically engaged in the narrative of St. Peter’s, Michelangelo’s unfinished last work. The completion of St. Peter’s, the major enterprise undertaken by Michelangelo during his final years in Rome, was left unfinished after many years of tribulation. The construction of the church was a gigantic enterprise, obstructed by material and financial difficulties. Inca-

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Figure 29. Michelangelo, Giacomo della Porta, and Domenico Fontana, St. Peter’s Dome. (1587–90) Città del Vaticano. Alinari / Art Resource, NY.

pable of being carried out by a single architect, it was a collective multigenerational enterprise not unlike the construction of a medieval cathedral. The Fabbrica di San Pietro, the office instituted to supervise the execution of work on the church, oversaw a succession of chief architects and collaborators. Donato Bramante began the construction of the new church under Pope Julius II around 1505; Michelangelo served as architect in chief from

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1546 until his death. The church was eventually completed, with the erection of the dome by Giacomo della Porta and Domenico Fontana, under the pontificate of Sixtus V in 1590, twenty-six years after Michelangelo’s death (Fig. 29). In 1558, predicting the impossibility of completing the construction, Michelangelo’s advisors and Vasari himself solicited him to produce a large-scale wooden model to fix and to represent his conception of the whole project. This model, about sixteen and a half feet high, representing half of the drum of the dome, in a scale of 1:15, was completed in 1561. It is now in the Fabbrica di San Pietro at the Vatican (Fig. 30).39 After Michelangelo’s death Vasari showed a keen interest in the artist’s plans for St. Peter’s. The seven pages of the Lives dedicated to the description of Michelangelo’s later model of the dome comprise the most significant addition to the life of the master in the second edition (excluding the sixty-page account of the exequies). Vasari had the opportunity to see the model in construction in spring 1560 and to compare the completed model with the master’s drawings and the information on the project he already possessed during his sojourn in Rome in the winter of 1567.40 Specifics about the project were also included in the Giunti booklet on Michelangelo’s exequies. But the description in the Lives, as the passage “and it only remains for us to begin the vaulting of the tribune” suggests, was likely written by someone directly involved in the church’s construction.41 This possibility squares with Vasari’s request from Florence for detailed information regarding Michelangelo’s activity in St. Peter’s.42 The description proceeds from the existing base of the tribune, built under Michelangelo’s direction, to the project for the lantern of the dome, which came to be installed only two hundred years later and in a different shape. I cite here two passages. The first concerns the lower part of the tribune, built under Michelangelo’s direction. The second refers to vaulting designed by the artist and rendered in the wooden model and in a few preliminary sketches. I must begin by saying that according to this model, made under the direction of Michelagnolo, I find that in the great

Figure 30. Michelangelo, St. Peter’s Dome. Wooden model (1558–61). Città del Vaticano, Fabbrica di San Pietro. Scala / Art Resource, NY.

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work the whole space between the tribune will be one hundred and eighty six palms, speaking of its width from wall to wall above the great cornice of travertine that curves in a round in the interior, resting on the four great double piers that rise from the ground with their capitals carved in the Corinthian order, accompanied by their architrave, frieze, and cornice, likewise of travertine; which great cornice, curving right round over the great niches, rests supported upon the four great arches of the three niches and of the entrance, which form the cross of the building. Then there begins to spring the first part of the tribune, the rise of which commences in a basement of travertine with a platform six palms broad, where one can walk; and this basement curves in a round in the manner of a well, and its thickness is thirtythree palms and eleven inches, the height to the cornice eleven palms and ten inches, the cornice above it about eight palms, and its projection six and a half palms. Into this basement you enter in order to ascend the tribune, by four entrances that are over the arches of the niches, and the thickness of the basement is divided into three parts; that on the inner side is fifteen palms, that on the outer side is eleven palms, and that in the center is eleven palms and eleven inches, which make up the thickness of thirty-three palms and eleven inches. The space in the center is hollow and serves as a passage, which is two squares in height and curves in a continuous round, with a barrel-shaped vault; and in line with the four entrances are eight doors, each of which rises in four steps, one of them leading to the level platform of the cornice of the first basement, six palms and a half in breadth, and another leading to the inner cornice that curves round the tribune, eight palms and three quarters broad, on which platforms, by each door, you can walk conveniently both within and without the edifice, and from one entrance to another in a curve of two hundred and one palms, so that, the sections being four, the whole circuit comes to be eight hundred and six palms.43 Up to this point Michelangelo has finished the masonry of the building; it now remains that we commence the vaulting of the Cupola, of which, since we have the model, we

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will continue to describe the arrangement as he has left it to us. The centers of the arches are directed on the three points which form a triangle as below:

A.

B. C.

The lowermost, or point C, determines the form, height, and width of the first half circle of the tribune, which Michelangelo has ordered to be constructed of well-baked bricks.44

Only a transcription can convey the description’s obsessive engagement with the anatomy of the architectural model, sufficient to exasperate even an expert reader. Editorially speaking, this description is an infelicitous insertion that contrasts with the celebrated narrative structure of the Lives, especially with the anecdotal disposition of Michelangelo’s biography. Abruptly interrupting the biographical pace and structure of the “Life of Michelangelo,” this semplice narrazione (simple narration) takes an entirely different approach to Michelangelo’s work. The description of the model of St. Peter’s features the same characteristics, mutatis mutandis, as the description of the Sala Grande. It describes the work in straightforward and literal terms, listing materials and measurements and praising its “greatness,” “richness,” “variety,” “strength and durability in every single part.” The model’s architectural elements are defined as varied, appropriate, strong, durable, and rich. The only mimetic effect the description creates is when it projects the reader inside the church as a fictive visitor. However, this virtual tour ultimately leads the reader to a timeless geometrical space in which he is given precise instructions on “how to build” the dome following Michelangelo’s original plan. It is this purposiveness—“how to build” Michelangelo’s dome—that motivates and explains the inclusion of this description in the biography of the artist. The description’s literalism and technicality are instrumental to preserve Michelangelo’s original plan after his death, thus to guarantee its execution according to his intention by whoever inherited the artist’s position at the

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Fabbrica. The text protects the project from future deviation and alteration. As Vasari states, “These my writings, such as they may be, may be able to assist the faithful who are to be the executors of the mind of that rare man, and also to restrain the malignant desires of those who may seek to alter it.”45 Diegetic description served to ensure the legacy of the artist and to enable the completion of his work. The exhaustive description of Michelangelo’s model jarringly punctuates an otherwise sustained narrative account—and one structured by mimetic modalities and, crucially, the integral association of works with their author. As per the dialectic mentioned earlier between the two descriptive orientations, Vasari’s documentation required the authority of Michelangelo. Echoing widespread opinion sustained by Michelangelo’s own statements, the biography reports that Paul III had been inspired by God to summon the artist for the construction of the dome.46 Quotations from Michelangelo’s letters, excerpted from autograph letters sent to Vasari directly by the artist, were also inserted in the biography: Messer Giorgio. To the end that it may be easier to understand the difficulty of the vault by observing its rise from the level of the ground, let me explain that I have been forced to divide it into three vaults, corresponding to the windows below divided by pilasters; and you see that they rise pyramidally into the center of the summit of the vault, as also do the base and sides of the same. . . . The vault, with its sections and hewn stone-work, is all of travertine, like all the rest below; a thing not customary in Rome.47 Whereupon Michelangelo wrote to Vasari on the same sheet . . . “God give me grace that I may be able to serve him [Cosimo I] with this my poor person,” for his memory and brain were gone to await him elsewhere. The date of this letter was August in the year 1557. . . . All these things, and many more that it is not necessary to mention, we have in our possession, written in his hand.48

Evidently Vasari felt obliged to demonstrate the authenticity of the technical information he provided. As we may infer from the first quotation, Michelangelo himself considered Vasari his intel-

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lectual executor and specified the technical details of the construction (note, for example, how the passage anticipates the predictable objection to the use of travertine in lieu of the traditional Roman bricks).49 The second quotation reinforces the description’s authenticity by offering verification reminiscent of a testamentary document: the invocation of God and the last will, the declaration of the date, and the possession of the autograph. Up to this point we have been concerned with the coexistence in the Lives of two antithetical conceptions of art, one mimetic and the other diegetic and academic. These conceptions relate in turn to alternative points of view and temporalities: one envisions art as a historical trajectory traced by exceptional individuals; the other conceives of art as the representation of supra-individual principles and values. These alternative points of view are complexly intertwined in the text under discussion. When Vasari’s academic eye considers St. Peter’s dome, a work that existed only in Michelangelo’s mind, it also retains the image of its mythical author. In this instance Michelangelo’s authorship does not reside in the pictorial mark, but in the intellectual formulation of the work, which is independent of and distinct from its execution. Thus the narrative of St. Peter’s, which relies on a conception of the divine artist, albeit not one that hinges on the artist’s capacity to create perfect bodies, invites us to reconsider the two modes available to Vasari to compare God to the artist: as the sculptor who modeled man out of clay, and as the architect who designed the world. The first is grounded in the awe evinced by the inexplicable creation of life; the second is based on an appreciation of the rational structure of the world, or the articulation of a fabricated construction. Both imply original creations, but only the latter comparison can accommodate an idea of art based on rational principles and values, superseding human time and space. The celebration of the “divine artist” in the narrative of the dome of St. Peter’s depends on and highlights two considerations central to Vasari’s conception of academic art. We have encountered them both already, from other perspectives and in other contexts. First, a work of art designed by one artist can be executed

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by another. Second, the faithful execution of a work depends on its having been designed rationally, with order, proportion, and measure—features, not coincidentally, of architectural works. If painting and sculpted works required the direct intervention of the master and special artistic skills on the part of assistants, as we have seen in the case of Cristofano Gherardi, architecture exemplifies (then as now) the absolute separation between invention and execution. This distinction was clear to Borghini, who considered architecture an exemplary discipline on account of the separation between design and execution and the definition of mastery by virtue of design. Borghini mused over these issues in his Selva di notizie and almost certainly discussed them with Vasari in the summer of 1564, at the same time he received accounts of Michelangelo’s activity from his informants in Rome. 50 In sum whereas the description of the Last Judgment posits an absolute association between the work and the artist’s persona, the narrative of St. Peter’s redefines authorship in abstract terms and in absentia personae, as a timeless artistic form. Here too Vasari locates authorship in the psychobiological integrity of the author, expressed as Michelangelo’s will, but he redefines it as an abstract value (modo di disegno) freed from biological or temporal coordinates. As Howard Burns has shown, Michelangelo struggled mightily to impose his singular authorship on St. Peter’s.51 According to Burns, Michelangelo’s obsessive commitment to the completion of the monument mirrored the anxiety of the Renaissance artist and his defense of his personal identity against the impersonal forces of time. The solution to this vexing problem seemed for many contemporary artists to lie in academic art, which honored the division between conception and production. Notably, then, the timelessness of conception that Vasari identified and identified with in the case of St. Peter’s dome contrasts with the pressures of time and biographical advances that Michelangelo struggled with in his final years and in this project above all. The description of Michelangelo’s plan for St. Peter’s certainly contributed to the diffusion of representations of the whole building according to a presumed final project Mi-

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chelangelo never produced. The most relevant are the engravings by Etienne Dupérac in the Speculum Romanae magnificentiae (1569), which shows the dome as hemispheric, and two drawings in the Uffizi (Collection Santarelli 174–75), which represent the church’s floor plan and section.52 Defining Michelangelo’s authorship as an abstract value entailed, as did its inverse, (mythical) construction, keeping the realities of historical circumstances at bay. In his account of Michelangelo’s design Vasari portrayed the other architects involved at St. Peter’s, who both preceded and succeeded Michelangelo (Bramante, Raphael, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger; Pirro Ligorio, Jacopo Vignola, Giacomo della Porta, and Domenico Fontana) as merely instrumental to the execution of the master’s project. Vasari also glossed over the ongoing threats to the project’s integrity posed by political and financial factors (e.g., the pause in construction between 1552 and 1555) and the death of the patron popes Paul III (1549), Julius III (1555), Marcellus II (1555), and Paul IV (1559).53 Vasari was even undeterred by the major historical contradiction to his version of the story, namely that Bramante, and not Michelangelo, was the primo autore of the Renaissance St. Peter’s. Indeed the four pillars designed by Bramante were central to all future designs and remain the only structural element to survive multiple constructive and destructive transformations. Evoking the myth of the “divine artist” and the widespread opinion that Michelangelo was summoned for the project due to God’s intervention, Vasari effectively defrauded Bramante of the title of primo autore, which time and material evidence would ultimately assign to him.54 However, and surprisingly, Michelangelo himself undermined Vasari’s efforts by failing to support the assumption that the dome’s design sprang fully formed from his mind. After having constructed the model he reworked the design of the church, following his customary practice of modifying projects in response to the process of construction.55 His organic conception of architecture, which obeyed biological rather than structural imperatives, ran counter to Vasari’s attempt to distinguish the plan-

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Figure 31. Michelangelo and assistants, Study for St. Peter’s Dome (1547– 54). Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Cabinet des Dessins, Collection Wicar, No. 93. Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY.

ning phase from the execution. As Michael Hirst has pointed out, the later alterations to the attic story, previously interpreted as a posthumous phase of the project, were likely conceived by Michelangelo himself.56 The artist changed the circular openings in the drum, a component visible in the famous drawing of Lille designed by Michelangelo and his assistants between 1547 and 1554 (Fig. 31), into large square windows around 1557, during its elevation.57 Later he also redesigned the frames of the windows of the dome, thus altering the solution represented in the model. 58 Finally documents and surviving drawings suggest (but the point

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is debated) that Michelangelo was never completely resolved about the external shape of the dome later realized by Giacomo della Porta and Domenico Fontana between 1587 and 1590 (Fig. 29). The drawing of Lille shows, for example, that Michelangelo had initially opted for a slightly more pointed curvature.59 The wooden model plays an ambiguous role in this story. Not only does it not faithfully represent Michelangelo’s final idea but, having been used by his successors Giacomo della Porta and Luigi Vanvitelli, it ended up legitimizing posthumous changes. Michelangelo’s working procedure, as embodied by the wooden model, defied and undermined Vasari’s attempt to describe the work as frozen in time and to establish an exclusive association between the monument and the artist as its primo autore.60 The diffusion of the mimetic mode of describing Michelangelo’s work has been vast beyond measure, in large part because it suits his organic conception of architecture, but also because of the impact of the descriptions of his paintings and sculptures in the Lives. In contrast with the narrative of St. Peter’s in the Lives, for example, Sandro Benedetti describes the church’s dome as if it were a sculpture, a “human body” composed of “bones and muscles.”61 Benedetti’s description throws into relief the stretch involved in approaching, as the Lives did in this instance, Michelangelo’s architectural work as a spatial exercise conditioned by geometrical and mathematical principles. This duplicity is key in Vasari’s understanding of Michelangelo. Much like the nomination of the aging artist as “first academician” in 1563 and the funeral honors paid to him the following year, the description of St. Peter’s dome further exemplifies how the recursive return to the myth of the divine artist that the Lives itself created comes to define and legitimize the fundamental principles of academic art. On the one hand, the description is meant to serve Michelangelo’s art. On the other, it prompts an idea of art and authorship that Michelangelo himself would never have recognized in his own work.

chapter five

Art as Language Just as the blossoming of trees and the growth of leaves are generated by a hidden property, which we call nature, so too the formation and pronunciation of languages are a sort of nature; in general this nature coincides with usage, such that one could say that as regards languages usage and nature are one and the same, or only differ slightly. vincenzio borghini 1

The so-called questione della lingua, the wide-ranging debate concerning normative standards for the Italian language, occupied court humanists and other intellectuals for centuries, from the time of Dante to the unification of Italy. In its early phase the debate was principally concerned with the legitimization of the vernacular vis-à-vis Latin; its second phase, which began in the early Cinquecento, had to do with which dialect should serve as a basis for a common Italian language. This second phase was characterized by harsh disputes and personal conflicts, but on one important point the majority of the participants agreed: that the Italian language should derive from the finest literary models. A significant minority opinion was held by a group of Florentine intellectuals, among them the editors of the Lives, Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Carlo Lenzoni, Cosimo Bartoli, and Vincenzio Borghini. Their claims regarding language and literature reversed the terms of the discussion by claiming that language develops naturally and independent of its literary formulations. A literary masterpiece, they argued, was not necessarily the best model from a linguistic point of view. Literary works relate to language, to use Borghini’s metaphor, as fruits relate to the growth of a tree: they are generated by language and not vice versa.

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The idea that language is composed of its spoken forms and distinct from literature is now a commonplace. In the early modern period, however, this notion was counterintuitive for it undermined the importance texts and authors play in culture. The originality of the position of the Florentine editors of the Lives lies in their conception of a linguistic model of culture, which values its own tradition—its authoritative texts and authors—not as a model of absolute transhistorical value, as their antagonists believed, but as the historical manifestation of a natural development, governed by impersonal principles and forces. How a culture relates to its texts and authors is a crucial issue with respect to political power, for it is a strategic tool for defining the relationship between individual agencies and collective values. The linguistic model of culture promoted by the Florentine intellectuals is thus connected to Cosimo I de’ Medici’s aspiration to overcome the multiplicity of local and peripheral powers inside and outside the state. It was in the figurative arts that the Florentine editors discovered an ideal arena to demonstrate the general validity of their ideas. Vasari’s collaborators claimed that art, like language, develops independently of its prestigious tradition of masters and masterpieces. In contrast with the contemporary artistic trend and the practices of artists such as Pontormo, Bronzino, and Allori, Borghini boldly claimed that artists should not look to Michelangelo as a model to be literally imitated. The editors of the Lives agreed that Michelangelo represented the apex of individual artistic achievement, but they also believed that his work, like that of any other individual artist, was governed by impersonal principles, technical and formal, intrinsic to the natural development of art. The connection between the sense of an imminent decline after Michelangelo, cultivated by the Torrentiniana, and the foundation of the art academy, celebrated in the Giuntina, helped establish this fundamental point. According to Borghini and Vasari, art would continue its natural development after the death of Michelangelo, the insuperable master, through the institution. Michelangelo and the masters who preceded him enriched

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art with myriad visual forms, just as the Trecento authors enriched the vocabulary, to the extent that art, like language, could subsequently develop independently. This conception of artistic development enabled Borghini and Vasari to respond positively to the central question posed by the book: What of art after Michelangelo? If an art based on the imitation of its finest authors could only decline after Michelangelo, an art based on linguistic values could overcome individual limitations to enable progress, albeit of a deliberately impersonal kind.

1. “A spoken language without writers cannot be called a language.”2 This statement, representative of mainstream early modern opinion about language and literature, comes from Pietro Bembo’s Prose della volgar lingua (1525), the most influential treatise concerning the questione della lingua. In its initial stages this debate revolved around Bembo’s proposal that poetry and prose be composed in a Tuscan language based on Petrarch and Boccaccio. The major alternative was the so-called courtly or common language, consisting of the finest dialects spoken at the courts of the Italian peninsula. Proponents of courtly or common language, popular in the courts of Urbino, Mantova, and Rome, undermined the importance of the Tuscan language but held, with Bembo, that a language should have a literary foundation. The principal champion of courtly language, Giangiorgio Trissino, offered as an alternative to the Tuscan authors the Duecento Sicilian poetic tradition in his influential treatise, Il castellano (1529). That language should have a literary foundation is a longstanding notion with roots in premodern Western culture. The Stoics believed that language consists of the written language of a select group of authors, considered its elect representatives. Quattrocento humanists revived this conception of language in their codification of Latin. In contrast to Medieval Latin, unsystematically developed and susceptible to the influence of other

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languages, humanistic Latin was based on the writings of a select group of literary authorities, namely the classical authors.3 The questione della lingua eventually undercut the hegemony of Latin, though it maintained the earlier humanistic conception of language. Trecento Tuscan authors, the most important representatives of the vernacular literary tradition, served for the proponents of the Italian language in the same capacity as the classical authors did for humanistic Latin. In Bembo’s Gli asolani (1505) and Prose, for example, Petrarch and Boccaccio play the same role Virgil and Cicero play in Bembo’s Latin work. Working against the grain of this central tradition, Giambullari and Lenzoni proposed an alternative position in the mid1540s by advancing opinions on the importance of the spoken language previously expressed by Machiavelli and Claudio Tolomei.4 In 1550, at Cosimo I’s request, they formed, together with Giovambattista Gelli, Benedetto Varchi, and Lelio Torelli, an academic committee whose brief was to fix rules for the Florentine language. Though the academicians never completed the task given them, they nonetheless disseminated their ideas in a series of interconnected publications. In his treatise I capricci del bottaio (1546, revised in 1548) Gelli argued for the fundamental centrality of usage in the formation of language. Giambullari in turn dedicated Il Gello (1546) to the development of Gelli’s ideas. He also proposed a set of rules for the Florentine language in his De la lingua che si parla et scrive in Firenze (published in 1552 but completed by 1548), a publication that also contained Gelli’s treatise, the Ragionamento sopra la difficultà di metter in regole la nostra lingua, which addresses the incompatibility of the spoken language and rigid norms and rules.5 In his In difesa della lingua fiorentina, et di Dante. Con le regole da far bella et numerosa la prosa (1556), dedicated to Michelangelo, Lenzoni championed instead the importance of Dante’s language—neglected by Bembo and his followers on account of its proximity to the spoken language—and advocated a more philological approach to literature. The treatise, comprising three essays still in manuscript form at the time of Lenzoni’s death in 1551, was eventually pub-

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lished in 1556 by Bartoli, whose linguistic interests and editorial activity were similarly interconnected with those of his friends and collaborators. Borghini must certainly have contributed to the discussion and agreed with its main points, but his full participation in the debate comes at a later date, between the early 1560s and the mid-1570s. As we will see, his writings, which further develop Gelli’s ideas and Lenzoni’s philological method, date to an evolved phase of the debate dominated by Bembo’s ideas. The Florentine academicians found some support for their position in the debate outside Florence. The most important among them was Annibal Caro, the humanist at the Farnese court, native of the Marche but naturalized as Florentine, also associated with Vasari and the Lives. Between the late 1550s and early 1560s Caro promoted a Petrarchan poetic language permeable to contemporary spoken language. In his funeral oration for Michelangelo, Benedetto Varchi mentions Caro as “one of the first and major fathers of the beautiful and very flourished Tuscan language.”6 Vasari’s learned friends’ and advisors’ convictions about language had immediate bearing on the writing of the Lives. In a famous response to the Lives, portions of which he had seen in manuscript form, Caro invited Vasari to liberate his writing from literary affectations. The language of the Lives, Caro wrote in 1548, should be as straightforward and unaffected as spoken language, “vorrei la scrittura a punto come il parlare” (“writing as the language is spoken”).7 Giambullari, who revised the manuscript a few months later, and the other Florentine editors also saw the Lives as a vehicle for and an embodiment of their convictions about language. In 1550, a few weeks prior to the completion of the Torrentiniana, Giambullari, Bartoli, and Borghini unanimously refused Vasari’s proposal to include poems in the book. On that occasion Giambullari wrote to Vasari, “Che gli huomini corrino a ‘l vino et non a la frasca” (“It’s the wine that is appealing not the vine [a vine served to identify the purveyor of wines],” a vulgarization of the proverbial expression Laudato vino non opus est hedera), suggesting that what matters in the

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book is the content, not the ornament, and that he who looks for poetry or other literary embellishments should look elsewhere.8 There were also practical concerns in the adoption of a nonliterary language. The Lives, a book on art dedicated to artists, required a specific technical vocabulary that literature was unable to provide.9 Echoing its editors’ views on the questione della lingua, the Lives was written in a colloquial language close to that spoken by contemporary artists. Two well-known passages of the text illustrate this tendency. The first appears in “The Author’s Preface to the Whole Work,” and the second belongs to the epilogue, or dedicatory letter to the readers. The passages appear, with minor variations, in both the Torrentiniana and the Giuntina. The final paragraph of the “Author’s Preface” opens: It remains for me to make excuse for having on occasion used some words of indifferent Tuscan, whereof I do not wish to speak, having ever taken thought to use rather the words and names particular and proper to our arts than the delicate or choice words of proper writers. Let me be allowed, then, to use in their proper speech the words proper to our craftsmen, and let all content themselves with my good will.10

The epilogue contains the following, related statement: I have written as a painter and in accordance with my lights, in the tongue I speak, be it Florentine or Tuscan, in the most natural and easy way known to me, leaving long and ornate periods, the choice of tenses and moods and other ornaments of speaking and writing to those who are not, like me, more accustomed to the brush than the pen, and more concerned with design than writing. And if I have through this work disseminated many words proper to our profession, which never happened to be used by the most luminous and major lights of our language, I have done this because I could not do otherwise and in order to be understood by you, artists, for whom, as I have said, I have principally undertaken this effort.11

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In a number of ways, most vocally by claiming that the text is written in an artisanal vernacular, both of these passages distance the Lives from literature. The first apologetically claims that the words and expressions used by literary authors (“the delicate or choice words of proper writers”) would certainly have been more graceful and elegant, but those used by artists (“in their proper speech the words proper to our craftsmen”) are more appropriate for a book written by an artist and about art. The second passage repeats the same point in bolder terms. It contrasts the “facile et agevole” language of the Lives based on the spoken language currently used by artists with ornate language based on the imitation of famous writers (“the most luminous and major lights of our language”). Because Vasari lacked formal literary training, scholars have interpreted these passages either as proof of his originality as a writer or as symptomatic of this mode of writing being the only option available to him.12 It is certainly true that he had limited possibilities as a writer. More crucial, though, is the evident relevance of these passages—and more broadly speaking, the language of the Lives—to the positions of the Florentine editors within the contemporary language debate.13 It is virtually impossible, as I hope to show in this chapter, to distinguish Vasari’s low style, with its claims for rendering “la scrittura a punto come il parlare,” from the demonstrative function the Florentine editors may have attributed to it and the linguistic convictions the same editors, and especially Borghini, elaborated. It is also important to recall that the two passages quoted above were almost certainly not written by Vasari. As we saw in chapter 3, Frangenberg has convincingly attributed the preface to the Lives, from which the first is taken, to Vasari’s editors.14 In the same chapter we have also seen that the epilogue, the source of the second passage, was written by Vasari on the basis of Borghini’s outline and was later revised by both Borghini and Giambullari. Very likely, therefore, these two apologetic statements of an untrained writer were in fact written by the finest among the Florentine literati. The relationship to the language debate and to the Florentine

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position also holds for a third passage of the Lives, in the epilogue of the Torrentiniana (it follows on the second passage quoted above). It does not appear in the Giuntina and was probably excised on account of its technicality: Even less have I observed common orthographic rules, or considered if the quantity of the letter Z is greater than that of T, or if it is possible to avoid the use of the H; because, since the beginning, I deferred on these issues to a judicious person, worthy of honor.15

Vasari (always the presumed author of the text) is once again presented as an uncultivated writer who relied on the advice of an anonymous reader or editor on orthographic matters. Interestingly the passage refers to a technical discussion on the letters Z, T, and H—whose sounds most differentiate Latin from spoken Florentine—that occurs in the Osservazioni per la pronunzia fiorentina, a brief treatise on orthography written by a mysterious editor with the pseudonym “Neri Dortelata.” This name also identifies the editor of two books published in Florence in 1544: De ‘l sito, forma, et misure, dello Inferno di Dante by Giambullari (Fig. 32) and Marsilio Ficino sopra lo amore o ver’ convito di Platone, Ficino’s famous commentary on Plato’s Symposium, which includes the Osservazioni as a preface. In the Osservazioni Dortelata sets out the orthographic rules adopted in the translation of Ficino’s commentary. The discussion is concentrated on the letters Z, T, and H. Dortelata claims that the letter Z is used for the Latin sound of T that he defines as “false” and “adulterated” (as in the words attione or actione, which becomes in Florentine azione), and that the letter H is used only to modify the spirit of vowels.16 The correspondences between the two books also hold for the general writing style they propose. The repeated references in the Lives to “clear and easy” language recall a further passage in the Osservazioni, where Dortelata identifies “ease” and “clarity” as the fundamental qualities of Florentine prose: “Our ultimate goal was to pursue agility [agevolezza], and at the same time to escape the necessity of privileging the diffi-

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Figure 32. Pierfrancesco Giambullari, De ‘l sito, forma, et misure, dello Inferno di Dante (Florence: Neri Dortelata, 1544). Title page. Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence.

cult and faulty memorization of rules over ease [facilità] and the confidence of the writer.”17 More generally the Lives shares with the Osservazioni a characteristic pragmatism and antidogmatic spirit. The significance of these points of correspondence is reinforced by the likelihood that the pseudonym Dortelata was used by Giambullari, the main editor of the first edition of the Lives. Piero Fiorelli has recognized the Florentine humanist on the basis of a comparison between the Osservazioni and Giambullari’s

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Della lingua che si parla et scrive a Firenze.18 Fiorelli’s conclusion, commonly accepted, is corroborated by Giambullari’s revision of the Rimini apograph of the Lives, which follows the orthographic precepts of the Osservazioni.19 It is worth recalling, however, that other scholars pointed to Bartoli, primarily on the basis of the dedicatory letter to Cosimo I in Ficino’s Commentary, bound with the Osservazioni.20 Fiorelli also noted a correspondence between the Osservazioni and Lenzoni’s In difesa della lingua fiorentina, et di Dante. Con le regole da far bella et numerosa la prosa. The editorial vicissitudes of the book—completed by Giambullari after Lenzoni’s death in 1551 and, as noted earlier, published by Bartoli after Giambullari’s death in 1557— also suggest that Dortelata may be a pseudonym used by the trio. Dortelata’s aim was to publish a collection of books that would serve as records of spoken Florentine language, providing readers who wished to learn the Tuscan vernacular with concrete examples.21 Although the Lives’ primary aim is certainly different, it served a similar linguistic function. 22 Like Dortelata’s editions it was addressed to a specific audience, the “lovers of the Florentine language,” along with artists and art lovers. It is well known that the Lives reached at least one such reader far outside of Florence. The humanist Dominique Lampson, from Liège, wrote to Vasari claiming that he found in the Lives a means of combining his love for the arts with his desire to learn the Italian language: Our Lord God, willed that by His Grace there should come into my hands, I know not in what way, your most excellent writings concerning the architects, painters, and sculptors. But at that time I did not know one word of Italian, whereas now, thanks be to God, for all that I have never seen Italy, by reading your writings I have gained such little knowledge as has encouraged me to write you this letter. And to this desire to learn your tongue I have been attracted by your writings, which perhaps those of no other man could have done; being drawn to seek to understand them by a natural and irresistible love that I have borne from childhood to these three most beautiful arts. 23

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If the main editors and, eventually, Vasari himself shared a commitment to a clear and easy language based on the vernacular in use among artists, the stylistic differences and variety of vocabulary we find in the book testify to the difficulty of imposing a uniform language throughout a book written by multiple authors. (A few biographies and large sections of Michelangelo’s Vita are written in an elegant literary style.) Not all collaborators were informed or in agreement with the linguistic ideas of the editors. In this regard the case of Giovambattista Cini’s collaboration on the Giuntina is exemplary. In 1567 Borghini asked the learned Florentine academician to write a description of the ephemeral decorations executed for the marriage of Francesco I (1565), to be included in the Lives as the anonymous contribution of a friend. The obedient academician carried out the task, but his work was unexpectedly rejected. In a letter to Cini, Borghini criticized its prose as overly ornate and elegant and asked him to rewrite it in a simpler style. Cini did not understand what was wrong with his prose, nor the reason he should temper its style. Seeing no reasonable ground for the request, he became suspicious about Borghini’s actual concerns. He responded that if Borghini intended to publish the description under Vasari’s name, he needed only to make that clear. Cini reassured Borghini that even if this were the case he would have made the requested stylistic changes: “But if Your Excellency or Giorgio changed your mind and want it [the description] to come out as written by him [Vasari], I will rewrite it in the lowest style known to me.”24 Cini also subtly added that, in this case, it would have been easier to proceed the other way around. Instead of trying to imitate Vasari’s (low) style, Cini might better revise a draft written directly by Vasari: “But it would be better if he himself could write a draft, and I would do my best to improve it.”25 Vasari never wrote a line on this subject, and Cini inherited the unfortunate task of lowering the style of his elegant prose. The description was eventually printed in 1568, probably under his own supervision at the Giunti press—another drudgery assigned to him by Borghini that he was also forced to accept.

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According to Lorenzoni, who published the Borghini-Cini correspondence in 1912, Cini’s suspicions were well grounded. Borghini’s criticism of his elegant prose could only be explained as an intellectual fraud organized by Borghini and Vasari against the academician.26 Lorenzoni had in fact concluded that style didn’t matter if the description was to be published as the work of another. Recently Charles Hope came to a similar conclusion.27 However, Lorenzoni and Hope underestimated an important detail concerning this epistolary exchange: that from the outset the description of the decorations was intended to be published as the work of an anonymous friend (“a learned man, who delights himself in our profession”).28 Lorenzoni seems to suggest that this reference was included as a consequence of Cini’s insinuations. But it is highly improbable, given Cini’s documented submission to Borghini, the leading intellectual of the Florentine state entrusted by the duke himself with the direction of the major public cultural events, to suppose that Cini might have had any bearing on the editorial decisions of the book. Why, then, did Borghini ask Cini to lower the style of his elegant prose, if fraud was not his intention? The answer is that style mattered. Borghini was concerned that the language used in the Lives be free of literary affectations whenever possible. In a timid attempt to defend his prose Cini reveals that his incomprehension of what was at stake was as genuine as Borghini’s criticism of his prose: Although I will do everything you will ask me to do, I take the liberty of expressing my opinion on the matter. . . . That pompous and Latin quality pointed out by Your Excellency confers a dignity to the prose that is even more necessary for a low subject like the figurative arts, and you can verify yourself that what I am saying is true by reading the good authors, who write in this very style, as among the moderns, Ariosto and Poliziano. 29

Cini not only invites Borghini to reconsider the style of his description, pointing out that it is modeled after the finest examples, but he also argues that the quality of his prose befits and is

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indeed necessitated by the subject, the figurative arts. The incomprehension between the two could have not been greater. On the other hand, Cini is correct in assuming that Borghini’s intention was to publish the book under Vasari’s name. The positioning of Vasari as sole author allowed the Florentine editors to promote with impunity a “clear and easy” language used by the unsophisticated community of artists. The editors were probably aware that the Lives’ approximate syntax and grammar, ample use of colloquial terms, and lack of stylistic uniformity were easy targets for the critics engaged in the language debate. Especially Borghini, who witnessed Lodovico Castelvetro’s virulent attacks on Bembo and Caro and was actively involved in their defense, must have sensed the importance of keeping the Lives out of critics’ reach. On account of Caro’s early response to the manuscript and a progressive awareness of what the major stakes of the debate were, Vasari too aligned himself with his advisors and editors, prudently putting aside any literary ambition and asking to be referred to exclusively as an artist and not as a writer.30 Indeed the fact that its subject was the figurative arts, in combination with the identification of an artist as its author, sheltered the Lives from literary criticism and facilitated the recognition of its importance from a linguistic point of view. Father Guglielmo della Valle, the editor of the Sienese edition of the Lives (1791– 94), praises the language of the book as toscanissimo and believes that this outstanding result is due to the fact that it was written by an artist. “Such a beautiful enrichment of vocabulary and expressions derived from the fine arts could only come,” he writes, “from the burattello of an artist, rather than from the frullone of a man of letters.”31 Della Valle concludes that the Lives serves the Florentine language better than the editions sponsored by the Accademia della Crusca, the Florentine institution founded in 1582 that oversaw the compilation of the first Italian dictionary in 1612, and that for this reason Vasari deserves to be included among the fathers of the Italian language. We cannot isolate the low style of the Lives from the linguistic agenda of the book’s editors. This is even more evident if we con-

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sider the linguistic improvement the book underwent in the passage from the Torrentiniana to the Giuntina. The editors tried their best to render the language of the Lives “easy and clear,” as might have been expected from the pen of an artist. Literary affectations and formulas such as the moralistic introductions and the Latin epitaphs, respectively, at the beginnings and ends of the biographies, were drastically reduced. Grammar and syntax were significantly and consistently improved. This also holds for the theoretical introductions to the Torrentiniana, which also went through a process of linguistic simplification in the Giuntina.32 Equally revealing is the contrast between the improvements to the book’s language and usage and the lack of editorial care Borghini and Vasari show for its unity of style and content, qualities of central value in literary works. The coexistence of different writing styles and vocabulary, like the repetitions and lack of narrative flow, was not as great a concern as the desire to free the book as much as possible from literary affectations. Everything was acceptable in the Giuntina short of anything that might have undermined the editorial intention of producing an art book for artists and art lovers written by an artist in a “clear and easy” language.

2. Borghini occupies a special position among the Florentine editors whose ideas on language are reflected in the Lives. His writings on language survive in fragmentary form in a collection of manuscript notes and in his correspondence.33 These fragments, which were part of a never completed treatise on the subject, clarify the connection between the “clear and easy” language based on the spoken one used in the Lives and the marginalization of autorial values in the book. Both aspects relate in fact to the philological interpretation of texts and authors Borghini and the other editors pursued in the language debate. Borghini’s major contribution to the debate, as Mario Pozzi has noted, was the claim that language is independent of literature and primarily formed by usage. “I say, as I said many times,”

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Borghini wrote, “that the nature of language is usage,” adding in another fragmentary note that “language should be learned from the crowd not from books.”34 Borghini was clearly influenced by Gelli and Giambullari, although he was critical of their radical positions, which, in his view, led them, respectively, to under- and overestimate the importance of conventions and structures.35 In this regard he was closer to Benedetto Varchi, who, after his return to Florence from Padua, took a middle course between norm and use. In his Hercolano (1570), the most important work in support of the Tuscan language after Bembo’s Prose della volgar lingua, Varchi recuperated Bembo’s theory but reversed the terms of the problem, as did Borghini, by claiming that a language cannot be defined as such if it is not spoken.36 As has been recently argued, and as Borghini’s correspondence bears out, Borghini played a fundamental role in the editing and publication of the treatise five years after Varchi’s death.37 Borghini’s position relates to an evolved phase of the debate. When he wrote about language in the 1560s and 1570s the stakes were different from those raised by Giambullari and Lenzoni. The two major novelties were the general acceptance of the primacy of the Tuscan language and the diffusion in Florence—in the erudite environment shared by the Florentine Academy—of a radical reinterpretation of Bembo’s ideas, which envisioned the Trecento authors as stable, immutable models rather than as useful templates in need of development. This purist conception of language, championed by the Florentine Leonardo Salviati in his Orazione in lode della fiorentina lingua (1564) and in Degli avvertimenti della lingua sopra ‘l Decamerone (1584–86), was opposed to Borghini’s ideas and eventually prevailed in Florence (although in a mitigated form) after the time of Cosimo I. From Borghini’s perspective, purists failed to understand that a language could develop only as language and not as literature, and that it had to be conceived of as open-ended. He argued that the replication of words, which Salviati wished to adopt as a principle of linguistic development, was philologically unstable because the intrinsic value of the literary vocabulary of Trecento

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authors, for example, depends on a specific historical context, which cannot be replicated. Herein lies the difference between Borghini’s philological approach and that of the Quattrocento humanists—to whom Salviati’s ideas relate—who correctly identified linguistic forms with their respective historical contexts but proposed them as models for the present. 38 In Borghini’s interpretive frame authors and their individual styles can impede the natural development of language. As a general rule he invites both writers and artists to imitate what can be abstracted from the particular and contingent. In his writings he often insists on the need to distinguish what is immanent in an age or an author from what possesses impersonal value. Referring to the literature of the Trecento he noted, “I would not suggest anyone imitate the ‘usage’ of that age but its spirit and strength.”39 Perhaps not surprisingly Borghini found in the visual arts an arena for applying his speculations. In his writings on language he exemplified the danger of imitating particular words or expressions used by Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch by invoking Michelangelo and the question of how subsequent artists should appeal to him as a model. He advocated “not following Michelangelo, but that same nature and those same exemplars Michelangelo followed, which are the fruits of nature.”40 The term “nature” in this passage stands for an impersonal generative principle. In the linguistic context, nature is for Borghini synonymous with usage. The expression “fruits of nature,” on the other hand, suggests exemplary products, phenomena that possess historical value. Borghini argued that artists should not imitate specific works but consider all works of art, as Michelangelo did, as manifestations of a transhistorical principle. Art is related to works of art, he noted, as the fertility of the earth is related to the results of its cultivation. However, though cultivation can improve the production of nature, cultivation is by itself incapable of natural production. For Borghini the problem posed by Michelangelo in the visual arts is parallel to that posed by literary authors in the language debate. In discussing the relation between language and literature with Salviati, Borghini pointed to Boccaccio’s Decameron

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to claim a distinction between its overall beauty and the historical limitations of its vocabulary. He did not question Boccaccio’s authority with regard to literary matters, but emphasized the historical value of his vocabulary. Often eccentric and, in all cases, specific to his time, Boccaccio’s language, Borghini concluded, was not an absolute model for the contemporary Florentine: As regards a very important issue, that of the authority, I see that many confuse the dice, so to speak—perhaps it would be better to say that they do not see things for what they truly are—because if a word is not in Boccaccio, they do not accept it. This is especially common among foreigners, who do not perfectly understand that in this regard Boccaccio is worthwhile but not the only one who is. But if one considers the literary value of his work, things are different: I would dare to say that if he [Boccaccio] is not the best, only a few other authors are comparable to him.41

This “historical” approach to literary authorities is one of the major points of continuity between Borghini’s writings and those of the other editors of the Lives. Lenzoni’s In difesa della lingua fiorentina, et di Dante contains similar remarks on Boccaccio. When “Signor Licenziado,” a Bembist from Padua, asks Gelli, “Do you believe that some words used by Boccaccio are not good?,” Gelli replies, “Though they were very good in Boccaccio’s time, they are no longer [good] now.”42 In Lenzoni’s treatise the discussion of imitation originates from a provocative observation by the fictive Paduan character Signor Licenziado, who rejects the possibility of imitating Giotto rather than Raphael even though, as he notes, the medieval artist has been “stranamente lodato” (strangely praised) by Vasari in the Lives. Gelli, who represents Lenzoni’s opinions, suggests to the Paduan that whether to imitate Michelangelo or Raphael raises a more interesting and valid question: Signor Licenziado: Would you not esteem my judgment as poor if I, desiring to be a painter, imitated Giotto more than

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Raphael? Even though Giotto is so strangely praised by your Giorgio Vasari? Gelli: A better comparison would be between Michelangelo and Raphael, and I would have answered that both are perfect masters, and that they differ in style much as Petrarch and Dante do. As Petrarch learned from Dante, and never surpassed him, although he worked divinely, in the same way Raphael did not surpass Michelangelo, although his paintings seem to come from Heaven.43

Lenzoni dismisses the comparison between Giotto and Raphael or Giotto and Michelangelo in absolute terms on account of the different historical conditions within which they lived and worked. Comparisons between authors and praise for them are valid only when fixed within a historical horizon. No artist can serve as an exclusive or absolute model, as is demonstrated by the examples of Michelangelo and Raphael, each of whom represented the apex of contemporary art, but whose individual value was determined by and relative to a longer history of art. The remarks of the Paduan visitor imply that the celebration of Giotto in the Torrentiniana had became an object of discussion, and that it was used by purists to exemplify what they must have deemed the paradoxical aspects of the relativism inherent in the historical approach to literary authority. In the Lives this “strange” praise is nonetheless explained in some detail. The preface to the second part of the book justifies the appreciation of Giotto and other major medieval artists by emphasizing the historical value of their achievements: Nor would I have anyone believe that I am so dull and so poor in judgment that I do not know that the works of Giotto, of Andrea Pisano, of Nino, and of all the others, whom I have put together in the first part by reason of their similarity of manner, if compared with those of the men who laboured after them, do not deserve extraordinary or even mediocre praise; or that I did not see this when I praised them. But whosoever considers the character of those times, the dearth of craftsmen, and the difficulty of finding good

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assistance, will hold them not merely beautiful, as I have called them, but miraculous.44

The Lives invites the reader to consider artists and their works relative to their specific historical contexts. The “quality” of a given time is determined by the artistic means available, as compared to those available in the present. In Borghini’s notes (a draft for a letter to Ridolfo Castravilla) we find the same historical perspective applied to classical authors of different times: “Many readers mislead themselves, not considering the quality of different times, as many do when they laugh about Cato while reading Cicero. . . . One must therefore accurately consider the condition of their sciences and language, what their masters knew, and what their pupils could have learnt.”45 Cato, according to Borghini, bears comparison to Cicero only with respect to the “quality of different times” and the respective development of “science and language.” In the same way, in the Lives and in Lenzoni’s treatise, Giotto can properly be compared to Michelangelo only in relation to their respective presents and as representatives of two different historical phases of the natural development of art. In both cases historical and transhistorical standards offer a critical grid on which individual achievements in art and in literature are assigned determinants relative to position, measure, and function.

3. Like the Paduan character in Lenzoni’s treatise, Erwin Panofsky too noticed that in contrast to Vasari’s overall negative judgment of the medieval period, a medieval artist such as Giotto was strangely praised. Panofsky explained this apparent contradiction as the result of the adoption in the Lives of a peculiarly modern historical approach, nonetheless still embedded in a transhistorical conception of the “perfect rule of art.”46 He argued that although it is not possible to separate out the processes of individualization and totalization in the Lives, the estimation of Giotto

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and his work marks “the beginning of a strictly art-historical approach which . . . is focused on the visual remains and proceeds, to borrow Kant’s phrase, in ‘disinterested manner.’”47 Our excursus into Lenzoni’s and Borghini’s writings on language is intended to show how historical consideration of artists and their works and a transhistorical idea of art function in relation to one another. Art can assume the impersonal status of a language only when individual artists and masterpieces are considered as historical phenomena. The historical perspective of the Lives, which confers on all artists relative value, is instrumental in avoiding purists’ attempts to confer absolute value on a few elect artists. Individualization and totalization work together in the Lives, as Panofsky noted, but the former serves the latter, and not vice versa. This proposition has important consequences for the reading of the Lives. In his considerations on the Lives Panofsky emphasized the historicist conception of the book and framed Vasari’s vision of the progress of art as continuous with the linear development of art through the ages. As a result, when Panofsky faced the central question posed by the Lives, What happens after Michelangelo?, he reached the implausible conclusion that Vasari had left the issue unresolved. Vasari’s conception of history, he explained, was based on a classical theory of evolution according to which the historical progress of art and culture passed through predetermined phases modeled after the three ages of man.48 This conception was bound to a humanistic belief in the reestablishment of classical culture in the modern age. Having been defeated by violence and brutality, classical culture was reborn after centuries, nourished and perfected by exceptional individuals. The evolutionary model was suited to defining this process, but it could not protect the reader from tragic premonitions of impending decline. If Michelangelo, the divine artist, embodied the apex of perfection, what could be expected after his death from other artists certainly inferior to him? In Panofsky’s view, Vasari found this question so unnerving that he never faced it. The central question posed by the Lives remains unresolved only if we consider art as literature, in aesthetic terms, and indi-

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vidually determined. From this perspective the death of Michelangelo, the summit of the Renaissance artistic parabola, marks the beginning of an inevitable decline. Those who interpreted the figurative arts in these terms could not escape the premonition of imminent decline, and some of them, such as Pontormo, experienced it personally. But if we read the Lives as a reaction to a cultural tradition rooted in the authority of literature and literary models and as an attempt to subordinate individual achievements to normative and collective values, then the death of Michelangelo, as we have seen, is an auspicious moment, the beginning of a new institutional course. Of all the interpretations of the Lives as a document of humanist rinascita Eugenio Garin’s account is first in claiming that the idea of perfection is located in the present rather than the past. Vasari is aware, Garin posits, that if art had reached its apex with Michelangelo, then a new era must begin after Michelangelo. Vasari’s historical vision, optimistically projected into the present, Garin concludes, differs substantially from the widespread “secular pessimism” of contemporary historians, such as Machiavelli, who envisioned the present as a lesser instance of an original golden age.49 Reading the Lives from this perspective makes it clear that Vasari not only does not avoid the question What is art after Michelangelo? but in fact answers it optimistically. In his letter to the academicians Vasari claims that the progress of the arts, inspired by a desire for eternity, will be fulfilled and demonstrated to the world by the living artists of the art academy: And this [the inclusion of living artists in the book] may stimulate artists to excel and advance from good to better so that whoever shall write the remainder of this story will be able to do so with more grandeur and majesty, being able to account for those most rare and perfect works—spurred on by the desire for immortality and accomplished by the study of those most divine minds—that the world will henceforth witness emerging from your [artists’] hands.50

“To continue to operate with excellence” and “to improve from good to better” do not refer to a subsequent historical phase,

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but to the assimilation into standard parameters of the completed historical progression, individually traced, life after life. Strictly speaking improvements to Michelangelo’s art can be conceived of only in collective terms, in the form of technical innovations and improved organization and use of previous results. Freeing art from purist and idealist constraints, the Lives expresses an optimistic trust in the present: O truly happy age of ours, and truly blessed craftsmen! Well may you be called so, seeing that in our time you have been able to illumine anew in such a fount of light the darkened sight of your eyes, and to see all that was difficult made smooth by a master [Michelangelo] so marvellous and so unrivalled!51

This faith in an everlasting institutional present represents the strongest ideological influence that the language debate exerted on the Lives. With regard to language Borghini expressed a similar belief in the completion of a historical era whose conclusion gives rise to infinite subsequent linguistic possibilities: Our language has today all the words and modes necessary to express not just its everyday needs, but every sort of poetry, of monumental history, ornate oration (or, to use our proper word, diceria); and it has as many words as it needs for these aims so that it does not need any significant further improvement. 52

The Florentine language, according to Borghini, had by virtue of its historical development perfected all the means necessary for writing literature. Language had been enriched to such an extent that it needed no substantial improvements by way of literature. Like the Lives, Borghini’s writings emphasize the fertility of the new institutional phase, in which language, finally freed from its history, can optimize its means to better serve its institutional function. These passages from the Lives and Borghini’s notes offer little sense of imminent decline. 53 It is true, as Panofsky and other scholars have noted, that the Lives contains passages that explic-

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itly chart a decadence after Michelangelo, but this perception is always related to the notion of art as mimesis rooted, as we have seen, in the figure of the artist, and whose parabola, according to the Lives, is indeed completed with Michelangelo. This is why the introduction to the second part of the Lives warns artists to widen their scope by moving away from the imitation of natural phenomena: “Art has achieved everything possible in the imitation of nature and has progressed so far that it has more reason to fear slipping back than to expect ever to make further advances.”54 In the 1567 letter addressed to Vasari on the art of antiquity, included in the third volume of the second edition of the Lives, Giovambattista Adriani indirectly invites young artists to look forward rather than to compete with individual works of the recent past, and in particular with the unsurpassable works of Michelangelo. Artists should now follow, the historian recommends in the same letter, the more promising direction of a new institutional course: We must place even more hope in the future, since the noble artists are praised not only because of their works, but also thanks to the pen of the noble writers, and even more to the support and help they receive from our illustrious Princes and Lords, who use their works, with great advantage and to their great honor, to embellish our homeland, and for the public support and rise of their academy; and this is primarily due to your [Vasari’s] work.55

According to Adriani, prolific production supported by institutional structures and funding, the birth of art literature, and the recognition of the “public” utility of art, are sufficient conditions to guarantee a promising future. Adriani concludes his positive assessment by praising Vasari for having established all these conditions. The letter refers in fact to the art academy and to the Lives as proof of the viability of this new institutional course. The Lives does not offer any direct continuity between the celebration of the artists of the past, including Michelangelo, and the art of the institutional present, just as Borghini disassociated literature from language. As displayed on the occasion of Michelangelo’s funeral, the heroic progression of the arts culminating

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in the divine artist was connected to the present only allegorically, as its founding and legitimizing historical process. The Lives therefore does not treat the past in a “disinterested” manner, as Panofsky argued, but actively reshapes it to accommodate specific ideological aspirations.

n ot e s

introduction 1. Vasari 1923–40, 2:102; Rubin 1995, 192. 2. Vasari 1966–87, 1:176, my translation. 3.  On the centrality of the figure of the artist in art history and criticism, see esp. Soussloff 1997; Salas 2007. 4.  Especially Barolsky 1997, 1999. 5. Vasari 1962–66, 1966–87; Barocchi 1983, 1985; Corti and Davis 1981; Boase 1979; Rubin 1995. 6. Waźbiński 1976; Williams 1988. 7. Rubin 1995, 357–401; Shearman 1998; Williams 2007. 8. Conforti 1993. On Vasari as architect, see also Satkowski 1993. 9. Burioni 2008. 10. Ascoli 2008; Barthes 1997; Foucault 1980. 11. Hope 2004; Frangenberg 2002. 12. Trachtenberg 2005. 13. Waźbiński 1987; Barzman 2001. 14. Partridge and Starn 1992. See also Eisenbichler 2001; Plaisance 2004; van Veen 2006. 15. Prodi 1982; Chittolini, Molho, and Schiera 1994; Cochrane 1973; Diaz 1976; Spini 1976, 1980a, 1980b; Fasano Guarini 1973, 1978, 2008.

1. michelangelo’s funer al 1. “Gli amorosi pensier, già vani e lieti, / Che sieno or, s’a duo morte m’avvicino? / D’una so ‘l certo, e l’altra mi minaccia.” Buonarroti 1863, 230, my translation.

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2.  Vasari in Florence to Michelangelo in Rome, March 17(?), 1563, Vasari 1923–40, 1:736–40. 3. On Cellini and the academy, see Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 24–26. 4. Vasari 1966–87, 6:374–75. On the contrast between Cellini and Vasari, see Cellini 1982, 189, 191, 475–76; Scorza 1995, 145–49; Cole 2001. Consider also the antagonism between Cellini and Bandinelli in Vasari 1966–87, 5:273–74. 5.  “And if there is someone who desires that the academy collapses, the fault is neither yours not mine.” Borghini in Poppiano to Vasari in Florence, August 11, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:97, my translation. See also Borghini’s letter from Poppiano to Vasari in Florence, December 31, 1562, Vasari 1923–40, 1:688. For another episode of discord among the academicians, see Barzman 2000, 35–39. See also the letter from Bartolomeo Concino to Cosimo I, February 6, 1565, cited in Carrara 2008, 138, n. 28. On the contrasts between Vasari and the academicians, see also Barocchi 1963, 5–6. For the dispute on the paragone generated by the exequies, see below in this chapter and n. 46. 6. Vasari 1923–40, 1:737–40. See also Vasari’s letter to Cosimo I of February 16, 1563, containing a detailed program for the completion of the chapel’s decoration (Vasari 1923–40, 1:719–21). Vasari successfully involved Michelangelo in the design of the Ponte di Santa Trinita after its collapse during the flood of 1557. See Conforti 1993, 72. 7.  See Waźbiński 1983, esp. 61–66. 8. Vasari 1966–87, 6:34–35 (Torrentiniana and Giuntina, from now onward cited as T and G). It seems true that Michelangelo relied very little on assistants for the Sistine ceiling, although, as Hugo Chapman noted (2005, 121–22), he maintained a friendly relationship for the rest of his life with the Florentine artists he dismissed. 9. Wallace 1994. See also Wallace 1987, on the Sistine Chapel; Chapman 2005, 192–99. 10.  Archivio di Stato di Roma, Confraternita di San Giovanni Decollato, 2.5.79r, in Di Sivo 2000, 197, n. 57. See also the “Libro del Provveditore,” in Archivio di Stato di Roma, Confraternita di San Giovanni Decollato, 2.4.265r, which records the same events with minor differences (e.g., the chaplain received five and not six bolognini for the funeral mass). The two registers record the same information and cover the same period, but the “Libro del Provveditore” is a copy of the “Giornale.” A contemporary memory also records, “On Saturday, 19 [sic] February 1564, Michelangelo Buonarroti died. Having been a lay brother of the venerable Company of San Giovanni Decolla-

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to since 1514, the same Company was summoned to carry the cadaver, which was brought to the Church of Santi Apostoli with great honor at 5 pm” (cited in Bruni 1957, 21–23, my translation). 11.  “It would be good if the Academy were to arrange some unusual demonstration.” Borghini in Poppiano to Vasari in Florence, February 21, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:24; Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 10. The letter implies that Vasari had already informed Borghini about the artist’s imminent death. My account of Michelangelo’s funeral is indebted to Margot and Rudolf Wittkower’s study, which remains fundamental. On the artist’s death, see also Pastor 1943, 582–83; Barocchi 1962, 1833–35; Buonarroti 1988–95, 2:173, nn. 5 and 6. On the funeral, see mainly Vasari 1923–40, 2:28–48; Barocchi 1962, 2134–243; Waźbiński 1987, 95–110; Weil-Garris Brandt 1996; Stack 2000; Jacobs 2002; Acidini Luchinat 2002, 12–31; van Veen 2006, 172–83; and Charles Davis’s introduction to Varchi’s oration in Varchi 2008 [1564], 3–5. On the relationship between Michelangelo’s exequies and those reserved for the Medici, see Berti 2002, 187– 212; Conforti 1980. On the Florentine art academy, see Pevsner 1940, still fundamental; Summers 1969; Jack 1976; Goldstein 1975; Hughes 1986a, 1986b; Waźbiński 1987; Barzman 1989a, 1989b, 2000, 2001; Carrara 2008. 12. Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 17–18, tend to undermine Cosimo’s interest in the exequies. 13. De Tolnay 1964, 3–30; Spini 1999. On Michelangelo’s antiMedicean sentiments, see also Chapman 2005, passim. 14.  Michelangelo was well aware of this reputation and of the risk it presented. See his letter from Rome to Leonardo in Florence, October 22, 1547, Buonarroti 1965–83, 4:279–80, in which he disavows any connection with the fuorusciti (Florentines banned by the Medici) in Rome. On the letter, see Hirst 1997, 79–80. On the artist and the anti-Medicean community, see also Simoncelli 2003; Costamagna 2004. Specifically on Michelangelo and Donato Giannotti, see Deoclecio Redig de Campos’ introduction to the Dialogi, in Giannotti 1939, 8–18. 15. Vasari 1923–40, 1:475–84. 16.  “Michelangelo would willingly have left Rome, but he was so weary and aged, that although, as will be told below, he was determined to go back, while the spirit was willing the flesh was weak, and that kept him in Rome.” Vasari 1966–87, 6:94, 1996, 2:718. On the importance of Michelangelo’s burial in Florence, see Vasari 1966–87, 6:126: “And here I must not omit that this final resolution of Michelangelo’s [to be buried in Florence] proved a thing against the opinion of certain persons, but nevertheless very true, namely

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that his absence for so many years from Florence had been caused by no other thing but the nature of the air.” Vasari 1996, 2:752. On the familiarity between Michelangelo and Cosimo I, see Vasari 1966–87, 6:102–3; 1996, 2:729: “The Duke, after receiving him with many endearments, caused him, out of respect for his great genius, to sit by his side, and with much familiarity talked to him of all that he caused to be done in painting and sculpture at Florence, and also of all that he was minded to have done, and in particular the Hall [the Sala Grande]; and Michelangelo again encouraged and reassured him in that matter, lamenting, since he loved that Lord, that he was not young enough to be able to serve him.” On the work on St. Peter’s as an impediment to Michelangelo’s return, see Vasari 1966–87, 6:93, 95. 17.  Averardo Serristori from Rome to Cosimo I in Florence, February 19, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:901. 18.  Diomede Leoni in Rome to Leonardo Buonarroti in Florence, February 18, 1564, in Carte michelangiolesche inedite 1865, 43. 19.  “Tonight, that excellent man and true miracle of nature, Messer Michel Agnolo Buonarroti, passed away. Assisting him with other doctors, I understood that it was his desire to have his body carried to Florence. Since no relatives are here, and having died, as I believe, intestate, I thought to promptly write to Your Illustrious Excellency as one very affectionate of the rare virtues he possessed in order that you might execute his last will, and also that your beautiful city might be ornamented with the most honorable bones of the greatest man who ever lived in the world.” Gherardo Fidelissimi in Rome to Cosimo I in Florence, February 18, 1564, Gaye 1839–40, 3:126–27, my translation. 20.  “The nephew [Leonardo Buonarroti] arrived three days after his death and immediately ordered that the body be carried to Florence, according to the desire he [Michelangelo] manifested to us many times when he was healthy and also two days before his death.” Daniele da Volterra from Rome to Vasari in Florence, March 17, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:254, my translation. Volterra’s precision contrasts with the fact that Leonardo Buonarroti arrived in Rome six days and not three after Michelangelo’s death. 21.  Leonardo received two letters from Rome dated February 14, 1564, one from Tiberio Calcagni and one Daniele da Volterra, that informed him of Michelangelo’s precarious physical conditions and urged him to come to Rome. For these letters, see, respectively, Vasari 1923–40, 2:902, and Buonarroti 1988–95, 2:171. 22. Buonarroti 1988–95, 2:177, my translation.

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23. Vasari 1923–40, 2:28–29, my translation. 24. Buonarroti 1988–95, 2:196, my translation. 25.  Carte michelangiolesche inedite 1865, 48–49, my translation. 26.  Michelangelo’s body arrived in Florence on March 10, not 9, as per Vasari. Vasari initially tried to satisfy Leonardo’s wishes. He took immediate care of the body and wrote to Leonardo that the coffin was sealed. See the letter from Vasari in Florence to Leonardo Buonarroti in Rome, March 10, 1563, Vasari 1923–40, 2:48–49. 27. Vasari 1966–87, 5:333. 28.  Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 74–77. In the “Memorie fiorentine,” in Gaye 1839–40, 3:133, we find another account of the exhumation, which includes a description of Michelangelo’s clothing: “He wore a black mantel of damask, boots and spurs. On his head he had a silk hat according to the old fashion decorated with a black furry felt” (my translation). This description does not match the one written after the psalm’s exhumation around 1720 and included by Giovanni Bottari in his Roman edition of the Lives, Vasari 1759–60, 3:330–31, n. 1: “Michelangelo’s grave was open about forty years ago, I do not know for what reason, I believe for maintenance or something similar. The senator Filippo Buonarroti and a few other people went inside and found the cadaver still intact. It was dressed in the old fashion used by citizens, with a cloak of green velvet, and with slippers, and the sole of one of them, drying out, had folded and exerted so much strength that had departed from the body further than two arms” (my translation). The body was found completely decomposed in 1857. Strangely Giuseppie Pelli Fabbroni 1857, 157–59, claims that what remained of the clothing corresponded to the passage of the “Memorie fiorentine” published in Gaye. For a summary of these exhumations, see Barocchi 1962, 2165–66. 29. Giovanni di Simone in Florence to Leonardo Buonarroti in Rome, March 18, 1564, Carte michelangiolesche inedite 1865, 51; Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 16. 30. Idem. 31.  Vasari in Arezzo to Leonardo Buonarroti in Rome, March 26, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:66–67, my translation. 32.  For Michelangelo’s tomb, completed only in 1578, see Barocchi 1962, 2222–42; Cecchi 1993. 33.  For the portraits, executed by Santi Buglioni, see Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 105 (and n. 96), 145. 34. See Esequie del divino Michelagnolo Buonarroti. On the date of the publication, see Buonarroti 1988–95, 2:202, n. 7. Given the rarity of the booklet, I cite from its facsimile reproduction in Wittkower

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and Wittkower 1964. Citations will include both the original in Italian and Margot and Rudolf Wittkower’s translation into English. 35.  Cosimo I allowed the use of the Church of San Lorenzo for the exequies on March 10. See Cosimo I’s letter to Borghini, in Vasari 1923–40, 2:903. In the text of the exequies, the same letter is dated March 8 in Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 63. On the date of the letter, see Vasari 1923–40, 904; Barocchi 1962, 2160. Cosimo I summoned Varchi on March 9 (Buonarroti 1988–95, 2:178). The same letter is included in the text of the exequies (Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 67). See also the letter from Cosimo I in Pisa to the Accademia del Disegno, dated March 10, in Vasari 1923–40, 2:904, also included in the text of the exequies in Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 63–64. Note, however, that Vasari took for granted both the duke’s concession of San Lorenzo and Varchi’s participation already on March 4, in the mentioned letter to Leonardo Buonarroti, Vasari 1923–40, 2:29. 36. Vasari 1923–40, 2:59–60, my translation. 37. The Esequie del divino Michelagnolo Buonarroti refers to Borghini as “leader, guide, and counselor . . . expert helmsman and captain” (Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 124–25). Borghini, however, urged Vasari to take over the work’s direction: “Now, as I said, you can take over; it is sufficient that I begin things, and that you finish them” (Vasari 1923–40, 2:24; Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 11). On April 8, discussing the details of the decorative program, Borghini wrote again to Vasari: “I do not wish to have to think about every smallest thing, nor to have, so to speak, everyone hanging on my apron strings” (Vasari 1923–40, 2:69; Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 23). Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 31–35, argue that Borghini is the “spiritual author” of the funeral’s description published by the Giunti in 1564, Esequie del divino Michelagnolo Buonarroti, signed by Jacopo Giunti. However, multiple laudatory references to Borghini in the third person indicate that he is not the booklet’s writer. On the description’s composition, see also chapter 3. 38. Waźbiński 1983, 66. 39.  Borghini specifically refers to the funeral oration in Borghini in Poppiano to Vasari in Florence, February 21, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:24. 40. For a list of contemporary publications concerning the exequies, see Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 139. See also the funeral’s description in a letter by Giovanni Rondinelli in Florence to his cousin Lorenzo Buondelmonti in Rome, July 15, 1564, Buonarroti 1988–95, 2:206–10. 41.  One sheet, representing the subjects Michelangelo with Cosi-

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mo I de’ Medici on the recto and Michelangelo Flanked by the Muses Crowned by Apollo on the verso, is at the Museum of Fine Arts of Budapest. A second sheet, which Vliegenthart 1977, 19–21, connects to the exequies’ decoration, showing Francesco I de’ Medici Offering a Chair to Michelangelo on the recto and Michelangelo with Pope Julius II on the verso, is at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lille (formerly in the collection Wicar). G. A. Bailey, in Bailey 2002, 33, cited in Carrara 2008, 141, n. 38, attributed the drawing on the recto to Giovambattista Naldini. A third sheet, showing Lorenzo il Magnifico Receiving Michelangelo in the Garden of St Mark on the recto and a cornice for the epitaph on the verso, is at the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. According to Barocchi 1963, 41–42, these are original preparatory drawings by Mirabello Cavalori. 42. Vliegenthart 1977, 19–21. The subject of two canvases correspond to the subjects of the drawings at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lille. See note 41 above. Remarkably different, however, is Michelangelo the Younger’s purist reinterpretation of the decorative cycle as a genuine tribute to the artistic genius of the illustrious family member. See Vliegenthart 1977, 14, for this aspect of the decoration of Casa Buonarroti. 43. On the two drawings, see Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 153–58, 160–61. Margot and Rudolf Wittkower, Id., argue that it was executed by an artist of Cellini’s circle after the final arrangement for the catafalque had been agreed upon. The attribution to Borghini is in Chiarini, Darr, and Giannini 2002, 154.292–93. 44.  The Ambrosiana drawing shows the scene of Lorenzo il Magnifico Receiving the Young Michelangelo as set in the courtyard of the Medici Palace in Via Larga and not in the Garden of St. Mark (as recorded in the Uffizi drawing, see n. 41; the sketch of Munich; and the text of the exequies, Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 91). Moreover, the drawing suggests that the subject was originally conceived for the upper zone of the funeral’s ephemeral structure. For these details of the drawing, see Caglioti 1993, 27–30. 45. “The Academy of Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, under the auspices and with the help of duke Cosimo de’ Medici, their head and highest protector of the arts, admiring the unique genius of Michelangelo Buonarroti, and as a small sign of recognition for the benefits it has received from his divine works, has dedicated this memorial, created by the members’ own hands and with heart-felt affection, to the excellent art of the greatest painter, sculptor, and architect that ever was” (Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 94–95). The booklet presents the text in both Latin and vernacular.

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46.  The placement of the personifications of the arts on the catafalque reignited the old dispute, called paragone. See Calamandrei 1952; Barocchi 1962, 2172–75. The argument was over which art was superior and would therefore be represented on the right side of the structure. For this reason their final arrangement differed in some details from Borghini’s drawing. On the paragone, see Collareta 1988. 47.  Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 105, translate ex-tollere as “to extol,” but the primary meaning of the verb is to “raise upward,” “to lift.” Thus the motto implies a reciprocity between Michelangelo’s art and that of the academicians that may go lost in the Wittkowers’ translation: the decoration elevates Michelangelo’s art, but at the same time it shows how Michelangelo’s art elevated art. 48. Vasari 1966–87, 6:129, my translation. 49.  Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 88–89. 50.  Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 72–74. In the Lives the case is not limited to the description of the funeral. See, for example, the passage on Lorenzo Vecchietti in Vasari 1966–87, 3:387: “Lorenzo made . . . a St. Peter and a St. Paul wrought with consummate grace and executed with great love” (my translation). This is emended in the Giuntina, Id., as “Lorenzo made . . . [a] St Peter and [a] St Paul, wrought with consummate grace and executed with fine mastery” (Vasari 1996, 1:466). See also two editorial interventions in the biography of Andrea dal Castagno in the Giuntina. First, the omission of the following passage of the Torrentiniana, related to the execution of the portraits in the Carducci’s house: “worked by him with great affection” (Vasari 1966–87, 3:362). Second, the passage of the Torrentiniana, “And if nature had given grace of colouring to this craftsman [Andrea del Castagno], even as she gave him invention and design, and skill in rendering human feelings, he would have been held truly marvelous” (Vasari 1966–87, 3:356, my translation) was revised in the Giuntina, Id., as “And if nature had given grace of colouring to this craftsman, even as she gave him invention and design, he would have been held truly marvelous” (Vasari 1996, 1:450). On the interpretation of painting, as a spiritually affected activity, influenced by the Duecento poetic tradition (dolce stil nuovo), see Lionello Venturi on Cennino Cennini’s Trattato dell’arte, in Venturi 1925, 239–40. 51. Schlosser 1977, 157, my translation. 52.  In Alberti’s writings we find the main principles of the academic ideal (that art is teachable and transmissible through different media, and the reduction of intentionality to a minimum in the phase of execution) and a comprehensive linguistic conception of art, shared by Borghini and Vasari. As Alberti writes in the De

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pictura, “I would have those who begin to learn the art of painting do what I see practiced by teachers of writing. They first teach all the signs of the alphabet separately, and then how to put syllables together, and then whole words” (Alberti 1991, 89). On Alberti’s attention to language in the De pictura and the Grammatichetta, see Passarelli 2007. On the vast literature on Alberti’s artistic theory, see Trachtenberg 2005; Mario Carpo and Martine Furno, and Carpo and Francesco Furlan, on the Descriptio urbis Romae, in Alberti 1999, 2007; Marco Collareta on De statua, in Alberti 1998, 31–54. For an interpretation that tends to reduce the separation between Alberti’s theory and praxis, and therefore in partial contrast with my reading, see Argan 1974. 53.  Criticism about Alberti’s predilection for theory is increasingly marked in the second edition. “He was more dedicated to studying than drawing” (Vasari 1966–87, 3:288 [T and G, with minor variations]). See also 284, 285 (T and G, with minor variations) and 287 (only in G). 54.  According to Conforti 1993, 39–68, Vasari neglected the application of Vitruvian and Albertian principles and emphasized instead the importance of knowledge of primary materials. Michelangelo criticized the Albertian ideal at level of both theory and practice. His famous declaration that artistic judgment ultimately rests in the artist’s eye (“to have compasses in the eye,” Vasari 1923–40, 2:250) was a vindication of the ultimate subjective quality of the work of the artist. On this fundamental principle of Michelangelo’s art, see Clemens 1961, 29–35; Summers 1981, 352–63. More extensively, on Michelangelo’s resistance to the Albertian rationalization, see Nagel 2000. On Alberti, Michelangelo, and the Accademia del Disegno, see also Collareta 1978, and in Alberti 1998, 51–52. 55. The Statuti are published in Adorno and Zangheri 1998. 56. Borghini 1912, 14. On Borghini’s lecture, see Carrara 2008, 138–40; Spagnolo 2008, 123–24. 57. Alberti 1950, 103, 1972, 95. Alberti 1950, 104, also invites painters to use literary works for their inventions and compositions. 58.  Literature on emblems is vast. Among the main titles, see Heckscher 1954; Praz 1964–74; Schöne 1964; Russel 1986; Watson 1993; Bath, Manning, and Young 1993; Daly 1979, 1989, 2000; Manning 2002; Bolzoni and Volterrani 2008. Other studies using a linguistic approach to the genre fell into an interpretive impasse due to the substantial coincidence between emblem and semiotic sign; see, for example, Innocenti 1981; Pinkus 1996. On the importance of Borghini in the early development of the genre, see Scorza 1989.

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59. Vasari 1966–87, my translation. Alciati’s image had wide currency: it recurs in Marcolini’s Le sorti (Venice: 1540), a book also praised in the Lives; in the biography of Marcantonio Raimondi (Vasari 1966–87, 5:21 [only in G]); and twice in the second edition of the Lives. In the biography of Torrigiano (Vasari 1966– 87, 4:125 [only in G]), Vasari quotes Alciati describing the struggle between Wit and Poverty: “Wherefore it was well said by the learned Alciato—when speaking of men of beautiful genius, born in poverty, who are not able to raise themselves, because, in proportion as they are impelled upwards by the wings of their genius, so are they held down by their povertà—Ut me pluma levat, sic grave mergit onus” (Vasari 1996, 1:693). A second instance, Vasari 1966–87, 6:181 (only in G), appears in praise for Jacopo Sansovino, who is described as an artist who “used to fly by his hands and wit” (my translation). Vasari himself designed some emblems for the funeral decoration. One of them represented Eternity with one foot upon the neck of a skeleton prostrate upon the ground (Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 118–21). The meaning was that death could not manifest its terrible power over a man like Michelangelo, whose fame would be eternal. 60.  On these collaborations, see Corti and Davis 1981, 102–74 (essays by C. Davis, J. Kliemann, D. McTavish, G. Schüssler, P. Tinagli Baxter, A. Cecchi, L. Corti). 61. www.memofonte.it/home/files/pdf/vasari_Zibaldone. On the Zibaldone, see the introduction by Del Vita, in Vasari 1938b, 1–5; Corti and Davis 1981, 202 (essay by C. Davis). On the practical advantages, but also on the aesthetic value of Vasari’s reuse of drawings, see Nova 1992. 62.  Much has been written on the discrete features of “symbol” and “allegory,” from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Paul De Man. Temporality remains the crucial distinction between the two concepts. Whereas the symbol is a simultaneous, synthetic form of expression and interpretation, allegory is inherently temporal. Thus symbol is better embodied by images and visual processes of understanding, and allegory is inherently textual: it develops in time and space, as a written text does. On the basis of this distinction Walter Benjamin defined the allegorization of symbolic forms as a paradigmatic shift from the “convention of the expression” to the “expression of the convention” (Benjamin 1998, 175).

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63.  For this and the other mottoes, I used the translations in Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 113–14. 64.  The original description reads as “Another picture, nine braccia high and twelve long, was opposite the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament; here the painter Bernardo Timante Buontalenti, much beloved and favoured by our most illustrious Prince, had, with most beautiful inventiveness, represented the rivers of the three principal parts of the world come, all mournful and sad, to grieve with Arno over the common loss to comfort him. The said rivers were the Nile, the Ganges, and the Po. The Nile had a crocodile as his symbol and a garland of ears of corn to signify the fertility of the land. The Ganges had the griffin and was adorned with precious stones; and the Po had a swan and a crown of dark amber. Guided to Tuscany by Fame, whom one saw up high, as if she were flying, these rivers grouped around Arno, who was crowned with a cypress wreath, holding up in one hand a vessel drained empty, in the other a cypress branch, and beneath him was a lion. And to indicate Michelangelo’s soul ascended to the fullest bliss in heaven, the clever painter had illuminated the sky brightly, symbolizing the heavenly light towards which the blessed soul turned into the shape of a little angel with this lyrical line: Vivens orbe peto laudibus Aethera. Two figures, one at each side, were standing on bases in the act of holding back a curtain which seemed to open on the aforesaid rivers, on Michelangelo’s soul, and on Fame; and beneath each of these two figures was another one. The one to the right of the rivers was portrayed as Vulcan; he had a torch in his hand, and the figure on whose neck he stepped with his foot represented Hatred in a tormented pose, as if it were labouring to escape from under him. His symbol was a vulture. The motto was this line: Surgere quid properas odium crudele? Iaceto because superhuman and almost divine things should under no circumstances be hated or envied. The other figure, Aglaia, one of the three graces and wife of Vulcan, was meant to signify Proportion, she had in her hand a lily, both because flowers are dedicated to the Graces and because the lily is said not to be out of place at funerals. The figure which was under her and which was intended as Disproportion had as her symbol an ape and above her this line: Vivus et extinctus docuit sic sternere turpe. Beneath the rivers were these two lines: Venimus Arne tuo confixa en vulnere maesta / Flumina, ut ereptum mundo ploremus honorem (Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 112–15). 65.  See Barocchi 1962, 2176.

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66.  Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, Ms. Magliabechiano, 38.115.125r, cited in Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 147. 67. Tarsia 1564, D1v. 68. Vasari 1588. On this aspect of the Ragionamenti (Ragionamento, according to the surviving manuscript in the Strozzi papers), see Corti and Davis 1981, 208–11 (essay by P. Tinagli Baxter); McGrath 1985. 69.  Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 76–77. Varchi expanded the same concept in the funeral oration, in Varchi 2008 [1564], 8–9. 70.  On the popularity of the exequies outside Florence, see the letters by Antonio del Francese and Diomede Leoni to Leonardo Buonarroti, requesting copies of the description. “Because Your Lord promised me to send me a copy of the exequies made for the blessed soul of my lord [Michelangelo]. Again, I beg you, if it has been published, to be kind and send it to me.” Antonio del Francese in Casteldurante to Leonardo Buonarroti in Florence, June 16–18, 1564, Buonarroti 1988–95, 2:202, my translation. “When the exequies will be celebrated and at your convenience, I would be very pleased to be informed about how they were executed.” Diomede Leoni in Rome to Leonardo Buonarroti in Florence, June 24, 1564, Buonarroti 1988–95, 2:204. Cosimo Bartoli prematurely requested information to Vasari from Venice on April 29 (Vasari 1923–40, 2:78). Marco Medici, the Veronese Dominican who collaborated on the second edition of the Lives (see chapter 3), also requested information about the funeral in a letter to Timoteo Bottonio dated August 7, 1564, in Plebani 2008, 80, 82. 71.  On the semantics of authority, see Montefiore and Vines 1999; Ascoli 1986, 2008, 3–12. 72.  On Cellini’s exclusion, see n. 3 above. 73.  Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 72–73. See also the record in the “Libro del Proveditore” of the Accademia del Disegno, in Barocchi 1962, 2163–64. 74. As Vasari writes, “Certainly the glory of his labours makes you [craftsmen] known and honoured, in that he [Michelangelo] has stripped from you that veil which you had over the eyes of your minds, which were so full of darkness, and has delivered the truth from the falsehood that overshadowed your intellects. Thank Heaven, therefore, for this, and strive to imitate Michelangelo in everything” (Vasari 1966–87, 6:48–49, 1996, 2:675). See also Vasari 1966–87, 6:75: “And what good fortune have the craftsmen had in this age from his [Michelangelo’s] birth, in that they have seen the veil of every difficulty torn away, and have beheld in the pictures, sculptures, and architectural works executed by him all that can be imagined and achieved!”

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(Vasari 1996, 2:695). On the concept of “difficulty” in the Lives, see Spagnolo 2004, 98–104. 75. “Buonarroto, now that you see the Heavens open / And the prime reason, lofty and divine, / Of all creation, and the means and end / Of the great zealous architect / No longer does the fragile veil / Nor the deficiencies and imperfections of this world / Obscure your eyes. / Steeped in new perfection you now know / That none who ever occupied himself / With painting or with sculpting / Ever attained to that Truth which your works reveal. / Therefore the guardian of the eternal Kingdom / Rejoices in your presence, since he sees full well / That to his temple a peerless form you gave” (Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 84–85). On this role attributed to Michelangelo, see also Bartoli 1567, 19, and more extensively chapter 5.

2. after michelangelo 1. Vasari 1966–87, 1:4 (Dedication letter to Cosimo I, 1550 [T and G]), 1996, 1:5. 2. On Pontormo’s cycle, see Pinelli 1993, 5–32; Costamagna 1994, 252–66 and n. 85; Firpo 1997; Sohm 2007, 105–27. On the controversial date for the beginning of the work, see n. 8 below. On the continuity between Pontormo’s and Bronzino’s work, see Gregory 2000; Pilliod 2001. Long-standing criticism of the frescoes ultimately led to their destruction by order of Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici during the restoration of the church by Ferdinando Ruggieri in the years 1738–40. In light of new documents, Elena Ciletti 1979 suggested that fragments of the frescoes located in the upper zones of the lateral walls (above the windows) may still exist under the intonaco (although as Berti 1993, 266, noted, Giovanni Poggi’s tentative investigations have produced no results). 3.  On the frescoes’ preparatory drawings, see especially Cox-Rearick 1964, 1:318–44, 1981; Falciani 1996. For a critical summary, see Costamagna 1994, 260–64. On speculative grounds, Pilliod 2001, 48–51, attributed the group of three of these anonymous drawings reproducing details of the Resurrection of the Dead, previously attributed to the circle of Alessandro Allori, to Pontormo’s assistant Sebastiano del Gestra. 4.  On the engraving Cerimonie funebri del 12 novembre 1598 in onore di Filippo II di Spagna in San Lorenzo, see Costamagna 1994, 254, 265. 5. Ibid., 253. 6.  On the fresco as a heretic manifesto, see De Tolnay 1950; on its specific connection to the Valdesian doctrine, see De Tolnay 1963;

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Forster 1967; Corti 1977; Firpo 1997. Cox-Rearick 1992 further connects the iconography of the fresco with the ideas of the Aramei, a group of Florentine intellectuals headed by Pierfrancesco Giambullari, who claimed Etruscan origins for Florence. 7. Corti 1977; Pinelli 1993, 14–15; Firpo 1997, 156–67. Against this interpretation, see Cecchi 1998, 124–27; Sohm 2007, 193, n. 17; Paolucci 2007. On Riccio, see also n. 18 below. 8. Vasari 1966–87, 5:331: “Having then closed off the chapel with walls, hoardings and curtains, and given himself over to complete solitude, he kept it for the space of eleven years so firmly locked up that no living soul except himself ever went in there, neither friends nor anyone else” (Vasari 1965, 2:269). Pilliod 2001, 20, notes that Vasari’s statement on the artist’s complete isolation is contradicted by Pontormo’s diary, which records two visits to the chapel by Cosimo I and his wife, Eleonora. As Costamagna 1994, 253, notes, Vasari’s version diverges from Agostino Lapini’s Diario (1900, 121–22), which claimed that Pontormo had worked on the frescoes for ten years. Costamagna points out that if Lapini is correct, the beginning of the commission should be dated 1546. On the other hand, Vasari’s dating supports Pilliod’s 2001, 213–24, retro-dating of the work to 1545. 9. Vasari 1966–87, 5:333, 1965, 2:270–71. I have altered Bull’s translation in one instance: from “his own style” to “his usual style.” 10. Vasari 1966–87, 5:332, 1996, 2:369–70. 11. Vasari 1966–87, 5:332, 1996, 2:369. 12. Bocchi 1591, 255, 2006, 233. Raffaello Borghini 1584, 489, had already repeated Vasari’s criticism in Il Riposo: “One sees there neither worthwhile invention, nor composition, nor perspective, nor colour, although there are some good torsos. And of this choir I will not speak further, confessing either not understanding what he had wanted to do or not having any taste for what is there” (Borghini 2008, 230). See also Borghini 1584, 74–77. Alberti, 1991, 75, subscribed to a similar judgment when he criticized “those painters who, in their desire to appear rich or to leave no space empty, follow no system of composition, but scatter everything about in a random confusion with the result that their historia does not appear to be doing anything but merely to be in a turmoil.” 13. Vasari 1966–87, 5:331, 1965, 2:268–69. 14. On Pontormo’s competition with Michelangelo, see Clapp 1916, 73–78; Cox-Rearick 1981. For a political interpretation of the confrontation, see Barzman 2000, 33–34. Of the vast literature on the contemporary (literary) reception of Michelangelo’s fresco, see Barnes 1998.

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15. Costamagna 1994, 92–93. Pilliod 2003, 43–49, argues instead that Pontormo made extensive use of direct copies of the frescoes executed in Rome by his pupil and protégée Alessandro Allori. 16. Ciletti 1979, 768; Firpo 1997, 21. 17. Vasari 1966–87, 5:332, 1965, 2:269–70. 18. Vasari 1966–87, 5:331, refers to this contentious episode in the biography of Pontormo. On the rivalry between Vasari and Riccio, see Simoncelli 1980; Corti and Davis 1981, 82; Trento 1992; Pinelli 1993, 14–19; Cecchi 1998, 118–19. 19. See Pinelli 1993, 12–13, 26–28; Firpo 1997, 144–54 (who, however, also consider the aesthetic implications in Vasari’s condemnation of the frescoes). See also Costamagna 1994, 93; Damianaki 2009 (where this interpretation is given for granted and expanded in an arguable way). 20. According to Berti 1993, 268, Pontormo’s experimentalism was excessive even for Cinquecento Florentine culture and irreconcilable with Vasari’s artistic views: “Certainly, the exclusive adoption of the nude . . . and that piling of figures . . . in the lower band—the result of the addition of the Deluge with the Resurrection of the Dead—must have been excessive, even for a culture like that of the Cinquecento.” Berti concludes, “Certainly, it is comprehensible how Vasari, fond of historical phenomenology, variegated according to its complex worldly articulation, would react in front of this monomaniac cycle, as a depressive and abstract obsession.” On the differences between Pontormo and Vasari’s conceptions of art, see Del Bravo 1985. 21. Falciani 1996, 181, 183. See also Cox-Rearick 1964, 1:318–42. The drawings bear formal affinities with Michelangelo’s drawing The Worship of the Brazen Serpent, at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Parker 318), probably executed in Florence in the early 1530s, and there copied by Baccio da Montelupo. On the drawing, see Joannides 1996; Chapman 2005, 216-17. 22. Vasari 1966–87, 5:332–33, 1965, 2:270. 23. Jacopo Pontormo, Lettera al Varchi, February 18, 1548, in Varchi s.d., 828. 24.  See, for example, the conclusive part of the description of the Last Judgment, also conclusive of the first edition of the Lives, in Vasari 1966–87, 6:74–75 (T and G): “The strokes with which Michelangelo outlined his figures make every intelligent and sensitive artist wonder and tremble, no matter how strong a draughtsman he may be. When other artists study the fruits of Michelangelo’s labours, they are

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thrown into confusion by the mere thought of what manner of things all other pictures, past or future, would look like, if placed side by side with this masterpiece” (Vasari 1965, 1:383). On terribilità, see Barocchi 1962, 472–79; Summers 1981, 234–41. On its semantics and fortune in art criticism, see Bialostocki 1967; Sciolla 2000; Gaier 2007. 25. Vasari 1966–87, 5:333: “And, to sum up, whereas he had thought in this work to surpass all the paintings there are, he did not even match to any extent his own pictures that he had done previously” (Vasari 1965, 2:271). 26. Vasari 1966–87, 4:208, 1965, 1:319. 27. Vasari 1966–87, 6:398 writes about his dissatisfaction at the Roman court and his desire to return to Florence in his own biography: “While I was executing these works, I was also watching to see what the Pope [Julius III] intended to do, and finally I saw that there was little to be expected from him, and that it was useless to labour in his service” (Vasari 1996, 2:1053). On Vasari’s Roman period at the service of Bindo Altoviti, see Davis 1975. 28.  Bernardo Minerbetti in Florence to Vasari in Arezzo, March 13, 1553, Vasari 1923–40, 1:343. On Ricasoli, see Corti and Davis 1981, 83. 29.  Vasari in Rome to Sforza Almeni in Florence, September 30 or October 7, 1553, Vasari 1923–40, 1:368–70. Vasari 1966–87, 5:295 himself recalls the circumstances of the competition: “Bishop de’ Ricasoli, who knew that he would be doing a thing pleasing to his Excellency, had set to have the three facades of his palace, which stands on the abutment of the Ponte alla Carraia, painted in chiaroscuro, when Messer Sforza Almeni, Cup-bearer as well as first and favourite Chamberlain to the Duke, resolved that he also would have his house in Via de’ Servi painted in chiaroscuro, in emulation of the Bishop” (Vasari 1996, 2:327). See also Vasari 1923–40, 1:362–64. On the Almeni façade, see Thiem and Thiem 1964, 35–36, 131–33; Schmidt 1961; Davis 1980; Corti and Davis 1981, 83–84 (essay by C. Davis). 30.  We find in the Lives that a peculiarity of façade decorations is that they offer artists the possibility of garnering fame in a short time. The biography of Aristotele da Sangallo records the immediate popularity of Jacone’s decoration of the façade of Palazzo Buondelmonti. Jacone was a painter who, similarly to Vasari, spent time in Rome copying the façade decorations of Polidoro da Caravaggio and Maturino. “Then, hearing once much praise spoken of the façades executed by Polidoro and Maturino at Rome, without anyone knowing about it he went off to that city, where he stayed some months. . . . Wherefore the Chevalier Buondelmonte commissioned him to paint in chiaroscu-

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ro a house that he had built opposite to S. Trinita, at the beginning of Borgo S. Apostolo; wherein Jacone painted stories from the life of Alexander the Great. . . . To tell the truth, from the proof of his powers that Jacone gave in that work, it was thought that he was likely to produce some great fruits” (Vasari 1966–87, 5:404, 1996, 2:441– 42). Also congenial to Vasari was façade decorations’ capacity to host complex inventions and historical narratives. In the “Proemio della terza parte” we read, “But whosoever shall consider the mural paintings of Polidoro and Maturino will see figures in attitudes that seem beyond the bounds of possibility, and he will wonder with amazement how it can be possible, not to describe with the tongue, which is easy, but to express with the brush the tremendous conceptions which they put into execution with such mastery and dexterity, in representing the deeds of the Romans exactly as they were” (Vasari 1966–87, 4:10 [T and G], 1996, 1:621). 31. In the Lives we read that Almeni “wrote to Giorgio Vasari, who had not then arrived in Florence, that he should think out the inventions and send him designs of all that it might seem to him best to paint on that façade of his” (Vasari 1966–87, 5:295, 1996, 2:327). See also Vasari’s letter from Rome to Sforza Almeni in Florence, September 30 or October 7, 1553, Vasari 1923–40, 1:368–69: “Honorable Messere Sforza, I recognized your trust, which is more than your Giorgio would deserve, regarding the design that Your Lord commissioned me for the façade of your house, and that you leave to me free will of dividing, order, and design on it whatever comes to my mind” (my translation). Bernardo Minerbetti must have promoted Vasari’s skill as an artist inventor to Sforza Almeni. Vasari executed a drawing of a Patience (now at the Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins, inv. 1660), Minerbetti’s impresa or personal emblem, in consultation with Michelangelo and Annibal Caro. See Vasari 1923–40, 1:306–11. The drawing, which greatly pleased the bishop, was so well regarded that two years later, at the time of the Almeni commission, a Ferrarese officer hosted by Minerbetti requested permission to copy it for his Lord Ercole II d’Este. On Minerbetti’s satisfaction with the drawing, see Vasari 1923–40, 1:317–18. For the visit of the Ferrarese officer and courtier, see 1:341–42. On Patience and its variants, see Corti and Davis 1981, 130–33 (essay by J. Kliemann); Cheney 2007, 169–76. 32.  “I designed the whole composition, very different from other façade decorations, which have been and are made.” Vasari in Rome to Sforza Almeni in Florence, October 14, 1553, Vasari 1923–40, 1:372, my translation. See also another letter, Vasari in Rome wrote to Sforza Almeni in Florence, October 21, 1553, Vasari 1923–40, 1:378,

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with an explicit reference to the Ricasoli façade: “I believe, or better, I am convinced that you [Almeni] will make the view of your house not only superior to that of Cortona [Ricasoli], but to all bishops’ residences in Tuscany” (my translation). 33.  The attention Bartoli devoted to façade decoration as a genre in his Ragionamenti accademici, published in 1567 (but, as Charles Davis 1975, 266, noted, composed around 1550), suggests that he was an important reference in the courtly competition between the two courtiers. Bartoli, familiar with both Almeni and Ricasoli, must have also played an important role in granting Vasari the commission. He also designed and built a house for Ricasoli in Via San Gallo, which he describes in his Ragionamenti accademici, 1–22. Note, however, that Vasari does not acknowledge Bartoli’s collaboration. In the first letter to Sforza Almeni in Florence, Vasari 1923–40, 1:369, makes a general reference to the help he received from “the judgment of our duke and the different brains of Florence on painting” (my translation). On Bartoli, see Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 6:561–63 (essay by R. Cantagalli and N. De Blasi); Corti and Davis 1981, 133–35 (essay by C. Davis); Bryce 1983. 34. Referring to the frames in the lower band, Vasari in Rome wrote to Sforza Almeni in Florence, October 21, 1553, Vasari 1923– 40, 1:374: “I did not mention any subject for these sections in order to use them in the case the duke or Your Lord want to change the invention” (my translation). 35.  Vasari in Rome replied to Almeni in Pisa, November 26, 1553, Vasari 1923–40, 1:387–88: “I care about satisfying the mind of such a great duke” (my translation). The same letter reports both Almeni and the duke’s approval of the design (387). 36. Vasari in Rome to Sforza Almeni in Florence, October 21, 1553, Vasari 1923–40, 1:374, my translation. We find similar words in the description of the frescoes in the Lives. See Vasari 1966–87, 5:295. For the invention of the Almeni façade, see Davis 1980, 144–47; Vasari’s letters from Rome to Sforza Almeni in Florence sent between September 30 and November 26, 1553, Vasari 1923–40, 1:368–79, 387–88. A likely source for Bartoli’s literary invention was Alberti’s discussion of the number 7 in the ninth book of the De re aedificatoria (Alberti 1988, 304), dedicated to the ornament of private buildings: “And for the number seven, it is clear that the great maker of all things, God, is particularly delighted by it, in that he has made the seven planets to wander the heavens, and has so regulated man, his favorite creature, that conception, formation, adolescence, maturity, and so on, all these stages he as made reducible to seven.” The subject

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may also derive from Giulio Camillo’s “Theatrum,” as divulgated by his L’idea del theatro (1550). Note also that Francesco Salviati, as we read in the Lives (Vasari 1966–87, 5:519–20), had already realized the same subject in a drawing before his return to Florence. 37. Vasari 1966–87, 5:297–300. For the quoted passage, see 297, my translation. 38. Ibid., 5:297–98, my translation. 39. Ibid., 5:298, my translation. 40. Ibid., 6:398. The continuity between the Almeni commission and Vasari’s enrollment as ducal painter is also suggested by the fact, underlined by Davis 1980, 143, that Sforza Almeni advanced Vasari two hundred scutes when he first signed onto the ducal payroll. For the payment record, see also the two exemplars of the Ricordanze: Vasari 1938a, 74; Jacks 1992, 773. According to the Lives (Vasari 1966–87, 6:397), the work that most gained the favor of Cosimo I was not the Almeni façade, but the gigantic and now lost Martyrdom of St Sigismund for the Martelli Chapel in San Lorenzo. As Vasari wrote, “The Duke went to see [the panel] in the house of M. Ottaviano de’ Medici, where I executed it; and he liked it so much, that he said to me that when I had finished my work in Rome I should come to serve him in Florence, where I would receive orders as to what was to be done” (Vasari 1996, 2:1052). Evidently Vasari desired to associate his successful return to Florence with a more traditional piece of mastery: a monumental easel panel painted by his own hand. On the lost altarpiece, commissioned to Vasari on October 14, 1549 (also thanks to Bartoli’s mediation), see Corti and Davis 1981, 135–36 (essay by C. Davis). 41. Vasari’s letter to Montalvo, Vasari 1878–85, 8:314. On the Montalvo façade, see Thiem and Thiem 1964, 37–38, 105–8, ill. 130– 35; Fossi 1967, 87–92; Kliemann 1978; Corti and Davis 1981, 157–58 (essay by J. Kliemann). Vasari’s elaboration of the graffiti technique culminated in the decoration of the Palazzo dei Cavalieri in Pisa. See Thiem and Thiem 1964, 100–102, and the recently found correspondence regarding the decoration between Vasari and Leonardo Marinozzi dated 1564–65 in Vasari 2000. 42. Davis 1980, 164–67. 43.  On Borghini’s collaboration with Vasari, see Corti and Davis 1981, 152–62 (essay by J. Kliemann); Williams 1988; chapters 3 and 5 in this book. 44. Cited in Davis 1980, 139, my translation. On Alfonso de’ Pazzi, see Bruni 1969, 49–51; Zanrè 2004, 111–39. On Pazzi’s poetic production, see Castellani 2006. A reiteration of the salient characteristics of the façade decoration is the vault decoration of a ground-

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level salotto in the interior of Palazzo Almeni, executed between the completion of the façade in 1554 and 1557. Charles Davis 1980 discovered the frescoes after the restoration of the interior of the building in 1977 and presented them at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence the following year. He dated the decoration between 1554 and 1556. Note that the draft of the Ricordanze of the Beinecke Library, probably mistakenly, postdates the execution by one year: “On 15 June 1557 to Messer Sforza Almeni for the painting in fresco of a room at the ground level, 50 scutes” (Jacks 1992, 776). 45.  See Smyth 1949; Briganti 1985, 40; Parker 2004. 46. For a discussion of the fresco’s Michelangiolism, see Brock 2002, 313–26. S. J. Campbell 2004. 47.  Bronzino wrote to Cosimo I on April 14, 1564, Gaye 1839–40, 3:134, “Although the Chevalier and Messer Tommaso de’ Medici told me that such salary will no longer be provided to me, I still hope that whenever your Illustrious Excellency will need that little I am worthy of, you would still consider me as one among your faithfuls, and would open again the door of your very holy house” (my translation). Note also that the original commission comprised the never realized decoration of the opposite wall of the nave. For this second fresco, Borghini 1912, 124–25, suggested painting the consecration of the Church of San Lorenzo. I thank Emanuela Ferretti for this indication. 48. Vasari 1966–87, 6:237, 1996, 2:876. 49.  On Vasari’s position toward Bronzino, see Pilliod 1998, 2001; Hope Goodchild 2009. 50.  “‘But we are looking at the narrative in fresco of St Lawrence, by the hand of Bronzino. This was done with great diligence, well finished, and well understood in the many nude parts.’ ‘This work was done at the time,’ Michelozzi said, ‘when you said that he should have stopped working. It is no wonder that it is unworthy in composition, lacking in three-dimensionality, unpleasing in the poses, and weak in colouring’” (Borghini 1584, 196, 2008, 138). On the reception of Bronzino’s work, see also Waźbiński 1987, 198–201. 51.  As McCorquodale 1981, 98, writes, “Pontormo’s tortured frescoes in S. Lorenzo must have been one of the last manifestations of an intense individuality which the new age did not entirely comprehend.” On the degeneration of Michelangelo’s art by the hands of his followers, Luigi Lanzi wrote, “You will see in certain paintings executed by them [Michelangelo’s followers] a crowd of piled figures, resting on an unknown space; mute faces, semi-naked actors, who do nothing if not showing, pompously, like Virgil’s Entello, magna ossa lacertosque” (cited in Barocchi 1962, 1963, my translation). See also n. 64.

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52.  For the six manuscript drafts (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, Codice Palatino E.B.16.4) that compose the two versions of the treatise, and for their dating, see Reilly 1999, 154–71 (appendix). The last and most polished manuscript is published in Barocchi 1971–77, 2:1941–81. 53. Reilly 1999. The earliest incomplete version of Allori’s treatise, as Reilly has argued (31–37), suggest that it was written to teach drawing to young members of the Florentine aristocracy. 54.  The sculptor Vincenzo Danti, Allori’s friend and companion in Rome, undertook a parallel course in the same years in his Il primo libro del trattato delle perfette proporzioni di tutte le cose che imitare, e ritrarre si possano con l’arte del disegno, a theory of art based on the selective imitation of Michelangelo’s figures, published in Florence by the heirs of Lorenzo Torrentino in 1567. On Danti’s interpretation of Michelangelo’s work, see Davis 2008a, which highlights the mediating role Vasari played in Danti’s assimilation of Michelangelo’s style. On the relation between the language debate and the figurative arts, see chapter 5. 55. On the Montauto Chapel, see Pilliod 2001, 145–85. Pilliod also suggested that Michelangelo gave Allori permission to paint the Montauto altarpiece (36–39). On the Montauto commission and Allori’s affiliation with the Accademia del Disegno, see also Lecchini Giovannoni 1991, 41–49. For the anti-academic criticism raised by Allori’s decoration, see Cole 2001. 56. Pilliod 2001, 158–59. 57.  As a general reference, see the fundamental Landau and Parshall 1994; Lincoln 2000. 58.  For a stylistic analysis of the frescoes and preparatory drawings, see Lecchini Giovannoni 1991, 41–49. 59. Berti 1993, 268. 60. Pilliod 2001. See also Scorza 2003, whose effort to highlight formal affinities between Michelangelo’s and Vasari’s work is symmetrical to my argument. 61.  For Michelangelo’s approval of the Almeni façade, see Vasari’s letter from Rome to Sforza Almeni in Florence, October 14, 1553, Vasari 1923–40, 1:372: “My very rare and divine elder [Michelangelo] saw it when he visited me. He commended the variety of the ornaments, its bizarre order, the multitude of figures, according to his own way of praising, and praised even more your good intention to embellish and decorate the already beautiful things of this city” (my translation). For the Montauto Chapel, Vasari claims in a letter from Arezzo to Borghini in Florence, January 4, 1554, Vasari 1923–40, 1:392–93, that Michelan-

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gelo examined the model and commended as ingenious the solution he retrieved to bring light into the chapel. Vasari looked at the Montauto as possible patrons as soon as the heirs of Sebastiano acquired the chapel in Santissima Annunziata on November 9, 1553. We ignore why Allori, and not Vasari, received the commission six years later. However, it makes sense to believe that Vasari lost interest in the commission as soon as he gained Cosimo I’s favor. He began to work on the Quartiere degli Elementi in Palazzo Vecchio on March 28, 1555. Michelangelo’s approval of Vasari’s project for Palazzo Vecchio is recalled in the biography of Michelangelo in the second edition of the Lives, Vasari 1966– 87, 6:102: “On the orders of his Excellency, Vasari brought with him the model in wood for the ducal palace in Florence, along with the designs for the new apartments which he himself had built and decorated. Michelangelo wanted to see these models and designs since, being an old man, he could not see the works themselves” (Vasari 1965, 1:410). On Michelangelo’s approval of Vasari’s work, see also chapter 1, n. 16. 62. Shearman 1998, 21. On Michelangelo and Condivi, see Wilde 1978, 1–16; Hirst 1997. On Michelangelo’s dissatisfaction with Condivi, see Elam 1998. On Michelangelo’s early biographies, see also Pon 1996; Parker 2005. 63. Bartoli’s mention that Michelangelo recommended Vasari to Julius III for the decoration of his uncle’s chapel in San Pietro in Montorio in his Ragionamenti accademici (Bartoli 1567, 19), given Bartoli’s friendship and collaboration with Vasari, should not be considered an exception. 64.  On the problem of the imitation of Michelangelo in sixteenthcentury art, see Barocchi 1962, 1960–71. Giambattista Passeri 1934, 9, also underlined the sterility of Michelangelo’s art: “But to study his works—not the architectural ones—one runs the risk of gaining an altered and extravagant style, so much that in order to gain what is wondrous and good from him, one must be well learned and trained in the arts” (my translation). As Barocchi 1962, 1960, writes, “The problem of Michelangelo’s mastery translated into the problem of the ‘michelangiolismo,’ negative not because of the master’s deficiencies, but for the gracility, incomprehension, and superficiality of his followers, who were dealing with an irreducible and difficult language” (my translation). Giuliano Briganti 1945, 21, cited in Barocchi 1962, 1969, highlighted as problematic precisely the opposition between individual expression and linguistic values in Michelangelo’s art: “Michelangelo undertook a way on which, it seemed, nobody could closely follow his proud and solitary soul. His individuality, which is the problem of his expression, was not something someone could easily pick up or that

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could be diffused as a common language. . . . Michelangelo’s intentions were such that they could have never been the base for a common atmosphere of a unitary cultural artistic trend” (my translation). 65.  The reference to other “painters of Florence” is vague, but it can hardly refer to Vasari’s immediate rival, Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, who Vasari never considered to be at his level and whose work for Ricasoli had raised immediate criticism in Florence. See Vasari 1923–40, 1:358, 361. 66. Vasari 1966–87, 1:111; Partridge and Starn 1992, 206. On Disegno, see also Vasari 1966–87, 4:4; Borghini 1584, 137. Varchi s.d., 2:615, cited in Belloni and Drusi 2002, 106, offers a definition of mastery based on the same principle: “The master is only that one who can perfectly realize in the work by his hands what he perfectly imagined with his brain” (my translation). Note also that in the Lives, Vasari 1966–87, 5:245, Andrea Sansovino expressed an opposite point of view when Baccio Bandinelli criticized his work for a lack of disegno: “Whereupon, all that Baccio had said of Maestro Andrea having come to his ears, he, like a wise man, answered him lovingly, saying that works are done with the hands and not with the tongue, that good design is to be looked for not in drawings but in the perfection of the work finished in stone” (Vasari 1996, 2:271). On the contradictory formulations of artistic key terms and concepts in the Lives, see chapter 3. 67.  I am intentionally avoiding an exhaustive discussion of disegno, which would not add much to the central point of this chapter. For a comprehensive treatment, see Williams 1988, 153–59, 2004, 326–27, 1997, 29–72; Barzman 2000, 145–51 (although overly elaborated). See also Wohl 1986, for Vasari’s emphasis on invention in his appreciation of drawings. More broadly, on art as imitation of universal ideal values, see Panofsky’s classic study, Idea: A Concept in Art Theory, 1968 (first published in 1924), and Barkan 2000 for a critique of this interpretive dogma. 68. Alberti 1991, 92–93, 94, and 1988, 7, 314, cited in Trachtenberg 2005, 125. 69. Shearman 2007a. On Raphael’s workshop, see also Talvacchia 2003; Shearman 2007b; and, more broadly, Williams 2003, 2007. 70. Vasari 1966–87, 2: 84–86. See also 3: xxxviii (proemio to the first volume of the third part). On the relevance of Raphael in the second edition of the Lives, see Shearman 1998; Williams 1988, 161–77, 2007, 39; and, more extensively, Rubin 1995, 357–401. 71.  See Chastel 1952; Elam 1992, who verified the actual existence of the Garden.

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72.  See Vasari, 1966–87, 4:263, 335–36, 455–56, 449; 5:56, 112– 13. See also Clifton 1996. 73. Walton 1979, 48, insists on the inherent ambiguity in art appreciation between the object as a medium and as a repository of artistic values: “Sometimes when artists make objects it seems obvious that the object is of very little significance and that it is only the act of making it which should occupy our attention. But strangely enough, the objects, as ordinary or trivial as they seem, are often treated with much the same sort of reverence we accord to the masterpieces of Rembrandt and Shakespeare and Beethoven.” For any further investigation in this direction, see Wollheim 1992. 74.  Thiem and Thiem 1964, 132; Davis 1980, 144. 75. Vasari 1923–40, 1:373–79. 76.  See, for example, the two descriptions of the vertical band dedicated to the Age of Virility, in the same letter, Vasari 1923–40, 1:376, and in the Lives, Vasari 1966–87, 5:297–300. 77. The decoration, Bartoli 1567, 54–59, consisted of five paintings representing Man’s Birth, Vicious Adolescence, Virtuous Adolescence, Maturity, and Decrepitude. See also n. 33 above. 78.  Executed between 1561 and 1565 by Giovanni da Udine, Sabaoth Danti, and Orlando Parentini, the cycle represents the divisions of time (Hours, Weeks, Days, Nights, Seasons, Years, Centuries) in connection with the ages of human life (Infancy, Youth, Adulthood, Maturity, Decrepitude). See Davidson 1984. 79. Hochmann 2003. 80. On this cycle of tapestries, cited in Borghini 1584, 582, see Adelson, 1985b, 166; Meoni 1998, 68, 70, 2002; Baroni Vannucci 1997, 343–44; van Veen 2006, 38–39. Out of the original fourteen pieces, three surviving represent the Age of Virility and one represents Infancy: London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. T 110–1975; Paris, Mobilier National, inv. n. GOB 121; Ecouen, Musée National de la Renaissance, inv. n. Ec. 237 (according to Meoni 1998, 87, a replica of the exemplar in Paris); Pisa, Deposito del Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, inv. n. 1514. More broadly, on the Medici tapestries, see the studies by Candace Adelson 1985c, 1990; Collareta 1985; T. P. Campbell 2002, 276–77, 385, 427, 501; Meoni 2008. In his Zibaldone, Vasari 1938b, 301–6, included a literary invention by Giovambattista Adriani, requested by Borghini, for a series dedicated to the story of Theseus (originally contained in a letter from Adriani to Francesco I Medici written between 1564 and 1569). On this cycle, see Corti and Davis 1981, 171 (essay by M. Daly Davis). 81.  Baroni Vannucci 1997, 357.

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82.  Septem Planetae Septem hominis aetatibus respondentes scilicet. 1 infantiae, 2 pueritiae, 3 adolescentiae, 4 iuventuti, 5 virili aetati, 6 senili aetati, 7 senectae et decrepitae (Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam), in Veldman 1983, 39–44. 83. While the Ricordanze of the Archivio Vasariano (Vasari 1938a, 73) records the façade’s execution from May 4 to the last day of September (mistakenly dated 1555), the draft of the Ricordanze at the Beinecke Library (Jacks 1992, 772) records it as from February 29 to September 27. In the biography of Gherardi (Vasari 1966–87, 5:296) we read that Cristofano did not work as assiduously as Vasari had wished: “Cristofano executed this façade in a few months, not to mention that he sometimes stayed away some weeks without working there” (Vasari 1996, 2:329). 84. In the Lives (Vasari 1966–87, 5:301) we read that Gherardi had no equal in the painting of garments, vegetable motives, and masks: “In which manner of work it may be said that Cristofano was superior to any other who has ever made it his principal and particular profession” (Vasari 1996, 2:335). We also read (Vasari 1966–87, 5:296) that Gherardi “was so able in handling colours in fresco, that it may be said—and Vasari confesses it—that he knew more about it than Giorgio himself” (Vasari 1996, 2:329). Vasari 1966–87, 5:286, 302 also praises Cristofano’s exceptional skill in drawing and coloring, and his reliability and speed: “He became facile and able to a marvel in drawing and colouring; zealous and diligent in no ordinary manner” (Vasari 1996, 2:317, 336). In general all the large-scale decorations designed by Vasari from the late 1530s were executed by Gherardi until his death in 1559 (the cycle in the Olivetan monastery of San Michele in Bosco, 1539–41; the cycle in the sacristy of San Giovanni a Carbonara in Naples, 1546; the pavilion of Bernardetto de’ Medici’s garden, 1554; the cycle in the Church of the Compagnia del Gesù in Cortona, 1554–55; the decoration of the Quartiere degli Elementi in Palazzo Vecchio, 1555–59). Very little of these monumental works, even considering the surviving preparatory sketches, can be attributed to Vasari’s hand. For the case of the decoration of Cortona, see Barocchi 1964, 37–38. 85.  “And in truth, there never was a painter who could do by himself, and without study, the things that he contrived to do” (Vasari 1966–87, 5:290, 1996, 2:321). “And if Cristofano, when he was a lad, had exercised himself continuously in the studies of art—for he never did a drawing save when he had afterwards to carry into execution— and had pursued the practice of art with spirit, he would have had no equal, seeing that his facility, judgment and memory enabled him to

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execute his works in such a way, without any further study, that he used to surpass many who in fact knew more than he” (Vasari 1966– 87, 5:296, 1996, 2:329). 86. Vasari 1966–87, 5:318, 1965, 2:251. 87. Vasari 1966–87, 5:334, 1965, 2:272. 88.  See the case of the decoration of Palazzo Vecchio, as in Barocchi 1983; Collareta 1985. 89. Vasari 1966–87, 5:330, 1965, 2:268. The series is split between the Soprintendenza of Florence and the Palazzo del Quirinale. The ten tapestries at the Quirinale include those of Pontormo (Oggetti d’arte della dotazione della Presidenza della Repubblica, nn. 109–11). On the series, see Barocchi 1980, 50–62 (essay by C. Adelson); Smith 1982; Adelson, 1985b, 1990, 2:363–90; Costamagna 1994, 247–52; Forti Grazzini 1994, 1:16–48; Meoni 1998, 124–41. 90.  See Costamagna 1994, 247–49, for a summary of Adelson’s results (in Adelson 1983, 1985a). According to Pilliod 2001, 34–42, Pontormo designed the three cartoons earlier in 1545. 91. Adelson 1985a, 30, and in Barocchi 1980, 56. 92. Vasari 1966–87, 5:559, 1996, 2:606. On the critical implications of this passage, see also Collareta 1985, 68–69. 93.  In a letter to Sforza Almeni dated September 30, 1553, Vasari 1923–40, 1:369 defines his design as “well-composed music,” which can be ruined if “sung by someone who does not possess voice or counterpoint” (my translation). Vasari defends the necessity of the master’s continuous supervision and participation in the work’s execution. The technique of ritoccare (to retouch) is an important principle Vasari applies to balance the two radical definitions of mastery: as absolute detachment from execution and as total absorption in it. Exemplary of the dangers of the former is the narrative of the Sala dei Cento Giorni in the Lives (Vasari 1966–87, 6:388). 94.  For Cellini’s and Bandinelli’s animosity toward Vasari, see Cellini 1982, 189, 191, 475; Colasanti 1905, 428–29; Calamandrei 1952. 95.  On the margin of the Lives (Vasari 1966–87, 6:690), “in which [the Frangipani Chapel] Taddeo made use, as he also did in many other works, of the young strangers who are always to be found in Rome, and who go about working by the day in order to learn and to gain their bread” (Vasari 1996, 2:605), Federico Zuccari wrote, “This is false. The work itself shows that it was the result of his and his brother’s hand. Neither it is true that he ever used any of those assistants in similar works” (Hochmann 1988, 71, my translation). On Federico’s and Taddeo’s biographies, see also Waźbiński 1985, 296–306.

Notes

3. the making of the

187 lives

1. Lanzi 1795–96, 1: ii–iii (preface), 1847, 1:11–12. 2. Schlosser 1977, 331, my translation. 3. Ibid., 292–93. 4.  Schlosser’s influence on Pio Pecchiai, Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, and Luigi Grassi, the major scholars and editors of the Lives in Italy in the first half of the twentieth century, was crucial. For Pecchiai, see Vasari 1928–30, 1: xvi. “It is now without doubt, but it is worth to repeat it,” Ragghianti writes in the preface of his edition of the Lives (Vasari 1942–49, 1:10), “that the responsibility for the text is entirely by Vasari.” For Ragghianti’s position, see also 43. Grassi 1970, 1: 212, echoed Ragghianti’s words: “It is now without doubt that the Lives were integrally written by Giorgio Vasari, who certainly is its author” (my translation). 5. Vasari 1759–60, 1: xiii–xiv. See also Bottari and Ticozzi 1822– 25, 3:559. Ricci reports that Don Miniato Pitti in person claimed to have largely participated in the writing of the Lives. On the document, in Gaye 1839–40, 1:150, see Scoti Bertinelli 1905, 65–66. On Ricci, see Negri 1722, 307. On Silvano Razzi, see Davis 2008b. On his contribution to the Lives, see Corti and Davis 1981, 193–94 (essay by M. Daly Davis); and below in this chapter. Notably Serafino Razzi’s information was not lost on Antonio Possevino 1608 [1603], 2:404, who listed the Lives among Silvano Razzi’s publications in his Apparatus sacer, the famous bio-bibliographical repertory of Christian writers: “Silvanus Radius, Manardus, Florentinus, monachus Camaldulensis, scripsit . . . vitas plurium illustrium pictorum, quae sub nomine Georgii Vesari Equitis, tribus tomis fuerunt excusae Florentiae anno 1568.” (An anonymous seventeenth-century reader quoted this passage on the last page of the first volume of the Torrentiniana held at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, N6922 V2 1550 Vault.) Note also that the Jesuit Giulio Negri repeated Possevino’s record in his Istoria degli scrittori fiorentini (1722, 501), and that the Florentine polymath Giambattista Clemente Nelli recorded Serafino Razzi’s reference to the Lives in his Saggio di storia letteraria fiorentina del secolo XVI (1759). We have limited clues on what Razzi may have written. Bottari noted that Razzi betrayed his hand in the biography of Fra’ Bartolomeo by referring to his own collection of hagiographies. Williams 1988, 131–32, suggested that Razzi is responsible for information on illuminated manuscripts in the second edition. One may also consider Razzi as plausibly involved in the writing of Giulio Clovio’s biography. Both Razzi and Vasari were person-

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ally acquainted with Clovio, and both were in Rome in 1567, when the biography was compiled, but the biography does not record relevant information Vasari certainly knew. I am referring to information on Clovio that appears in the correspondence between Vasari and Francesco I (Vasari 1923–40, 2:298): the fact that Clovio received from the pope a stipend of fifty scutes and that his blindness was healed by the pope’s benediction. Razzi arrived in Rome before Vasari, at the beginning of March 1566, and left before him for Florence, where Razzi reported the new information he gathered to Borghini (see the letters from Caro in Rome to Vasari in Florence, March 2, Vasari 1923–40, 2:219–20, and from Vasari in Arezzo to Borghini in Florence, October 2, 279). On Razzi’s acquaintance with Clovio, see Vasari 1966–87, 5:186. On Razzi’s collaboration with Borghini and Vasari in the writing of the Lives, see below in the chapter, and Vasari’s letter from Rome to Borghini in Florence, April 14, 1566, Vasari 1923–40, 2:228–29. In a letter dated August 5, 1564, Borghini in Poppiano to Vasari in Florence, Vasari 1923–40, 2:93, Borghini mentions part of a manuscript of Sacchetti’s novelle destined for Vasari as in Razzi’s possession. For an identification of the manuscript, see Drusi 2005, 130–31; Zaccaria 2008, 8–9. A later letter from Vasari in Milan to Borghini in Poppiano, May 9, 1566, Vasari 1923–40 2:240, also suggests that Razzi supervised the printing during Borghini’s and Vasari’s frequent absences. 6. See Lanzi 1795–96, 175–77; Vasari 1832–38. See also Marchese, Pini, Milanesi, and Milanesi in Vasari 1846–70, 1:106–07; Milanesi in Vasari 1878–85, 1:117. 7.  Scoti Bertinelli 1905. 8. Kallab 1908, esp. 429–54. 9. Vasari 1923–40. 10. Gargiulo 1906, 217. 11.  See, for example, Ragghianti in Vasari 1942–49, 10. 12. Hope 2004. Against Hope’s conclusion, as in Hope 1995, see Ackerman 1997, 640; Sohm 2001, 238, n. 1; Mattioda and Pozzi 2006, 22. See also Ginzburg 2007, 177–78; and esp. Conte 2010, 11–15, in reference to Hope 2004. 13. Foucault 1980. 14.  Of the multiple accounts of the genesis of the Lives, the most careful are those by Pecchiai, in Vasari 1928–30, 1: xii–xix; Rubin 1995, 106–15, 144–47; Hope 2004. Note that Simonetti’s 2005 reconstruction does not place Vasari’s correspondence in the correct chronological order. 15. Vasari 1966–87, 6:389–90.

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16. On Giovio’s Elogia, see Klinger 1991; Minonzio 2007, esp. 133–46; Giovio 1999, 159–70. On their influence on the Lives, see Zimmermann 1995, 214–15. On Giovio and Pliny the Elder, see Giovio 1999, 221–79. 17. Vasari 1966–87, 6:389, 1996, 2:1043. 18.  Scoti Bertinelli 1905, 23–25; Pecchiai, in Vasari 1928–30, 1: xii; Kallab 1908, 143–46; Corti and Davis 1981, 213–15 (essay by C. Davis); Boase 1979, 43–44; Barolsky 1991, 112; Rubin 1995, 106–7, 144; Ginzburg 2007, 151–52; and Agosti 2008, 35–37, believe that the gathering at the Farnese palace is a fiction or that it should be retro-dated to 1542 or 1543. 19. Vasari 1966–87, 6:409. 20. Vasari 1923–40, 1:270. 21. Hope 2004, 60–62. On 1546 as the correct date for the beginning of the work, see also Gargiulo 1906, 216, n. 1. 22.  On these repeated contacts, see nn. 30, 42, 43 below, and later in this chapter. On Vasari and Caro, see Corti and Davis 1981, 124–33 (essays by C. Davis, P. Tinagli Baxter, and J. Kliemann) and chapter 5. 23. Vasari 1923–40, 1:199. 24. My interpretation highlights the cultural gap the anecdote tries to bridge between Vasari and his Roman friends. Art historians have so far taken the opposite direction. For example, Ragghianti in Vasari 1942–49, 1:21, suggested that whereas Giovio maintains an idealistic conception of history, Vasari follows an alternative historical practice informed by the pragmatic humanism of Guicciardini and Machiavelli (this opinion is repeated in Ginzburg 2007). Nencioni 1952, 113, and Sohm 2000 also tended to reduce the cultural gap between Giovio and Vasari, Nencioni in the name of the Cinquecento humanistic trend of exploring lower literary genres, and Sohm by emphasizing Vasari’s ambition as a historian. Generally speaking it is true that humanists and men of letters like Antonio Manetti, Pietro Summonte, and Girolamo Campagnola had written compilations on contemporary art with an aim comparable to Vasari’s, but this is not what Giovio had in mind (or could undertake, according to the anecdote). For an interpretation of the anecdote, which highlights the different competences between artists and men of letters, see Spagnolo 2008, esp. 124–26. 25.  On the three biographies, see Barocchi 1971–77, 1:7–23; Giovio 1999, 184–88, 2008 (Commentary by C. Davis); Maffei 2007, 45–46, 50–76; Agosti 2003, 2008, 48–96. See also Giovio 2008, 15– 16, for an English translation of Giovio’s biography of Michelangelo. Notably, as Kallab and Frey pointed out (see Hirst 1997, 68, n. 12),

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Giovio’s biography of Michelangelo, which remained in a manuscript form until the eighteenth century, was not used as source for the Lives. As Maffei 2007, 46, notes, the biographies were titled Vitae in the eighteenth century, probably by Giovambattista Giovio, who prepared the manuscript for its 1781 publication by Girolamo Tiraboschi in his Storia della letteratura italiana. Maffei (in Giovio 1999, 188) and Franco Minonzio 2007, 137, n. 148, believe that the biographies were originally conceived as elogia. Barbara Agosti 2008, 48, considers instead substantially correct their publication as Vitae. For the dating of the biographies, I relied on Agosti 2008, 50–51. On Giovio and the figurative arts, see Giovio 1999, 183–279; Agosti 2003 (limited to Raphael’s Vita), 2008, 34–96. 26. Giovio’s three biographies, succinct and based on very little knowledge or research, confirm Vasari’s remark that Giovio “has confused and mistaken many things one for another.” For a different but also plausible reading, see Agosti 2008. However, the fact that Giovio mentions Michelangelo’s bronze statue of Julius II not in the Vita but in the biographies of Leo X and Alfonso d’Este does not prove, as Agosti 2008, 62–63, and n. 145 argues, that Giovio was deliberately selective in his account of Michelangelo. The fact that the biographies of Leo X and Alfonso d’Este are later works (as Agosti acknowledges in her study [14, 63]) suggests instead that Giovio gained new information on Michelangelo’s work only after the completion of the biography of the artist. 27. Hope 2008, 21. For an overview of the art literature before the Lives, see the contemporary account by Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, in Barocchi 1971–77, 1:34–41; Schlosser 1977. 28.  On the Lives’ sources, see Kallab 1908; Schlosser 1977, 295– 301; Berenson 1952; Tanturli 1976. Kallab, 1908, 205–07, identified a lost source on the basis of indirect correspondences between the Lives, the Anonimo Gaddiano (ca, 1537–42), and Gelli’s Venti vite d’artisti, which he named Source K. Cornel von Fabriczy 1893, argues that, although they wrote in the same span of years and were personally acquainted, Vasari and the Anonimo Gaddiano did not read each other’s work. Bouk Wierda 2009 identified the Anonimo with the Florentine humanist Bernardo Vecchietti. 29. Marchese 1846–47, 1:203 (who also noted that Vasari did not acknowledge Eustachio’s contribution in the book). On Bottonio’s record, see also Kallab 1908, 278; Merrifield 1849, xxxvi. On Vasari and the Dominican, via Marco Medici, see Plebani 2008. 30. Letter from Giovio to Vasari dated July 8, 1547, in Vasari 1923–40 1:199. On Vasari’s departure for Rimini, see Vasari 1923–40 1:204; on the sojourn, see Vasari 1966–87, 6:390–91.

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31. Hope 2004, 65–66. 32. Ibid., 61–62. 33. Ibid., 62. 34.  On the main features of the biography in the Lives, see Mattioda and Pozzi 2006, 7. 35. Nencioni 1952. Bisticci’s compilation was first published by Angelo Mai 1839 as Vitae CIII virorum illustrium, qui saeculo XV exiterunt. 36.  See Rubin 1995, 162. Ginzburg 2007, 200, highlights the plausible connection between the Lives and the Benedictine culture. Also, for the Lives’ dependence on the Bible and late medieval chronicles, see Blum 2010. 37.  As Minonzio 2007, 144, points out, Giovio was in turn influenced by Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Philosophers. 38. Nencioni 1952, 113. 39.  On Vasari and Pitti, see Corti and Davis 1981, 62. 40. Vasari 1966–87, 6:390. 41. Pasini 1968, 55; Scapecchi 1998, 104, 106, n. 6. 42.  Giovio in Rome to Vasari in Rimini, January 29, 1548, Vasari 1923–40, 1:215. 43. Giovio in Rome to Vasari in Florence, July 8, 1547, Vasari 1923–40, 1:199. See also Rossi 1986, 174. The printing in Florence with Anton Francesco Doni was also among Vasari’s options. In a letter to Francesco Revesla, March 10, 1547, Doni 1547, 61–61v, Doni includes the Lives in a list of his forthcoming publications under the title Le vite de gli artefici, architetti, scultori, et pittori, cominciando da Cimabue fino ai tempi nostri, scritte per Giorgio Vasari pittore aretino, con una introduttione nell’arti del medesimo non meno necessaria che nuova. But already at the beginning of 1548 Doni’s press had ceased its activity. On Doni and the Lives, see Corti and Davis 1981, 194–97 (essays by C. Davis, M. Daly Davis, D. McTavish), 240 (essay by J. Kliemann). On Doni, see Ricottini Marsili-Libelli 1960, 342–56. Already on October 15, 1547, Lodovico Domenichi, agent of the ducal printer Torrentino, is acting as Vasari’s intermediary for the publication. See Domenichi’s letter from Florence to Vasari in Rimini, October 15, 1547, Vasari 1923–40, 1:202–03. In a letter dated February 22, 1548, Vasari 1923–40 1:217–18, Pitti in Florence to Vasari in Arezzo, Don Miniato Pitti suggested that Vasari publish with Torrentino. On Torrentino (pseudonym of Laurens van den Bleack), see Ricci 2001. 44.  On Vasari’s departure, see Vasari, 1966–87, 6:396. On January 7, 1550, Giambullari from Florence informed Vasari in Arezzo

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(Vasari 1923–40, 1:247) that the printing proceeded fast, at the rate of twelve pages per day, and that the book had almost reached the third alphabetical series, up to the biography of Domenico del Ghirlandaio (481–88). In the same letter Giambullari informed Vasari of the decision to split the text into two volumes and asked him to write the dedication letter and to check the quality of two engravings for the title page in order to consider whether or not to pass the commission to specialized engravers in Venice. 45. Nencioni 1955, 122–24. Scapecchi 1998 argued that Giambullari edited the Rimini apograph and produced the final manuscript for Torrentino. Schlosser 1977, 292, believed that the intervention of the Florentine literati was limited to the compilation of excerpts from historical works for the first edition. Rosanna Bettarini has also argued (Vasari 1966–87, 1: xi) that the collaboration of the editors was eminently technical. 46. Frangenberg 2002. This is the “Proemio della prima parte delle Vite,” in Vasari 1550, 111–25. 47. Alberti 1550, 1565a, 1565b. Conforti 1993, 41, also observed the affinity between this section of the Lives and Bartoli’s translation of Alberti. Hirst 1997, 69–70, n. 18, suggested—without elaboration—that passages of the description of Michelangelo’s New Sacristy are attributable to Bartoli. 48.  On Vasari as a writer, see Flora 1940–42, 1:254–71, 1957; Ragghianti in Vasari 1942–49, 1:42–52; Brizio in Vasari 1948, 16, 1952; Naselli 1952; Nencioni 1952, 1955, 1965; Bettarini 1976; Riccò Soprani 1979; Rubin 1995, 148–51; Sohm 2000, 46–49; Dardano 2004. So far the reputation of Vasari as a writer has been assessed on the basis of the Lives and his correspondence. Vasari never received much credit for his Ragionamenti, a collation of iconographic programs written by collaborators and published by his grandnephew Giorgio Vasari the Younger. Often neglected, however, is the fact that Vasari the Younger also edited a large portion of Vasari’s correspondence with the purpose of enhancing the literary fame of his ancestor. The surviving Vasari’s autograph letters reveal a much lesser degree of literacy (see, for example, Vasari 1923–40 2:265–66, quoted below in this chapter). This issue was brought up at the Vasari conference at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence organized by Katja Burzer, Charles Davis, and Alessandro Nova in 2008. See also Hope 2004, 65, n. 16, and 74. Notably Vasari the Younger almost entirely rewrote the nucleus of Vasari’s letters at the Riccardiana Library (ms. Ricc. 2354)—partially published by Giovanni Bottari in the Lettere Pittoriche, and by Stefano Audin (1822–23) and Gaetano Milanesi (1878–85)—the best known

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corpus of Vasari’s letters until the publication by Frey in 1923–40 of Vasari’s rediscovered correspondence, now at the Archivio Vasari in the Casa Museo Vasari at Arezzo. On Vasari’s autographs, see Carrara 2009b. On the letters at the Riccardiana, see Vasari 1878–85, 8:229–31; Corti and Davis 1981, 206–08 (essay by C. Davis). Examining this group of letters, Rubin 1995, 116–17, recognized a notable level of literacy in the originals as well. On the correspondence in the Casa Museo Vasari, also ordered and amply annotated by Vasari the Younger, see Zaccaria 2008. C. Davis, in Corti and Davis 1981, 201– 2, notes that Vasari the Younger also intervened in the manuscript of the Ricordanze by calculating the sum of his uncle’s earnings on each page of the manuscript and as a grand total. Note also that Vasari likely overemphasized the importance of his education in the Medici household under the guidance of Pierio Valeriano, a fact he recalls in the biography of Francesco Salviati, in Vasari 1966–87, 5:512. On Vasari’s literary training, see Rubin 1995, 63–70. 49.  See the reference to the biography of Mino da Fiesole, which Borghini claims to have brought to Arezzo by mistake, in Borghini’s letter from Arezzo to Vasari in Florence, September 10, 1549, Vasari 1923–40, 1:244. For the epilogue, see Borghini’s letter from Le Campora to Vasari in Arezzo, January 24, 1550, Vasari 1923–40, 1:255– 56. See also Vasari’s letter from Arezzo (?) to Borghini in Le Campora, February 11 or 12 (?), Vasari 1923–40, 1:257. The epilogue is the “Conclusione della opera agli artefici et a’ lettori” in Vasari 1966–87, 6:409–13, further revised and included in the Giuntina as “L’autore agl’artefici del Disegno.” 50. A letter from Borghini in Le Campora to Vasari in Arezzo, January 16, 1550, Vasari 1923–40, 1:253–55, suggests that Borghini may have begun the compilation of the indexes by revising an index Vasari himself had drafted (254). On January 24, Vasari 1923–40, 1:255, Borghini picked up eighty gatherings from the press to proceed with the compilation. On March 8 Giambullari in Florence informed Vasari in Rome, Vasari 1923–40, 1:268, that the index had reached an unexpected length. On March 15 Giambullari in Florence informed Vasari in Rome, Vasari 1923–40, 1:273, that the index was already half compiled and the errata corrige would be completed in eight days. Only two days later Borghini from Le Campora informed Vasari in Rome, on March 17, Vasari 1923–40, 1:274, that the index was completed and sent to the press and that he was working on the errata corrige in order to pass it to Giambullari. On March 29, as we also draw after Giambullari’s correspondence with Vasari, Vasari 1923–40, 1:280, the book was still not completed.

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51.  On Giambullari’s approach, see Gerd Blum’s 2010 suggestive reading of the Torrentiniana. 52.  For Bartoli’s participation in the compilation of the errata corrige, see Bartoli’s letter from Florence to Vasari in Rome, March 8, 1550, Vasari 1923–40, 1:269. The Bancroft Library (University of California, Berkeley) holds an exemplar of the first volume of the Torrentiniana (N6922 V2 1550 Vault; the second volume is part of a different set) that belonged to Carlo Lenzoni (the title page is signed “Carlo di Simone Lenzoni,” crossed out but still legible). On the book’s margins handwritten asterisks consistently refer to artist’s names and works of art mentioned in the text. The codex offers no clues on who marked these asterisks, but the fact that they refer to works eventually listed in the indexes indicate that either Lenzoni participated in the compilation of the index or that he owned a volume partially composed of gatherings previously used for the index. Consistently present in the first part of the book (pages 127–29, 132, 134–37, 140, 142–44, 146–48), the asterisks disappear after the biography of Giotto. Lenzoni, already indisposed at the beginning of March 1550, died in June 1551. On March 8, in a letter from Rome to Cosimo I in Pisa, Vasari 1923–40, 1:270, Vasari mentioned Lenzoni as entrusted with the presentation of the book to the duke. But the departure of the duke for Pisa and Lenzoni’s indisposition obliged Vasari to change the plan. On Lenzoni’s indisposition, see also Bartoli’s letter from Florence to Vasari in Rome, April 5, Vasari 1923–40, 1:282. 53. Hope 2004. For Borghini’s imprecision, see Williams 1985. See also the content of the 1595 note by Giuliano de’ Ricci, discussed above, the earliest known document referring to fabrication of information in the Lives. 54.  See Barocchi 1976; Vasari 1966–87, 1 (Commento): xxxviii. On Milanesi, see also Barocchi 1970, and in Vasari 1973, 1: ix–xvii. 55. Schlosser 1977, 293. In the case of Michiel, this hypothesis is based on an anonymous sixteenth-century annotation to the famous letter by Pietro Summonte on Neapolitan art addressed to the same Michiel, cited and discussed in Lauber 2007, 22–24, which claims that “Michiel wrote the lives of ancient and modern painters and sculptors, which remained unpublished because of the publication of a praiseworthy, large, and dense book in Florence” (my translation). 56. See Fanti 1979; Dempsey 1986; Hochmann 1988; Ruffini 2009. 57. Condivi 1553. On the biography, see chapter 2, n. 62. 58.  On Borghini’s note, see Williams 1985. Later evidence is Va-

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sari’s record of engraved portraits for the Lives to the year 1560 in his Ricordanze (Vasari 1938a, 84). In a letter dated April 17, 1561, Vasari 1923–40, 1:613–15, Bartoli sent Vasari information on the Camposanto in Pisa for the Lives. Bartoli also provided Vasari with information on the Basilica of St. Mark and the Campanile in a letter from Venice dated March 31, 1563, Vasari 1923–40, 1:743. Anonymous correspondents from Venice also provided Vasari via Bartoli with a description of illuminations in Santi Giovanni e Paolo, known to date as the work of Pesellino, but then attributed to Attavante Attavanti, Vasari 1966–87, 3: 279–81, 467–68. On the codex, now at the Marciana Library (Cl. XII, 68), see Middleton 2010 [1892], 195. As Francesco Caglioti pointed out to me, a fragment of the codex, published in Bellosi 1990, 128–33 (M. Ferro), is at the Museum of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. 59.  The edition presents numerous variants, but attempts to define a genealogy among the exemplars would be vain because, as Bettarini noted, each exemplar is bound with gatherings printed at different times (Vasari 1966–87, 1: xxxviii–xl). The most evident variant is the presence of two title pages. The one above, which is also the longest, was perhaps the first to be printed. The title page was probably shortened to allow space for the engraving representing the triumph of fame, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, et architettori, scritte et di nuovo ampliate da M. Giorgio Vasari pit. et archit. aretino, co’ ritratti loro, et con le nuove vite dal 1550 insino al 1567, con tavole copiosissime de nomi, dell’opere e de’ luoghi ov’elle sono. For a codicological analysis of the Giuntina, see Rossi in Vasari 1962–66, 8:281–93; Bettarini in Vasari 1966–87, 1: xx–xl. On the title pages, see Corti and Davis 1981, 236–37 (essay by L. Corti). An earlier idea for the title, in a single sheet in the Vasari papers at the Beinecke Library, Spinelli Archive, General Manuscripts, Box 48, folder 1057, published in Vasari’s Florence 1994, cat. 51, reads as Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, architetti, scritte per Giorgio Vasari pittore et archit(etto) aretino fino all’anno MDL, et dal medesimo di nuovo mandate in luce co’ ritratti loro, et con l’aggiunta fino all’anno MDLXVII. The same sheet also contains the motto extrapolated from Virgil for the engraving of the “Fame of the arts” probably elaborated by Vincenzio Borghini with the help of an anonymous collaborator. On the motto, see Kliemann 1978, 197; Corti and Davis 1981, 239 (essay by J. Kliemann). For completeness, see also n. 43 above and the title of the Lives in Doni’s list of forthcoming publications dated 1547. 60.  See Giovio’s letter from Rome to Vasari in Ravenna, March 31,

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1548, Vasari 1923–40, 1:218. On the portraits of the Lives, see Prinz 1963, 1966; Casini 2006. 61. See Bettarini, in Vasari 1966–87, 1: x. Plausibly the Giunti used more than one exemplar of the Torrentiniana. In a letter dated August 7, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:95, Borghini mentions a particular note he wrote on the “other” bound in parchment (“in quello altro libro che avete legato in carta pecora”). 62.  In this letter (Vasari in Florence to Borghini in Poppiano, Vasari 1923–40, 1:676) Vasari claimed to have researched and written about unspecified artists and excused himself for not being able to come to Poppiano. In the same letter Vasari asked Borghini for confirmation of the presence of his “writings” in Poppiano. Borghini tried to gather the material in a single place. But two other letters (Vasari 1923–40, 2:26, 52–53) indicate that the “writings” repeatedly moved between Poppiano and Florence. In another letter (Vasari in Florence to Borghini in Poppiano, May 12, 1562, Vasari 1923–40, 1:677–78) Vasari promised Borghini that the “writings” would reach him in Poppiano by May 17. 63.  Borghini in Poppiano to Vasari in Florence, February 21, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:24. On Razzi’s collaboration to the Lives, see n. 5 above. 64.  See Borghini’s letter from Florence to Vasari in Venice (?), May 22, 1563, Vasari 1923–40 1:758. 65.  In the letter from Florence to Leonardo Buonarroti in Rome, March 4, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:29, Vasari mentioned June 1564 as the possible beginning of the printing. 66.  Vasari in Florence wrote to Cosimo I in Pisa, January 20, 1565, Vasari 1923–40, 2:144, that the second part of the book was printed. See also Bettarini in Vasari 1966–87, 1: xxii–xiii. 67.  See Vasari’s correspondence from April 1 to May 27, 1566, Vasari 1923–40, 224–43. For the frequent mentions of this trip in the Lives, see Vasari 1923–40, 2:226–27, 234, 235, 237. 68.  Otherwise, as Hope 2004, 69, notes, it would be hard to explain why Vasari added in the third volume information gathered during this trip on artists already treated in the second. 69.  See, for example, two letters from Vasari in Florence to Leonardo Buonarroti in Rome, November 30 and December 7, 1566, Vasari 1923–40, 2:282, 283. See also n. 90 below. 70. Borghini suggested to Vasari literary sources to fill in information on medieval artists, the most lacunose and imprecise sections of the book: Petrarch for the biography of Giotto (which contains the famous reference to Laura’s portrait) and Boccaccio and Sacchetti

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for Buffalmacco (two cases related to Borghini’s editorial work on the Florentine novelle, which culminated in his famous revision of the Decameron published in 1573). Borghini also provided excerpts from historical works to be included in the Lives, such as one from Paolo Diacono’s Historia Langobardorum (ca. 750) found by Scoti Bertinelli. On Borghini’s collaboration in the Lives, see Scoti Bertinelli 1905 esp. 79–87; Brizio 1952, 86–87; Williams 1985, 1988; and below in the chapter. 71. On information Bartoli, named Cosimo’s agent in Venice in June 1562, sent to Vasari in Florence, see n. 58 above. For Bartoli’s contacts with artists in Venice, see Olivato Puppi 1983. Del Vita, in Vasari 1938b, 317, n. 1, recognizes Bartoli’s hand in a sheet of Vasari’s Zibaldone (317–19), containing a series of epitaphs (attribution contested by Charles Davis, in Corti and Davis 1981, 219–20). On Bartoli’s collaboration in the Lives, one should also consider how sources would stream into the book. For example, Schlosser 1977, 295, and Rubin 1995, 115–16, 195, noted that Vasari extracted information after Bartoli’s copy of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Commentarii, without considering the possibility that Bartoli himself could have written the sections of the Lives where we find this information. The same consideration applies to Ragghianti’s observation in Vasari 1942–49, 1:45 on the affinity between Borghini’s letter containing a description of Bandinelli’s altar in Santa Maria del Fiore and the description of the same altar in the Lives. On Bartoli and the Lives, see also chapter 2. 72.  Medici’s collaboration in the Lives is acknowledged twice in the Giuntina: Vasari, 1966–87, 3:367, 4:599. See also 5:370, 375, for Medici as an amateur architect and friend of Michele Sanmicheli; and 4:577–78, as a friend of Francesco Torbido. Medici’s contribution to the edition is confirmed by two autograph letters: the first to Jacopo Guidi, sent before February 21, 1563, in Palli d’Addario 1985, 388– 89, from which we learn that Vasari had asked Medici, through the mediation of Guidi, to emend the Torrentiniana; and the second to Onofrio Panvinio, dated September 7, 1564, in Williams 1988, 258– 61, 299–301, in which the Dominican asked Panvinio, then resident in Rome, for information on the Veronese architect Fra’ Giocondo. On Medici’s contribution to the Lives, see also Corti and Davis 1981, 230–31 (essay by C. Davis). On Medici, see Peretti 2008, esp. 50– 51; Plebani 2008, who published five letters from Medici to Timoteo Bottonio. 73. Ruffini 2009, 761. 74.  Already Giuseppe Campori 1871, 152, attributed to Cataneo the precise and exhaustive description of the funerary monument for Giano II Fregoso in Sant’Anastasia at Verona. On Cataneo’s contribu-

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tion to the Lives, see also Corti and Davis 1981, 230–31 (essay by C. Davis). 75. Vasari 1966–87, 4:428. See also Schlosser 1977, 298; Bergamini 1973, 101, who suggested that Grassi sent this information via Bartoli. 76. Vasari 1923–40, 1:686–7; Kallab 1908, 105; Rubin 1995, 216– 18. Vasari in Florence solicited Caccini in Pisa, August 20, 1563, Vasari 1923–40, 3:52, to ask Davide Mosca for a portrait of his father, the sculptor Simone. In a letter from Venice to Vasari in Florence, August 19, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:107, Bartoli mentioned Paolo Veronese as a possible source for the Lives. On this letter, see Rubin 1995, 218. In Vasari’s Zibaldone (1938b, 128–30) we also find information provided by an anonymous correspondent on the decoration of the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie outside Arezzo inserted in the Giuntina (Vasari 1966–87, 3:265). 77.  Corti and Davis 1981, 234 (essays by C. Davis, J. Kliemann); Rubin 1995, 217. 78.  However, as Bacchi 2001, 11–14, notes, we cannot be sure of the authenticity of the letter, which is known only through an eighteenth-century copy. 79.  Lampson in Liège to Vasari in Florence, April 25, 1565, Vasari 1923–40, 2:158–67; Vasari 1938b, 209–24. 80. Schlosser 1977, 300. See also Ragghianti in Vasari 1942–49, 1:19. For Prospero Fontana on Perino, see Rubin 1995, 122. 81.  C. Davis, in Corti and Davis 1981, 234–35, also attributed to Francesco Sansovino the Florentine manuscript (Florence, Biblioteca della Galleria degli Uffizi, ms. 60, misc., I, ins. 23), which must have been used as the basis for the biography. On Sansovino’s biography, see also Williams 1988, 261–65, appendix n. 14. 82. Hope 2007, 40, suggests the name of the literate artist Giovanni Maria Verdizzotti. 83. See the following letters dated 1564: Vasari in Florence to Leonardo Buonarroti in Rome, March 4, Vasari 1923–40, 2:29; Vasari in Florence to Leonardo Buonarroti in Rome, March 10, 2:49; Vasari in Florence to Leonardo Buonarroti in Rome, March 18, 2:60; anonymous (Antonio del Francese?) in Rome to Vasari (?) in Florence, dated by Karl Frey to March 18 or 24/25, 2:64–65; Vasari in Arezzo to Leonardo Buonarroti in Rome, March 26, 2:66; Vasari in Florence to Leonardo Buonarroti in Rome, April 22, 2:77; Daniele da Volterra in Rome to Leonardo Buonarroti in Florence, June 2, 2:84. 84. Varchi 1564, 2008 [1564]. 85.  Borghini wrote to Vasari on January 28, 1567, Vasari 1923–

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40, 2:292: “I read the biography or discorso of Bronzino’s works to his [pupil] Alessandro [Allori], who claims not to be able to add much; he said that we should ask Bronzino himself. It is up to you whether or not to send it to him [Bronzino], but think carefully about it” (my translation). 86. Vasari 1966–87, 5:21–22, my translation. 87. Ibid., 6:170; Vasari 1996, 2:798. 88. Vasari 1966–87, 6:224–25, 1996, 2:863. On the treatment of Calcar in the Lives, see also Borea 1990, 32, 2009, 1:141–49. 89. Borghini 1912, 66–67. The episode is fully explained (154–63). On Cini, see Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 25:608–12 (M. Feo). On the episode, see also chapter 5. 90. Cini’s continuous revisions and procrastinations exasperated the Giunti enough to cause Borghini’s intervention. See Borghini 1912, 67–68. 91.  Pietro Vettori, the author of Michelangelo’s epitaph for the exequies, who openly accused Borghini of having arbitrarily changed the Latin inscriptions he composed for the decoration of the marriage of Francesco I (Vasari 1923–40, 2:288), clearly cannot be compared to Cini. 92.  Wittkower and Wittkower 1964, 31–35. On Borghini’s authorship of “extensive writings of decorative programs,” see also the 1580 record by Bastiano Ambrogi, a writer once in Borghini’s service, in Corti and Davis 1981, 172–73 (essay by M. Daly Davis). 93. On Giovambattista Adriani, see Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 1:308–9 (G. Miccoli). 94. Occasionally Borghini also supervised the formal quality of the book at the Giunti press. For example, in March 1564 he established which frame to use for the woodcut portraits and scrutinized their quality (Borghini 1912, 6). In August 1564 he rejected the portrait of Nicola Pisano for its anachronistic character (101). On Borghini’s collaboration to the Lives, see also n. 70 above. 95.  I thank Claudia Conforti for this observation. 96. Vasari 1923–40, 2:265, my translation. As Giovanni Previtali has noted, in Vasari 1962–66, 8:195, the autobiography follows the same chronological sequence Vasari traced in the Ricordanze. Gerarda Stimato 2005 also pointed out the interdependence between the two texts. 97. Vasari 1923–40, 2:351, my translation. On Borghini’s direct intervention on biographies, see the letter concerning an unspecified biography, Borghini in Tomerello to Vasari in Florence, October 3, 1567, Vasari 1923–40, 2:355, in which Borghini writes, “The begin-

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ning of that life is here with me and I intend to send it as soon I can, if I will be able to write” (my translation). 98.  Borghini in Poppiano to Vasari in Florence, August 14, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:102; Rubin 1995, 192 (with minor variations). The words “purpose” and “works” are capitalized in the original letter. 99.  See, for example, the biographies of Vittore Carpaccio in the Torrentiniana and that of Leone Leoni in the Giuntina. One could argue that these impressive catalogues of artists’ names weaken the biographical framework, though they reinforce the notion of individual artistic authorship in the Lives. This proliferation of names, however, is the effect of an inclusion of a much greater number of descriptions of works of art. See, for example, the inclusion in the biography of Leoni of the description of the series of twelve medals (there were actually thirteen) commemorating achievements of Cosimo I designed by Borghini and cast by Pietro Paolo Galeotti. On these medals, see Scorza 1988; Belloni and Drusi 2002, 72–77. 100. Vasari 1923–40, 2:101–2, my translation. 101.  Vasari’s correspondents from Rome on Michelangelo’s last activity, Daniele da Volterra and other Roman artists close to Michelangelo, offered precisely the kind of information Borghini is censoring. (Twice Vasari wrote Leonardo Buonarroti, who served as mediator, that he needed from them information on the work of St. Peter’s and not biographical anecdotes.) On this correspondence, see n. 83 above. 102. Vasari 1966–87, 6:220–21. 103. Ibid., 2:118–19. 104. Ibid., 2:119; Vasari 1996, 1:115. 105. Vasari 1966–87, 5:425, 1996, 2:464. 106.  Clearly the compilation of the indexes for the last volume got muddled due to lack of time and mistakes in the pagination. Bettarini argues, in Vasari 1966–87, 1: xxvi, and 6:417, that the compiler was working on an exemplar corrected by hand. One should wonder, however, what the utility of such an index would be (even more if one considers that the pagination gap varies, as the same Bettarini notes [1: xxvii], from thirty to twenty-seven and to twenty-nine). For Borghini and Miniato Pitti’s compilation of the indexes of the first volume, see Vasari’s letter from Florence to Borghini in Gli Alberi (?), August 20, 1565, Vasari 1923–40, 2:204. 107. Vasari 1923–40, 2:98. See also 89–90. 108. Vasari 1966–87, 5:422–24. 109. Vasari 1923–40, 2:239–40. The short length of Vasari’s stay in Venice is stated by Bartoli in a letter to Cosimo I, May 25, 1566, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, f. 2978, c. 61r, cited in Olivato Puppi

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1983, 739. On the addition of information to Titian’s biography, see Hope 2007, 39–40. 110.  The newly elected Medici pope Pius IV summoned Vasari to Rome in December 1566. See the letter from Guglielmo Sangalletti, treasurer of Pope Pius V, in Rome to Vasari in Florence, December 2, 1566, Vasari 1923–40, 2:283–84. On this trip, see Vasari’s correspondence, Vasari 1923–40, 2:293–331, passim; Kallab 1908, 122. On the correspondence between Sangalletti and Vasari, see also n. 37 in chapter 4. On Vasari and the Roman patronage of Pius V, see Giulia Aurigemma’s Torre Pia in Vaticano, forthcoming in Roemisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana. 111.  On prints as sources for the Lives, see Wood 1988, and, more extensively, Borea 1990. 112. Shearman 1998, 13–15, in particular, highlighted this aspect of the Lives. 113. Vasari 1966–87, 3:35. Carlo Cesare Malvasia 1678, 19, and Gianfrancesco De’ Giudici, the author of the critical apparatus to the Livornese edition by Coltellini (Vasari 1767–72, 4:18–19), were puzzled by the elimination of the biography of Galasso in the Giuntina. 114. Vasari 1966–87, 5:431–32, 1996, 2:472. On the revision of passages on Bramantino, and the consequent correction of those pertaining Bramante in the Giuntina, see Mattioda and Pozzi 2006, 20–21. 115.  On their famous rivalry in the Lives, see Rubin 1995, 175–77. 116. Vasari 1846–70, 13:116. See also Gaetano Milanesi’s edition, Vasari 1878–85, 7:541, n. 2. 117. Vasari 1846–70, 13:159–201. 118. Vasari 1832–49, 6:199; Barocchi 1962, 1186. 119. Vasari 1878–85, 8:519.

4. describing art 1. Baxandall 1985, 1. 2.  My reading contrasts with the following statements in Alpers 1960, 191, 201: “Whether at the beginning of art with Giotto or toward the end with Raphael, the descriptions are alike”; and “Ekphrasis is not used by Vasari as a critical tool.” Alpers interpreted what I refer to as the diegetic mode as a degeneration of the description, in her words a “grotesque exaggeration of ekphrasis” (203). On the coexistence in the Lives of contrasting artistic views, see Waźbiński 1976; Ferrari 2001. 3. Simmel 1985, 114, my translation. “Michelangelo’s plastic lan-

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guage,” Matteo Marangoni wrote, “is not a symbol of Michelangelo’s soul, but his whole soul and very art” (1943, 57, my translation). 4.  My definition of mimetic description as developed in this chapter is indebted to Alpers 1960. 5.  “It is enough for us to perceive that the intention of this extraordinary man has been to refuse to paint anything but the human body in its best proportioned and most perfect form and in the greatest variety of attitudes, and not only this, but likewise the play of the passions and contentments of the soul” (Vasari 1966–87, 6:69, 1996, 2:691). “Any art expert,” the description continues, “sees in those figures such thoughts and passions as were never painted by any other but Michelangelo” (Vasari 1966–87, 6:74 [T and G], 1996, 2:694). 6.  For both quotations, see Vasari 1966–87, 6:73 (T and G), 1996, 2:694. 7.  The trumpets played by the seven angels “as they sound the call to judgment, cause the hair of all who behold them to stand on end at the terrible wrath their countenances reveal” (Vasari 1966–87, 6:72 [T and G], 1996, 2:693). 8.  Invoking qualities for which Michelangelo is still championed, the description emphatically claims that no words can account for the overwhelming overall effect: “And, of a truth, the terrible force and grandeur of the work, with the multitude of figures, are such that it is not possible to describe it” (Vasari 1966–87, 6:73 [T and G], 1996, 2:694). 9. Schlosser 1977, 327, considered the spiritual unity between the artist and his/her work in the Lives as the expression, in a mythological form, of a principle that he considered still valid in art theory and criticism. On the rhetorical function of these correspondences and their fortune in art history, see Barolsky 1998. 10. Vasari 1966–87, 6:74 (T and G), 1996, 2:694. 11. Vasari 1966–87, 6:74 (T and G), 1996, 2:694–95. 12. Vasari 1966–87, 6:73 (T and G), 1996, 2:694. 13. See the main studies: Panofsky 1968; Kris and Kurz 1979; Kemp 1977. Giovanni Villani, in his Nuova Cronica (1300–48), may have been the first to apply to the arts a metaphorical language based on the idea of divine creativity. On this early example, see Schlosser 1977, 107. On the divinity of Michelangelo’s art as a reading key of Cinquecento naturalism, see S. J. Campbell 2002. 14. Vasari 1966–87, 6:28–29 (T and G), 1996, 2:661. 15. Vasari 1966–87, 6:29 (T and G), 1996, 2:661. 16.  Deuter. 34:5. See Barocchi 1962, 367. In his famous analysis of the statue, Sigmund Freud 1900–1953, 11:213, does not mention

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Vasari, although Freud’s self-identification with the repented Hebrews who flocked to the church to adore the statue is clearly triggered by the description of the statue in the Lives: “I have crept cautiously out of the half-gloom of the interior as though I myself belonged to the mob upon whom his eye is turned—the mob which can hold fast no conviction, which has neither faith nor patience, and which rejoices when it has regained its illusory idols.” On the Moses in Freud and Vasari, see Bergstein 2006, 158–61. More generally, on Freud’s analysis of the statue, see Trincia 2000. 17. On the semantic relation between “style” and “stylus,” see Sauerländer 1983; Ginzburg 1998. This power of the artist to effect a quasi-divine mimesis is a topos of Michelangelo’s biography. The description of the figures in the lower register of the Last Judgment invokes Dante’s famous verse, “Morti parean li morti et vivi i vivi” (The dead look dead, the living alive; Vasari 1966–87, 6:70–71 [T and G]), and thus emphasizes the naturalism of the figures, even as it recalls the divine power of the artist to define and defy the boundary between death and life. Figures that in Dante’s poem were made by God now issue from Michelangelo’s hands. In the same way the sculpting of David from the block of marble previously damaged by the work of Agostino di Duccio (Simone da Fiesole, according to the Lives) is described as a miraculous resurrection: “Truly it was a miracle on the part of Michelangelo to restore to life a thing that was dead” (Vasari 1966–87, 6:20 [T and G], 1996, 2:654). The sculpting of Christ in the Roman Pietà inspires the author of the biography to write, “It is certainly a miracle that a stone without any shape at the beginning should ever have been reduced to such perfection as Nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh” (Vasari 1966–87, 6:17 [T and G], 1996, 2:652). In the same description the reference to the body of Christ as a “divine body” is replaced in the second edition by the description of its anatomical qualities (“details in the muscles, veins, and nerves over the framework of the bones”; Vasari 1966–87, 6:16, 1996, 2:652), a change that further highlights the connection between naturalistic and transcendental values in the description of Michelangelo’s art. 18.  “Having perceived the infinite vanity of all those labours, the ardent studies without any fruit, and the presumptuous self-sufficiency of men, which is even further removed from truth than is darkness from light, and desiring to deliver us from such great errors, [God] became minded to send down to earth a spirit with universal ability in every art and every profession, who might be able, working by himself alone, to show what manner of thing is the perfection of the art” (Vasari 1966–87, 6:3, 1996, 2:642).

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19. Vasari 1966–87, 6:74 (T and G), 1996, 2:695. 20. Vasari 1966–87, 6:75. The fresco was instead revealed on October 31, 1541. See Barocchi 1962, 1406; Cohen 1998. 21.  On this art historical tradition, see the still fundamental Gombrich 1960a. 22. Vasari 1966–87, 6:401–2. Vasari amplified the importance of the decoration and compared it to similar enterprises in a letter to the duke, Vasari 1923–40, 1:722–23: “A work that will surpass any other ever made by mortals because of its grandeur and magnificence, whether it be the decoration in stone, the bronze statues, the marbles, the fountains, or the inventions and stories of the paintings . . . since all these inventions were born—all, I say— from your [Cosimo I’s] exalted conceits, [the hall,] together with the richness of its material, will surpass all the halls made by the Venetian Senate and all the kings and emperors and popes that ever were because, even if they had had the money, none of them had in their palaces either a masonry fabric so grand and so magnificent or the indomitable spirit to know how to begin an enterprise so awesome and of such importance” (Partridge and Starn 1992, 188). On the Sala Grande, see Barocchi 1964, 53–62; Partridge and Starn 1992, 151–256, 267–304; van Veen 2006, 54–80. On the iconographic program and preparatory drawings, see Allegri and Cecchi 1980, 231–73; Barocchi 1963, 38, 61–63; Pillsbury 1976; Corti and Davis 1981, 168–71 (essays by A. Cecchi, A. Petrioli Tofani, M. Daly Davis). 23. Alberti 1991, 71, 93. On the relevance of historia in art and art literature, see Alpers 1976. 24.  On this change, see van Veen 1992, 2006, 66–67. 25. “And although some of my young disciples worked with me there, they sometimes gave me assistance and sometimes not, for the reason that at times I was obliged, as they know, to repaint everything with my own hand and go over the whole picture again, to the end that all might be in one and the same manner” (Vasari 1966–87, 6:402, 1996, 2:1058). 26.  See Barocchi 1964, 57–62; Allegri and Cecchi 1980, 236–37, 248, 261–63. 27. Vasari 1938a, 95. 28. Vasari 1966–87, 6:401, 1996, 2:1057. 29. Vasari 1966–87, 6:401–2; Partridge and Starn 1992, 210–11. 30. Vasari 1966–87, 6:402, 1996, 2:1058. 31. Venturi 1931, 12, my translation. 32. Alberti 1991, 93, first clarified the relative value of the nude in

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painting: “We should take care to learn to paint well, as far as our talent allows, not only the human figure but also the horse, the dog and other living creatures, and every other object worthy to be seen. In this way, variety and abundance, without which no historia merits praise, will not be lacking in our works.” Alberti 1991, 75, also claimed variety as a fundamental quality in history painting: “The first thing that gives pleasure in a ‘historia’ is a plentiful variety. . . So in painting, varieties of bodies and colours is pleasing. I would say a picture was richly varied if it contained a properly arranged mixture of old men, youths, boys, matrons, maidens, children, domestic animals, dogs, birds, horses, sheep, buildings, and provinces.” 33.  These two descriptive modes referred to as the mimetic and the diegetic are not unique to the Lives, nor are they as distinct from one another as the examples cited may suggest. Dante’s visibile parlare is one of the earliest early modern instances of the description of works of art as mimetic. Yet Dante’s notion of a speaking picture is primarily didactic and moralizing. In other instances diegetic descriptions occur in a cultural context dominated by a mimetic conception of art and by the cult of the figure of the artist. Indeed this is the Renaissance legacy of classical ekphrasis and as such applies also to the making of art. On the basis of Homer’s description—the archetype of the description of the Sala Grande—Raphael painted Achilles’ shield on the vault of the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican Palace, with the intention of competing with the best artists of the past. The translation into painting of Lucian’s ekphrasis of Apelles’ Calumny, made even more famous by Alberti’s account in his De pictura (1972, 3:52), by Renaissance painters such as Mantegna, Botticelli, Dürer, and Peruzzi occurred within the same cultural context and motivated by a similar competitive orientation. On ekphrasis in Alberti’s De pictura, see Cieri Via 2007. 34.  We find this latter principle in the Giuntina (Vasari 1966–87, 5:464), in a passage critical of Battista Franco’s narrow interpretation of Michelangelo’s style. 35.  This does not mean, however, that diegetic descriptions do not produce an emotional response in the viewer. For example, when Aeneas looks at the decoration of the temple of Juno (Aeneid, I, 441–97), a work described by Virgil following the Homeric model, he is moved to tears after recognizing the story as a possible representation of his own life and tribulations. In the same way when Vasari underlines the figurative unity of the Sala Grande in the Giuntina, or the “miraculous integrity” of the whole decoration of Palazzo Vecchio in the Ragionamenti, he implies the fact that the same decoration can be

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perceived as such after having understood its historical and allegorical significance. 36. Vasari 1966–87, 6:38, 1996, 2:669. On the relation between figure and frame in the Sistine Chapel, and its connection to Michelangelo’s architectural ideas, see Brothers 2009; and later in this chapter. 37. Vasari 1568a. The description was also the subject of a letter from Vasari in Florence to Sangalletti in Rome, February 28, 1568, Vasari 1923–40, 2:368–77. See also Sangalletti’s reply from Rome to Vasari in Florence, March 13, 1568, Vasari 1923–40, 2:379. For the dating of the booklet, see C. Davis in Corti and Davis 1981, 203–4; Vasari 2008, 37, n. 57. 38. Vasari 1588. For references to the dialogue in the Lives, see Vasari 1966–87, 6:400, 402. Domenico Mellini 1566, 125, cited in Corti and Davis 1981, 211 (essay by P. Tinagli Baxter), also mentions the Ragionamenti as forthcoming in his Description of the Entry of Joanna of Austria. On the Ragionamenti, see chapter 1, n. 68; Passignat 2007. 39.  Michelangelo had already realized two clay models, now lost, one two weeks after his nomination as chief architect of the Fabbrica in late 1546 and a second in 1557. He also realized two earlier wooden models. One, realized in 1546–47, was probably used for the engraving published by Vincenzo Luchinon (1564) included in the Speculum Romanae magnificentiae and, along with other sources, for the painting by Domenico Passignano in the Casa Buonarroti (see chapter 1). On this model, see Saalman 1975, 382–86, 396–97, 405. The second, now at the Fabbrica di San Pietro, representing the apse, was executed in 1556–67 and inserted in the preexisting model by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. On these models, see Millon and Smyth 1988, 19– 74, 93–187; Millon and Lampugnani 1994, 665–66; Brodini 2009, 173, 175. Of the vast bibliography on Michelangelo and St. Peter’s, see Wittkower 1964; Thoenes 1997, 2006; Bruschi 1997; Benedetti 2000; Bredekamp 2005. 40. See Vasari’s letter from Rome to Cosimo I in Pisa, April 9, 1560, Vasari 1923–40, 1:559, cited in Bellini 2008, 178. On the correspondence between Vasari and Michelangelo regarding St. Peter’s, see Beltrami 1929. On Vasari’s 1567 sojourn in Rome, see chapter 3, n. 110. 41. Vasari 1966–87, 6:98, my translation. I thank Charles Hope, who pointed out this passage to me. This description finds an important precedent in Antonio Manetti’s 1970, 70–77, account of Brunelleschi’s dome, based on the lengthy quotation of a technical document (supposedly a copy of an original document by Brunelle-

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schi owned by the Opera del Duomo) and paraphrased in the biography of the architect in the Lives (Vasari 1966–87, 3:160–62 [T and G]). 42. Vasari 1923–40, 2:66,77. See also chapter 3, n. 83. 43. Vasari 1966–87, 6:96–97, 1996, 2:721–22 (with minor revisions). 44. Vasari 1966–87, 6:98–99, 1996, 2:724. 45. Vasari 1966–87, 6:96, 1996, 2:721. 46.  “For that work [St. Peter’s] Michelangelo for seventeen years attended constantly to noting but establishing it securely with directions, doubting on account of those envious persecutions lest it might come to be changed after his death; so that at the present day it is strong enough to allow the vaulting to be raised with perfect security. Thus it has been seen that God, who is the protector of the good, defended him as long as he lived, and worked for the benefit of the fabric and for the defense of the master until his death” (Vasari 1966–87, 6:106, Vasari 1996, 2:733). 47. Vasari 1966–87, 6:95, 1996, 2:719 (with minor variations). 48. Vasari 1966–87, 6:95, 1996, 2:720, (with minor variations). 49. On the controversial use of travertine at St. Peter’s, see, for example, the anonymous letter (as Frey suggests, by Michele degli Alberti or Antonio del Francese) from Rome to Vasari in Florence dated March 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:64–65. 50. Barocchi 1971–77, 1:662–68. On Borghini and Vasari’s conversations on the Selva di notizie, see Vasari 1923–40, 2:101. On Vasari’s informants, see chapter 3, n. 83. The influence of Alberti’s architectural theory is crucial to this point. See especially Trachtenberg 2005, 125–26. 51. Burns 1995. 52.  On this visual documentation (Mussolin 2009, 298–99, 302– 3), see Zanchettin 2009, 180. On the status of the work at the time of Michelangelo’s death, see Ackerman 1986, 264. 53. Regarding the phases of the troubled construction of the church, for sure, works were also interrupted for a few months between the papacies of Paul III and Julius III (1549–50). More problematic, as Zanchettin 2009, 185–86, argued, is the supposed temporary suspension under the papacy of Paul IV. 54.  Note, however, that the legitimization of Michelangelo as the primo autore is not consistent in the Lives. In the biography of Bramante, Michelangelo is said to have considered himself the mere executor of Bramante’s project (Vasari 1966–87, 4:83): “Finally Michelangelo Buonarroti, sweeping away the countless opinions and superfluous expenses, has brought it to

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such beauty and perfection as no one of those others ever thought of, which all comes from his judgment and power of design; although he said to me several times that he was only the executor of the designs and arrangements of Bramante, seeing that he who originally lays the foundations of a great edifice is its true author” (Vasari 1996, 1:667, with minor variations). This passage resonates with Michelangelo’s letter of spring 1547, cited in Saalman 1975, 389. On Michelangelo’s consideration of his own work as an execution of Bramante’s original plan, see also Thoenes 2006, 64. On Michelangelo and Bramante, see Robertson 1986. Note also the contrast between the interpretation of Michelangelo’s architecture, as given by the narrative of St. Peter’s in the Lives, and the idea, also expressed in the Lives, already in the Torrentiniana (Vasari 1966–87, 6:54–55), that Michelangelo’s architecture breaks “reason and rules.” 55.  On Michelangelo’s architectural practice, see Ackerman 1986; Saalman 1975, esp. 401; Nova 1984; Maurer 2004; Brothers 2008. 56. Hirst 1974. Discussed in Millon and Smyth 1988, 142–47; Burns 1995, 120–23. 57.  See Saalman 1975, esp. 404; Maurer 2004, 126–30; Zanchettin 2009, 187–89. 58. Thoenes 2009, 26–28, detected this technique in both the New Sacristy and St. Peter’s drum. For St. Peter’s, see also Zanchettin 2009, 188. 59.  Subsequently, according to Saalman 1975, 404, Michelangelo considered the alternative of the hemispheric dome only for the inner shell (traced free hand on the sheet). 60.  On the completion of St. Peter’s after Michelangelo, see Wittkower 1952, 390–437; Orazi 1997. 61. Benedetti 2000, 86. On Michelangelo’s sculptural conception of architecture, see also Ackerman 1986, esp. 37-52; Argan and Contardi 1990, 273–84.

5. art as language 1. Borghini, On Language, cited in Pozzi 1975, 102, n. 17, my translation. 2. Bembo, Prose della vulgar lingua, cited in Migliorini 1994, 310. 3. The most systematic codification of the literary nature of humanist Latin is Julius Caesar Scaliger’s De causis linguae Latinae (1540). On the debate between vulgar and Latin, see the still fundamental Kristeller 1956, 473–93. 4. On the linguistic and cultural context here summarized, see

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Bruni 1969, esp. 53–68; Nencioni 1983a, 1983b; Migliorini 1994; Sherberg 2003; Moyer 2006. 5.  On Gelli, see De Gaetano 1967. On Gelli’s implicit critique of Giambullari’s treatise, see Marazzini 1993, 163–66. Note, however, that the major point of Gelli’s treatise is a distinction between institutional and individual agencies in the shaping of normative standards for languages. According to Gelli, whereas the former confers on language an absolute and transhistorical character, the latter can only be relative and historical. On the basis of this distinction, in my view, Gelli considered acceptable linguistic rules defined by individuals, as in the case of Giambullari, but not by institutions, as the Florentine academy. 6. Varchi 1564, 44, 2008 [1564], 44. Caro’s sonnet manifesto, Venite all’ombra de’ gran gigli d’oro, triggered the most intense phase of the debate exposing his work to the literary castigation of the Modenese Lodovico Castelvetro. On the controversy, see Capasso 1897. On its influence on Varchi’s Hercolano, see Bruni 1969, 69–96. 7. Caro 1957–61, 1:549. On Caro’s autograph, slightly different from the printed version of the letter, see Corti and Davis 1981, 215– 16 (essay by C. Davis). According to Wilde 1978, 9–12, and Hirst 1997, 72–73, Caro was the main reviser of Condivi’s biography of Michelangelo. 8. Vasari 1923–40, 1:267. 9.  In the De re aedificatoria Alberti created new words inspired by familiar objects and their contemporary usage to overcome the limitations of classical Latin for the technical treatment of architecture. He wrote, “I desire to make my language Latin, and as clear as possible, so as to be easily understood. Words must therefore be invented, when those in the current use are inadequate; it will be best to draw them from familiar things. We Tuscans call a fillet the narrow band with which maidens bind and dress their hair; and so, if we may, le us call ‘fillet’ the plat band that encircles the end of the column like a hoop. But the ring positioned at the top next to the fillet, which binds the top of the shaft like a twisted cord, let us call ‘collar’” (1988, 186). On this fundamental linguistic issue, see also Borghini’s autograph note (1971, 113). 10. Vasari 1966–87, 1:29 (T and G), 1996, 1:25. 11. Vasari 1966–87, 6:412–13 (T and G), my translation. Also in Vasari 1923–40, 2:365. A further reference to Vasari’s modest linguistic means is in the dedicatory letter to Julius III included in a few exemplars of the Torrentiniana—such as that of the Vatican Library (Riserva IV.5)—before the third part of the book. 12.  On Vasari as a writer, see chapter 3, n. 48.

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13. Isolated attempts to connect the Lives to the questione della lingua are in Williams 1988; Payne 2001, 71–76; Ginzburg 2007. More broadly, on the connection between language and contemporary artistic practice, see Nova 1994; Reilly 1999. 14. Frangenberg 2002, 254, attributes the passage to Bartoli. 15. Vasari 1966–87, 6:412 (only in T), my translation. On this passage, see also Bettarini, in Vasari 1966–87, 1: xi. 16. Ficino 1544, 6r. 17. Ficino 1544, 5r, my translation. 18. Fiorelli 1956. See also Serianni and Trifone 1993, 1:217–18. 19.  On the apograph, see Scapecchi 1998, 109–10. 20. On this attribution, see Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 6:562 (N. De Blasi); Bryce 1983, 215–17, who eventually refuses it. It is worth noting that Borghini himself ignored the editor’s identity, as in a letter he wrote to Baccio Valori dated January 21, 1578, Belloni 1998, 185. 21.  Dortelata makes it clear in the last page of Giambullari’s De ‘l sito, forma, et misure, dello Inferno di Dante: “Dearest friends, here it is another of those works, which we promised you not very long ago, accompanied by our observations for learning the Florentine pronunciation” (Giambullari 1544, liv, my translation). 22.  The same can be said of Bartoli’s translation, from Latin into the contemporary Florentine language, of Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria, another major art book, published in tandem with the two editions of the Lives and in the same format (Alberti 1550, 1565a, 1565b). 23.  Dominique Lampson from Liège to Vasari in Florence, October 30, 1564, Vasari 1923–40, 2:114–15, 1996, 2:866–67. Vasari inserted an abstract of the letter in the Lives, in Vasari 1966–87, 6:228– 29. For a second letter from Lampson to Vasari, see Puraye 1950, 84–89, cited in Chastel 1988, 29, n. 9. On Lampson’s linguistic skills, see also Lambert Lombard’s letter from Liège to Vasari in Florence, April 27, 1565, Vasari 1923–40, 2:164: “He [Lampson] speaks and writes in the Tuscan language as if he had been in Italy for his entire life” (“El toscano parla et scrive, che pare habbia pratticato l’Italia tutta la vita sua”). On the epistolary exchange between Vasari, Lampson, and Lombard, see Del Vita 1938, 209–24; Mattioda and Pozzi 2006, 9–12. 24. Borghini 1912, 64, my translation. The episode is made clear by Cini in the same letter: “When I spoke about this with Messer Giorgio, I understood that his intention was to say that he included

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this description as the work of his friend, and therefore, planning to do so, it would have not been necessary to moderate that pompous Latin style Your Excellency is referring to” (63, my translation). 25. Borghini 1912, 64. 26. Ibid., 66. 27. Hope 2004, 74. 28. Vasari 1966–87, 6:255. 29. Borghini 1912, 62–64, my translation. This disagreement did not prevent Borghini from proposing Cini as a member of a new academic committee for the normalization of the Tuscan language in 1572. On this letter, see Borghini 1971, 5, n. 1, 9. 30. On Vasari’s desire to be referred to as an artist rather than a writer, see Vasari 1966–87, 1:3 (T and G), 6:410 (only in T). See also Vasari’s letter to Borghini, in Borghini 2001, 302, n. 53: “Regarding the title of the work [The Lives] . . . say Giorgio Vasari the painter from Arezzo, because I am not ashamed of it” (my translation). A few years before the publication of the Giuntina, two letters by Borghini (Vasari 1923–40, 1:758, 2:308–10) concerning the publication of Castelvetro’s treatises indicate that Vasari was informed on the main issues of the debate as well as Borghini’s position. On the first of these letters, see Bryce 1983, 229. On the relation between artists and literati, see Rossi 1998 (in relation to Cellini’s autobiography); Hope 2008; Spagnolo 2008. 31. Vasari 1791–93, 1: iv–v. Burattello and frullone are two mechanical components of the mill for the production of flour. The passage is directed against the Accademia della Crusca (Academy of the Bran), whose name, according to its redefinition by the purist Leonardo Salviati, referred to the institution’s function to depurate the language as millers do with bran, and whose symbol was a frullone. In praise of the linguistic quality of the Lives, “written with so much clarity,” see also Giuseppe Parini, in Versi e prose di G. Parini, Florence 1856, 445, cited by Pecchiai in Vasari 1928–30, 1: xviii. 32.  As Bettarini notes, in Vasari 1966–87, 1: xi, “All the variants between the theoretical introductions of G [Giuntina] and T [Torrentiniana] are dictated by a premeditated de-stylization, not a documentary concern” (my translation). Mattioda and Pozzi 2006, 17, also underlined the linguistic improvements in the Giuntina. 33.  See Borghini 1808, 1971; Woodhouse 2000; Pozzi 1975, 2005. For Borghini’s correspondence, see Borghini 1912, 2001; Belloni 1998; Belloni and Drusi 2002; Carrara 2009a. 34. Pozzi 1975, 102, n. 17; Borghini 1971, 137. 35.  Regarding Giambullari, Borghini claimed, that he had run the

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risk of “separating Florentine language from its nature . . . creating names that would have shocked a dog” (1971, 309, my translation). 36. On this issue, see Borghini’s letter in Belloni 1998, 135–41. More generally, on the prominence of spoken over written language in Varchi, see Bruni 1969, 69. 37.  See Borghini’s letter to Varchi dated May 9, 1563, in Belloni 1998, 135–41. On this letter, see Belloni and Drusi 2002, 341–44 (F. Pelle). On Borghini’s influence on Varchi, see 341–47; Sorella 2005. 38.  On linguistics and philology at the time of Cosimo I, see Nencioni 1983b, 701. For the similarities, also existing, between Borghini’s and Salviati’s approaches to language, see Woodhouse 1995. 39. Borghini 1971, 223. 40.  Cited in Pozzi 1975, 234, my translation. 41. Borghini 1971, 17, my translation. Borghini gave more importance to authors, Cicero especially, in his short treatise on imitation, De imitatione commentariolum, in Barocchi 1971–77, 1537–50. Significantly, even in this early writing, composed during his stay in Mantua around 1542, and explicitly dedicated to literature (not language), Borghini criticizes literary purism and advocates a philological approach to authors. 42. Lenzoni 1556, 15, my translation. On this passage, see also Payne 2001, 58–59. 43. Lenzoni 1556, 10, my translation. 44. Vasari 1966–87, 3:13–14 (T and G), 1996, 1:251. Also in Vasari 1923–40, 2:364–65. See also Vasari 1966–87, 6:410. 45.  Cited in Pozzi 1975, 193, my translation. 46. Panofsky 1955, 169–235. 47. Ibid., 208. A few pages later Panofsky reframes his argument: “The Vasarian conception . . . amounts—considered from our point of view—to a conflation of two antithetical principles not as yet recognized as antithetical: it combines a pragmatism that tries to explain every individual phenomenon as the effect of a cause and to view the whole process of history as a succession of phenomena, each of them ‘motivated’ by a preceding one, with a dogmatism that believes in an absolute and perfect ‘rule of art’ [perfetta regola dell’arte] and considers every individual phenomenon as a more or less successful attempt to comply with this rule. As a result of this conflation, Vasari’s historical construction was bound to be a teleology” (222). 48.  On this feature of the Lives and its classical sources, see also Gombrich 1960b. 49. Garin 1976, 266. Garin reached his conclusion considering—as this chapter also attempts to do—the connection between

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the Lives and the philosophy of history in the work of Giambullari, Bartoli, and Borghini (261–62). Kallab also noticed that Vasari’s historical vision was optimistically projected into the present (Schlosser 1977, 320). Differently from Garin, however, Kallab argued that Vasari’s faith in the present was rooted in the belief in an absolute individual progress. Ragghianti’s comparison between Vasari and Machiavelli, as significantly revised in Vasari 1971–78, 1:47, after its early formulation in Vasari 1942–49, 1:21, is also close to Garin’s interpretation. For the (also existing) conceptual affinities between the Lives and Machiavelli’s work, see Caleca 2004. After Garin, Williams 1988, 161–95, highlighted Vasari’s emphasis on the present in the Giuntina. On Panofsky’s interpretation of the Lives, see Anne-Marie Sankovitch’s 2001 critique, tangential to the one proposed in this chapter. On the issue of Vasari’s historicism, see also Payne 2001. 50. Vasari 1966–87, 1:176, my translation. 51. Vasari 1966–87, 6:48, 1996, 2:675. The conclusive exhortation “Thank Heaven, therefore, for this, and strive to imitate Michelangelo in everything” (also cited in chapter 1, n. 74) must be read, in my view, in relation to Michelangelo’s correct understanding of the relationship between art and nature, as Borghini put it, and not as an invitation to imitate the artist’s style in purist terms. 52. Borghini 1971, 203, my translation. 53.  I do not think, as Williams 1988 claims, that Borghini saw for the figurative arts a promising future no longer possible for language. The idea of a general decadence of language in modern times was more a concern for Salviati. Borghini was specifically preoccupied by the infiltration of extra-urban linguistic elements in the spoken Florentine and its artificial development on the basis of misused literary authorities. The same concern, as Bruni 1969, 97–98, notes, is in Gelli, Lenzoni, and Varchi. On Borghini and the decadent aspects of contemporary Tuscan language, see Woodhouse 1971. 54. Vasari 1966–87, 3:6–7 (T and G, with minor variations), my translation. Note also the contrast between this passage and the end of the preface (2:31 [T and G]). 55. Vasari 1966–87, 1:227 (only in G), my translation.

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inde x

Acidini Luchinat, Cristina, 163 Ackerman, James S., 188, 207–8 Adelson, Candace, 69, 184, 186 Adriani, Giovambattista, 89, 93, 159, 184, 199 Agosti, Barbara, 189–90 Agucchi, Giambattista, 6 Alberti, Leon Battista, 9–10, 30–31, 64–65, 83, 119, 168–69, 174, 178, 183, 192, 204–5, 207, 209–10 Alberti, Michele degli, 207 Alciati, Andrea, 30–31, 170 Alighieri, Dante, 9, 59, 137, 140, 152, 154, 203, 205 Allegri, Ettore, 204 Allori, Alessandro, 23, 39, 58–63, 70–71, 91, 138, 173, 175, 181– 82, 199 Almeni, Sforza, 39, 49, 51–53, 66, 70, 176–81, 186 Alpers, Svetlana, 201–2, 204 Altoviti, Bindo, 176 Ambrogi, Bastiano, 199 Ammannati, Bartolomeo, 23 Aretino, Niccolò, 99 Aretino, Pietro, 31, 112 Argan, Giulio Carlo, 169, 208 Ariosto, Ludovico, 90, 112, 148 Ascoli, Albert R., 9, 161, 172 Attavanti, Attavante, 195 Audin, Stefano, 192 Aurigemma, Giulia, 201 Bacchi, Andrea, 198

Bailey, G. A., 167 Baldinucci, Filippo, 72 Bandinelli, Baccio, 71, 162, 183, 186, 197 Barkan, Leonard, 183 Barnes, Bernadine, 174 Barocchi, Paola, 8, 161–63, 165, 168, 176, 180, 182, 185–86, 194, 201–2, 204 Barolsky, Paul, 8, 161, 189, 202 Baroni Vannucci, Alessandra, 184 Barthes, Roland, 161 Bartoli, Cosimo, 31, 51–53, 66, 82– 84, 89, 91–92, 137, 141, 146, 172–73, 178–79, 182, 184, 192, 194–95, 197–98, 200, 210, 213 Bartolomeo, Fra’, 187 Barzman, Karen-Edis, 10, 161–63, 174, 183 Bath, Michael, 169 Battista del Verrocchio, Tommaso di, 121 Baxandall, Michael, 104, 201 Beccafumi, Domenico, 90 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 184 Bellini, Federico, 206 Belloni, Gino, 183, 200, 210–12 Bellori, Giampietro, 6 Beltrami, Luca, 206 Bembo, Pietro, 139–41, 149, 151, 208 Benedetti, Sandro, 136, 206, 208 Benjamin, Walter, 170 Berenson, Bernard, 190 Bergamini, Giuseppe, 198

250 Bergstein, Mary, 203 Bertelli, Ferando, 66 Berti, Luciano, 47, 61, 163, 173, 175, 181 Bettarini, Rosanna, 88, 192, 195– 96, 200, 210–11 Bialostocki, Jan, 176 Biondo, Michelangelo, 80 Bisticci, Vespasiano da, 81, 191 Blum, Gerd, 191, 194 Boase, T. S. R., 9, 161, 189 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 80, 139–40, 152–53, 196 Bocchi, Francesco, 45, 174 Bolzoni, Lina, 169 Bombace, Gabriele, 90 Bonhomme, Mathias, 31 Borea, Evelina, 199, 201 Borghini, Raffaello, 58, 174, 180, 183–84 Borghini, Vincenzio, 2–7, 9–15, 18–19, 21–23, 27, 30–31, 34– 37, 53, 62, 64, 71, 73, 83–84, 87–90, 93–98, 101–2, 106, 115, 117, 121–22, 125, 133, 137–39, 141, 143, 147–53, 155–56, 158–59, 162–63, 166, 168–69, 179–81, 184, 188, 193–200, 207–13 Bottari, Giovanni, 72–73, 165, 187, 192 Botticelli, Sandro, 205 Botticello, Battista, 121 Bottonio, Timoteo, 80, 172, 190, 197 Bramante, Donato, 126, 134, 201, 207–8 Bramantino (Bartolomeo Suardi), 99, 201 Bredekamp, Horst, 206 Briganti, Giuliano, 180, 182 Brizio, Anna Maria, 192, 197 Brock, Maurice, 180 Brodini, Alessandro, 206 Bronzino, Agnolo, 23, 39–40, 44, 55–59, 61–63, 70–71, 90–91, 138, 173, 180, 199 Brothers, Cammy, 206, 208 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 206–7 Bruni, Bruno, 163

Index Bruni, Francesco, 179, 209, 212–13 Bruschi, Arnaldo, 206 Bryce, Judith, 178, 210–11 Buffalmacco, Buonamico, 196–97 Buglioni, Santi, 165 Buontalenti, Bernardo, 23, 32–33, 124, 171 Buonarroti (family), 19 Buonarroti, Filippo, 165 Buonarroti, Leonardo, 15–19, 21–22, 91, 163–66, 172, 196, 198, 200 Buonarroti, Michelangelo, 1–2, 4–6, 8–10,12–21, 23, 25–29, 32, 34–39, 46, 48, 55, 57–59, 61–63, 65, 71, 79, 87–88, 91, 93, 98, 102, 104–15, 117, 121, 123–36, 138–40, 142, 147, 152–59, 161–65, 167–75, 177, 180–83, 189–90, 192, 199– 203, 205–209, 213 Buonarroti, Michelangelo (the Younger), 24, 167 Buondelmonti, Lorenzo, 166, 176 Burckhardt, Jacob, 83 Burioni, Matteo, 9, 161 Burns, Howard, 133, 207–8 Burzer, Katja, 192 Butteri, Giovanni Maria, 23 Caccini, Giovanni, 90, 198 Caglioti, Francesco, 167, 195 Calamandrei, Piero, 168, 186 Calcagni, Tiberio, 164 Calcar, Jan Steven van, 91–92, 94, 199 Caleca, Antonino, 213 Camicia, Chimenti, 100 Camillo, Giulio, 179 Campagnola, Girolamo, 189 Campbell, Stephen J., 180, 202 Campbell, Thomas P., 184 Campori, Giuseppe, 197 Cantagalli, Roberto, 178 Capanna, Puccio, 97 Capasso, Domenico Achille, 209 Caravaggio, Polidoro da, 176–77 Caro, Annibal, 31, 78, 82, 141, 149, 177, 188–89, 209 Carpaccio, Vittore, 90, 200

Index Carpi, Girolamo da, 99 Carpo, Mario, 169 Carracci (Agostino, Annibale, Lodovico), 6 Carrara, Eliana, 162–63, 167, 169, 193, 211 Cartari, Vincenzo, 32 Casini, Matteo, 196 Cast, David, 8 Castagno, Andrea del, 100, 107–8, 111, 168 Castellani, Aldo, 179 Castelvetro, Lodovico, 149, 209, 211 Castravilla, Ridolfo, 155 Cataneo, Danese, 90, 197 Cato (The Elder), Marcus Porcius, 155 Cavalieri, Tommaso de’, 13 Cavalori, Mirabello, 167 Cecchi, Alessandro, 165, 170, 174– 75, 204 Cellini, Benvenuto, 12, 23, 37, 71, 162, 168, 172, 186, 211 Cennini, Cennino, 168 Chapman, Hugo, 162–63, 175 Chastel, André, 183, 210 Cheney, Liana, 177 Chittolini, Giorgio, 10, 161 Ciampelli, Agostino, 24 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 140, 155, 212 Cieri Via, Claudia, 205 Ciletti, Elena, 173, 175 Cimabue, 78. Cini, Giovambattista, 93–94, 147– 49, 199, 210–11 Clapp, Frederick Mortimer, 174 Clemens, Robert John, 169 Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici), 28, 44 Clement VIII (Ippolito Aldobrandini), 6 Clemente, Prospero, 90 Clifton, James, 184 Clovio, Giulio, 98, 100, 187–88 Coccapani, Sigismondo, 25 Cochrane, Eric, 10, 161 Cock, Hieronymus, 67 Cohen, Simona, 204

251 Colasanti, Arduino, 186 Cole, Michael Wayne, 162, 181 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 170 Collaert, Adriaen, 67 Collareta, Marco, 168–69, 184, 186 Concino, Bartolomeo, 162 Condivi, Ascanio, 62, 87–88, 112, 182, 194, 209 Conforti, Claudia, 9, 161–63, 169, 192, 199 Contardi, Bruno, 208 Contarini (family), 96 Conte, Floriana, 188 Corti, Laura, 170, 174, 195 Cosimo, Piero di, 107–8, 111 Costamagna, Philippe, 43, 46, 163, 173–75, 186 Cox-Rearick, Janet, 173–75 D’Agnolo, Baccio, 3, 95 Daly, Peter M., 169 Daly Davis, Margaret, 184, 187, 191, 199, 204 Damianaki, Chrysa, 175 Danti, Sabaoth, 66, 184 Danti, Vincenzo, 27, 181 Dardano, Maurizio, 192 Davidson, Bernice F., 184 Davis, Charles, 53, 66, 90, 163, 170, 176, 178–81, 184, 187, 189, 191–93, 197–98, 206, 209 De Blasi, Nicola, 178, 210 De Gaetano, Armand L., 209 De’ Giudici, Gianfrancesco, 201 De Man, Paul, 170 De Tolnay, Charles, 44, 163, 173 Del Bravo, Carlo, 175 Del Migliore, Ferdinando Leopoldo, 85 Del Regno, Mino, 100 Del Vita, Alessandro, 170, 197, 210 Della Porta, Giacomo, 126–27, 134, 136 Della Valle, Guglielmo, 149 Dempsey, Charles, 194 Di Sivo, Michele, 162 Diacono, Paolo, 197 Diaz, Furio, 10, 161 Dolce, Lodovico, 87 Domenichi, Lodovico, 191

252

Index

Donatello, 27 Donati, Federico, 14 Doni, Anton Francesco, 80, 112, 191, 195 Dortelata, Neri, 144–46, 210 Drusi, Riccardo, 183, 188, 200, 211–12 Duccio, Agostino di, 203 Dupérac, Etienne, 134 Dürer, Albrecht, 30, 205

Franco, Battista, 205 Frangenberg, Thomas, 9, 83, 143, 161, 192, 210 Fregoso, Giano II, 197 Freud, Sigmund, 202–3 Frey, Karl, 73, 189, 193, 198, 2007 Frey, Hermann-Walther, 73, 193 Furlan, Francesco, 169 Furnius, Peter, 67 Furno, Martine, 169

Eisenbichler, Konrad, 161 Elam, Caroline, 182–83 Este, Alfonso I d’, 190 Este, Ercole II d’, 177 Eustachio, Fra’, 80, 190

Gaier, Martin, 176 Galassi, Galasso, 99, 201 Galeotti, Pietro Paolo, 200 Gargiulo, Alfredo, 74, 188–89 Garin, Eugenio, 157, 212–13 Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi), 98–99 Gatti, Bernardino, 97 Gaurico, Pomponio, 79 Gelli, Giovambattista, 80–81, 85, 140–41, 151, 153, 190, 209, 213 Gestra, Sebastiano del, 173 Gherardi, Cristofano, 40, 52–53, 66–68, 133, 185 Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 80, 197 Ghirlandaio, Benedetto del, 101 Ghirlandaio, Davide del, 101 Ghirlandaio, Domenico del, 192 Ghirlandaio, Michele di Ridolfo del, 121 Ghirlandaio, Ridolfo del, 49, 101, 183 Giambullari, Pierfrancesco, 82–84, 137, 140–46, 151, 174, 191–94, 209–11, 213 Giannotti, Donato, 163 Ginzburg, Carlo, 203 Ginzburg, Silvia, 188–89, 191, 210 Giocondo, Fra’, 90, 197 Giorgio Martini, Francesco di, 30 Giotto, 97, 153–55, 194, 196, 201 Giovio, Giovambattista, 190 Giovio, Paolo, 31, 76, 78–79, 81– 82, 84, 95–96, 189–91, 195 Gini, Zanobi, 16 Giuliano (goldsmith), 90. Giunti (the Elder), Bernardo, 87 Giunti (Bernardo, Filippo, Jacopo), 87, 89, 166, 196, 199

Fabriczy, Cornel von, 190 Faenza, Matteo da, 121 Faetani, Gian Matteo, 82 Falciani, Carlo, 173, 175 Fanti, Mario, 194 Farnese, Alessandro, 76, 78 Fasano Guarini, Elena, 10, 161 Fei del Barbiere, Alessandro, 121 Feo, Michele, 199 Ferrari, Simone, 201 Ferretti, Emanuela, 180 Ferro, Margherita, 195 Ficino, Marsilio, 144, 146, 210 Fidelissimi, Gherardo, 14–15, 164 Fiesole, Mino da, 193 Fiesole, Simone da, 203 Fiorelli, Piero, 145–46, 210 Fiorentino, Rosso, 112 Firpo, Massimo, 44, 173–75 Flora, Francesco, 192 Fontana, Domenico, 126–27, 134, 136 Fontana, Prospero, 90, 121, 198 Foppa, Vincenzo, 90 Förster, Ernst, 102 Forster, Kurt, 174 Forti Grazzini, Nello, 186 Fossi, Mazzino, 179 Foucault, Michel, 74, 161, 188 Francesca, Piero della, 30, 65 Francese, Antonio del, 91, 172, 198, 207 Francia, Francesco, 81

Index Giunti, Bernardo, 87 Giunti, Jacopo, 18, 21 Goldstein, Carl, 163 Gombrich, Ernst H., 204, 212 Gonzaga, Francesco (Cardinal of Mantua) 70 Grassi, Giovambattista, 90, 198 Grassi, Luigi, 187 Grazzini, Anton Francesco (Il Lasca), 33 Gregory XIII (Ugo Boncompagni), 6 Gregory, Sharon, 173 Guicciardini, Francesco, 189 Guidi, Jacopo, 197 Hauser, Arnold, 8 Heckscher, William, 169 Hirst, Michael, 135, 163, 182, 189, 192, 208–9 Hochmann, Michel, 184, 186, 194 Hollanda, Francisco de, 112 Hope, Charles, 9, 74, 81, 91, 148, 161, 188–92, 194, 196, 198, 201, 206, 211 Hope Goodchild, Karen, 180 Hughes, Anthony, 163 Innocenti, Giancarlo, 169 Jack, Mary Ann, 163 Jacks, Philip J., 179–80, 185 Jacobs, Fredrika H., 163 Jacone (Jacopo di Michele), 176 Joannides, Paul, 175 Jode, Gérard de, 67 Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere), 25, 112, 126, 190 Julius III (Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte), 25, 48, 83, 134, 176, 182, 207, 209 Kallab, Wolfgang, 73, 188–90, 198, 201, 213 Kant, Immanuel, 156 Kantorowicz, Ernst H., 11 Karcher, Nicolas, 69 Kemp, Martin, 202 Kliemann, Julian, 170, 177, 179, 189, 191, 195, 198 Klinger, Linda Susan, 189

253 Kris, Ernst, 202 Kristeller, Paul Oskar, 208 Kurz, Otto, 202 Laertius, Diogenes, 191 Lampson, Dominique, 90, 94, 146, 198, 210 Lampugnani, Vittorio Magnago, 206 Landau, David, 181 Lanzi, Luigi, 8, 72–73, 103, 180, 187–88 Lapini, Agostino, 174 Lastricati, Zanobi, 23, 27 Lauber, Rosella, 194 Lecchini Giovannoni, Simona, 181 Lenzoni, Carlo, 82, 137, 140–41, 146, 151, 153–56, 194, 212–13 Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici), 44, 190 Leoni, Diomede, 13, 15, 17, 164, 172 Leoni, Leone, 98, 102, 200 Ligorio, Pirro, 66, 134 Lincoln, Evelyn, 181 Lomazzo, Giovanni Paolo, 64, 190 Lombard, Lambert, 90, 210 Lorenzoni, Antonio, 93, 148 Luchinon, Vincenzo, 206 Lucian of Samosata, 205 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 4, 35, 140, 157, 189, 213 Madonna Mattea, Bernardo di, 121 Maffei, Sonia, 189–90 Mai, Angelo, 191 Malvasia, Carlo Cesare, 201 Manetti, Antonio, 189, 206 Manning, John, 169 Mantegna, Andrea, 205 Marangoni, Matteo, 202 Marazzini, Claudio, 209 Marcellus II (Marcello Cervini), 134 Marchese, Vincenzo, 102, 188, 190 Marcolini, Francesco, 170 Marinozzi, Leonardo, 179 Masselli, Giovanni, 73 Mattioda, Enrico, 188, 191, 201, 210–11 Maturino (da Firenze), 176–77

254 Maurer, Golo, 208 McCorquodale, Charles, 180 McGrath, Elizabeth, 172 McTavish, David, 170, 191 Medici (family), 33–34,193 Medici, Alessandro de’, 31 Medici, Anna Maria Luisa de’, 173 Medici, Cosimo I de’, 2–3, 10, 12–15, 17, 19, 21, 25, 27–28, 35, 39, 40, 44, 48–53, 55, 62, 66–67, 69, 71, 78, 82, 87, 89, 121, 138, 140, 146, 151, 162, 164, 166–67, 173–74, 176, 178–80, 182, 194, 196–97, 200, 204, 206, 212 Medici (The Elder), Cosimo de’, 44 Medici, Eleonora de’, 125 Medici, Francesco I de’, 5, 27, 89, 93, 98, 100, 119, 125, 171, 184, 188, 199 Medici, Lorenzo de’, 23, 27, 31 Medici, Marco, 89–90, 94, 172, 190, 197 Medici, Ottaviano de’, 179 Medici, Tommaso de’, 180 Mellini, Domenico, 206 Meoni, Lucia, 184, 186 Merrifield, Mary P., 190 Miccoli, Giovanni, 199 Michelozzi, Girolamo, 180 Michiel, Marcantonio, 80–81, 85, 194 Middleton, John Henry, 195 Migliorini, Bruno, 208–9 Milanesi, Carlo, 102, 188 Milanesi, Gaetano, 85, 102, 188, 192, 194, 201 Millon, Henry, 206, 208 Minerbetti, Bernardo, 48–49, 176–77 Minonzio, Franco, 189–91 Molho, Anthony, 10, 161 Molza, Francesco Maria, 78 Montauto, Sebastiano (heirs of), 182 Montelupo, Baccio da, 175 Mosca, Davide, 198 Mosca, Simone, 198 Moyer, Ann, 209 Mussolin, Mauro, 207 Nagel, Alexander, 169

Index Naldini, Giambattista, 23, 121, 167. Naselli, Carmelina, 192 Negri, Giulio, 187 Nelli, Giambattista Clemente, 187 Nencioni, Giovanni, 81–83, 189, 191–92, 209, 212 Nova, Alessandro, 170, 192, 208, 210 Olivato Puppi, Loredana, 197, 200 Orazi, Anna Maria, 208 Palli d’Addario, Vittoria, 197 Pandolfini, Ferrante, 66 Panofsky, Erwin, 83, 112, 155–56, 158, 160, 183, 202, 212–13 Panvinio, Onofrio, 197 Paolucci, Antonio, 174 Parentini, Orlando, 184 Parini, Giuseppe, 211 Parker, Deborah, 180, 182 Parshall, Peter, 181 Partridge, Loren, 10, 161, 204 Pascoli, Lione, 72 Pasini, Pier Giorgio, 191 Passarelli, Maria Antonietta, 169 Passeri, Giambattista, 182 Passignano, Domenico, 26, 206 Passignat, Émilie, 206 Pastor, Ludwig von, 163 Paul III (Alessandro Farnese), 131, 134, 207 Paul IV (Giovanni Pietro Carafa), 134, 207 Payne, Alina, 210, 212–13 Pazzi, Alfonso de’, 55, 179 Pecchiai, Pio, 187–89, 211 Pelli Fabbroni, Giuseppe, 165 Penni, Gianfrancesco, 65 Peretti, Gianni, 197 Peruzzi, Baldassarre, 90, 205 Pesellino, Francesco, 195 Petrarch, 139–40, 152, 154, 196 Petrioli Tofani, Alessandra, 204 Pevsner, Nikolaus, 163 Philip II of Spain, 43 Pieri, Stefano, 23 Pilliod, Elizabeth, 59, 62, 173–75, 180–81, 186 Pillsbury, Edmund, 204

Index Pinelli, Antonio, 173–75 Pini, Carlo, 102, 188 Pinkus, Karen, 169 Pino, Paolo, 79 Piombo, Sebastiano del, 81 Pisanello, Antonio, 90 Pisano, Andrea, 154 Pisano, Nicola, 199 Pisano, Giovanni, 154 Pitti, Miniato, 73, 82, 187, 191, 200 Pius IV (Giovanni Angelo de’ Medici), 26, 28, 66, 201 Pius V (Michele Ghislieri), 201 Plaisance, Michel, 161 Plato, 144 Plebani, Paolo, 172, 190, 197 Pliny the Elder, 78, 189 Poggi, Giovanni, 73, 173 Poliziano, 148 Pollastra, Giovanni, 31 Pomerelli, Francesco, 90 Pon, Lisa, 182 Pontano, Giovanni, 81 Pontormo, 3, 18, 39–48, 52–55, 57– 59, 61–63, 67–71, 90, 95, 138, 157, 173–75, 180, 186 Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio de’ Sacchis), 96 Porta, Orazio, 121 Possevino, Antonio, 187 Pozzi, Mario, 150, 188, 191, 201, 208, 210–11 Praz, Mario, 169 Previtali, Giovanni, 199 Primaticcio, Francesco, 98 Prinz, Wolfram, 196 Prodi, Paolo, 10, 161 Puraye, Jean, 210 Quercia, Jacopo della, 90 Ragghianti, Carlo Ludovico, 187– 89, 192, 197–98, 213 Raimondi, Marcantonio, 91, 170 Ramirez de Montalvo, Antonio, 53, 179 Raphael, 9–10, 48, 61, 65, 70, 79, 134, 153–54, 183, 190, 201, 205 Rasponi-Spinelli (family), 73 Razzi, Serafino, 73, 88, 187

255 Razzi, Silvano, 73, 88, 187–88, 196 Redig de Campos, Deoclecio, 163 Reilly, Patricia Louise, 59, 181, 210 Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 184 Revesla, Francesco, 191 Ricasoli, Giovambattista, 48–51, 176, 178, 183 Ricci, Antonio, 191 Ricci, Giuliano de’, 73, 82, 187, 194 Riccio, Pierfrancesco, 44, 47, 174–75 Riccò Soprani, Laura, 192 Ricottini Marsili-Libelli, Cecilia, 191 Ridolfi, Cassandra, 16 Robertson, Charles, 208 Romano, Giulio, 65, 70, 81, 99 Romano, Paolo, 100 Rondinelli, Giovanni, 166 Rossi, Aldo, 191, 195 Rossi, Paolo, 211 Rossi di San Secondo, Ippolito, 38 Rost, Jan, 69 Rovezzano, Benedetto, 87 Rubin, Patricia Lee, 9, 161, 183, 188–89, 191–93, 197–98, 200–201 Ruffini, Marco, 194, 197 Ruggieri, Ferdinando, 173 Russel, Daniel, 169 Saalman, Howard, 206, 208 Sacchetti, Franco, 188, 196 Salas, Charles G., 161 Salviati, Francesco, 47, 70, 179, 193 Salviati, Leonardo, 59, 151–52, 211–13 Sangalletti, Guglielmo, 201, 206 Sangallo, Aristotele, 176 Sangallo (The Younger), Antonio da, 81, 134, 206 Sangallo, Francesco da, 90 Sangallo, Giuliano da, 90 Sankovitch, Anne-Marie, 213 Sanmicheli, Michele, 100–101, 197 Sansovino, Andrea, 183 Sansovino, Francesco, 90, 198 Sansovino, Jacopo, 90, 98, 170, 198 Satkowski, Leon, 161

Index

256 Sauerländer, Willibald, 203 Scaliger, Julius Caesar, 208 Scapecchi, Piero, 191–92, 210 Schiera, Pierangelo, 10, 161 Schlosser, Julius von, 30, 72–73, 168, 187, 190, 192, 194, 197, 198, 202, 213 Schmidt, Hans Werner, 176 Schöne, Albrecht, 169 Schorn, Ludwig, 102 Schüssler, Gosbert, 170 Sciolla, Gianni Carlo, 176 Sciorina, Lorenzo dello, 23 Sconditi, Giovanni, 67 Scorza, Rick, 162, 169, 181, 200 Scoti Bertinelli, Ugo, 73–74, 187– 89, 197 Serianni, Luca, 210 Serristori, Averardo, 15, 164 Shakespeare, William, 184 Shearman, John, 9, 62, 161, 182– 83, 201 Sherberg, Michael, 209 Siciolante, Girolamo, 97, 99 Simmel, Georg, 106, 115, 201 Simoncelli, Paolo, 163, 175 Simone, Giovanni di, 17, 19, 36, 165 Simonetti, Carlo Maria, 188 Sixtus V (Felice Peretti), 6, 127 Smith, Grahm, 186 Smyth, Craig Hugh, 180, 206, 208 Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), 100 Sohm, Philip, 173–74, 188–89, 192 Sorella, Antonio, 212 Soussloff, Catherine, 161 Spagnolo, Maddalena, 169, 173, 189, 211 Spinelli, Parri, 107–8, 111 Spini, Giorgio, 10, 161, 163 Squilli, Benedetto, 67 Stack, Joan, 163 Starn, Randolph, 10, 161, 204 Stimato, Gerarda, 199 Straet, Jan van der, 23, 67, 121 Summers, David, 163, 169, 176 Summonte, Pietro, 189, 194 Sustris, Federico, 23 Talvacchia, Bette, 183

Tanturli, Giuliano, 190 Tarsia, Giovanni Maria, 33–34, 172 Thiem, Christel, 54, 66, 176, 179, 184 Thiem, Gunther, 54, 66, 176, 179, 184 Thoenes, Christof, 206, 208 Tinagli Baxter, Paola, 170, 172, 189, 206 Tiraboschi, Girolamo, 190 Titian, 87, 91, 98–99, 201 Tito, Santi di, 23, 121 Toledo, Eleonora di, 174 Tolomei, Claudio, 140 Torbido, Francesco, 197 Torelli, Lelio, 140 Torrentino, Lorenzo (Laurens van den Bleack), 76, 78, 82, 191, 192 Torrentino, Lorenzo (heirs of), 181 Torrigiano, 170 Trachtenberg, Marvin, 9, 161, 169, 183, 207 Tramezzino, Michele, 76 Trento, Dario, 175 Trifone, Pietro, 210 Trincia, Francesco Saverio, 203 Trissino, Giangiorgio, 139 Udine, Giovanni da, 70, 184 Vaga, Perino del, 70, 81, 90, 198 Valeriano, Pierio, 32, 193 Valori, Baccio, 210 Van Veen, Henk Th., 161, 163, 184, 204 Vanvitelli, Luigi, 136 Varchi, Benedetto, 22, 24, 27, 34– 35, 55, 91, 112, 140, 141, 151, 163, 166, 172, 183, 198, 209, 212–13 Vasari, Giorgio, 1–7, 9 –17, 19, 21–23, 30 –37, 39 –40, 44, 47–48, 50 –55, 57–58, 62–64, 66–68, 70 –83, 85–95, 98–99, 101–2, 105–6, 112, 115– 23, 125, 127, 131–34, 136, 138–39, 141–44, 146–50, 154, 156–57, 159, 161–66, 168–70, 172, 174–79, 181–

Index 82, 185–96, 198–201, 203–7, 209 –11, 213 Vasari (The Younger), Giorgio, 125, 192–93 Vecchietti, Bernardo, 190 Vecchietti, Lorenzo, 168 Veldman, Ilja Markx, 67, 185 Veltroni, Stefano, 121–22 Veneziano, Domenico, 100 Venturi, Adolfo, 123, 204 Venturi, Lionello, 168 Verdizzotti, Giovanni Maria, 198 Veronese, Paolo, 198 Vesalius, Andreas, 91–92 Vettori, Pietro, 28–29, 199 Vignola, Jacopo, 134 Villani, Giovanni, 202 Vinci, Leonardo da, 30, 65, 79 Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), 35, 140, 180, 195, 205 Vliegenthart, Adriaan W., 167 Volterra, Daniele da, 13, 15, 19, 91, 164, 198, 200 Volterrani, Silvia, 169 Vos, Maarten de, 67 Wallace, William E., 13, 162 Walton, Kendall L., 65, 184

257 Watson, Elizabeth See, 169 Waźbiński, Zygmunt, 9–10, 161–63, 166, 180, 186, 201 Weil-Garris Brandt, Kathleen, 163 Wierda, Bouk, 190 Wilde, Johannes, 182, 209 Williams, Robert, 9, 161, 179, 183, 187, 194, 197–98, 210, 213 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 102 Wittwower, Margot, 23, 93, 162– 63, 165–68, 170–72 Wittkower, Rudolf, 23, 93, 162–63, 165–68, 170–72, 206, 208 Wohl, Hellmut, 183 Wölfflin, Heinrich, 8 Wollheim, Richard, 184 Wood, Jeremy, 201 Woodhouse, John R., 211–13 Young, Alan R., 169 Zaccaria, Raffaella Maria, 188, 193 Zanchettin, Vitale, 207–8 Zanrè, Domenico, 179 Zimmermann, T. C. Price, 189 Zuccari, Federico, 6, 64, 71, 186 Zuccari, Taddeo, 70, 71, 186 Zucchi, Jacopo, 23, 121