Giorgio Vasari was one of the few artists in the history of art who built, designed, and decorated his homes. This book is the first to focus on Vasari's decorative cycles for his homes in Arezzo and Florence, revealing the significance of the artistic, cultural, and historical milieu of the sixteenth century. This study breaks new ground in two ways: First, in a personal and original manner, the imagery is related to Vasari's artistic ideas on history painting and the role of the artist. And second, Vasari's imagery portrays visual galleries applauding his teachers, antiquity and the creation of art.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari brings together the world's foremost experts on Vasari as well as up-and-coming scholars to provide, at the 500th anniversary of his birth, a comprehensive assessment of the current state of scholarship on this important-and still controversial-artist and writer. The contributors examine the life and work of Vasari as an artist, architect, courtier, academician, and as a biographer of artists. They also explore his legacy, including an analysis of the reception of his work over the last five centuries. Among the topics specifically addressed here are an assessment of the current controversy as to how much of Vasari's 'Lives' was actually written by Vasari; and explorations of Vasari's relationships with, as well as reports about, contemporaries, including Cellini, Michelangelo and Giotto, among less familiar names. The geographic scope takes in not only Florence, the city traditionally privileged in Italian Renaissance art history, but also less commonly studied geographical venues such as Siena and Venice.

This book examines the artistic, cultural, and historical influence of Giorgio Vasari's teachers, mentors, and patrons on his sacred and profane paintings. As a Maniera artist, Vasari learns to admire and assimilate the art of the ancient masters. With the guidance of Dante's literary writings and Marsilio Ficino's Neoplatonic philosophy, Vasari reveals a moral and didactic vision in his art. Additionally, Vasari's artistic patronage is influenced by the political views of Niccolò Machiavelli. In the integration of both ancient art and myths with the didactic legacy of biblical figures and moral personifications, Vasari manifests his artistic theory and symbolism in his sacred and profane paintings.

Giorgio Vasari and the Birth of the Museum offers the first dedicated and comprehensive study of Vasari?s original contributions to the making of museums, addressing the subject from the full range of aspects - collecting, installation, conceptual-historical - in which his influence is strongly felt. Uniting specialists of Giorgio Vasari with scholars of historical museology, this collection of essays presents a cross-disciplinary overview of Vasari?s approaches to the collecting and display of art, artifacts and memorabilia. Although the main focus of the book is on the mid-late 16th century, contributors also bring to light that Vasari?s museology enjoyed a substantial afterlife well into the modern museum era. This volume is a fundamental addition to the museum studies literature and a welcome enhancement to the scholarly industry on Giorgio Vasari.

Giorgio Vasari, the "Father of Art History," first published his Vite in 1550. An instant sensation, the Vite was more than just a chronological sequence of biographies: it was the first critical history of artistic style. This fully illustrated Grove Art Essentials title delves into Giorgio Vasari's career as a painter, draughtsman, architect, and scholar from early life and training through his years of maturity. Accompanied by a complete catalogue of his writings and extensive bibliography, this volume also contains an in-depth exploration of his writings and their impact on the art historical discipline.

Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.

“Readers curious about the making of Renaissance art, its cast of characters and political intrigue, will find much to relish in these pages.” —Wall Street Journal Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) was a man of many talents—a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, and scholar—but he is best known for Lives of the Artists, which singlehandedly established the canon of Italian Renaissance art. Before Vasari’s extraordinary book, art was considered a technical skill, and artists were mere decorators and craftsmen. It was through Vasari’s visionary writings that Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo came to be regarded as great masters of life as well as art, their creative genius celebrated as a divine gift. Lauded by Sarah Bakewell as “insightful, gripping, and thoroughly enjoyable,” The Collector of Lives reveals how one Renaissance scholar completely redefined how we look at art.