Giorgio Vasari

Vasari, Giorgio 

Born July 30, 1511, in Arezzo; died June 27, 1574, in Florence. Italian architect, painter, and art historian. Representative of mannerism.

Vasari studied under B. Bandinelli in Florence, and his aesthetic outlook developed under the influence of Michelangelo. He founded an academy of drawing in Florence (1562). Vasari built the Piazza dei Cavalieri in Pisa (1562), his own home (1542) and the Logge (1573-81) in Arezzo, and others. His principal work is the Uffizi Ensemble in Florence (1560-85), with its narrow street-corridor between the Signoria Plaza and the bank of the Arno River. Vasari’s paintings include frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (from 1555), in the Sala Reggia in the Vatican in Rome (1571-73), and elsewhere. He is the author of The Lives of the Most Eminent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors (1550; 2nd ed., 1568), which is important for its very rich factual material as well as for its evaluation of the progressive role of art during the period of the Renaissance.

WORKS

Zhizneopisaniia naibolee znamenitykh zhivopistsev, vaiatelei i zodchikh [vols. 1-4]. Moscow, 1956-70.

REFERENCES

Vseobshchaia istoriia arkhitektury, vol. 5. Moscow, 1967. Pages 238-44.
Studi Vasariani. Florence, 1952.