Citizendia

Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects

A cover of the Vite
AuthorGiorgio Vasari
Original titleLe Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori
TranslatorE. Giorgio Vasari ( 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian painter and Architect, who is today famous L. Seeley
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian
Subject(s)Artist biographies
PublisherTorrentino (1550), Giunti (1568)
Publication date1550 (enlarged 1568)
Published in
English		1908
Pages369 (1550), 686 (1568)

The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, or Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori as it was originally known in Italian, is a series of artist biographies written by 16th century Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, which is considered "perhaps the most famous, and even today the most- read work of the older literature of art",[1] "some of the Italian Renaissance's most influential writing on art"[2], and "one of the founding texts in art history". Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of Literature or Information &ndash the activity of making information available for public view Giorgio Vasari ( 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian painter and Architect, who is today famous The history of art usually refers to the History of the Visual arts, such as Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. [3] The title is often abridged to the Vite or the Lives.

Contents

Background

As the first Italian art historian, Vasari initiated the genre of an encyclopedia of artistic biographies that continues today. He coined the term "Renaissance" (rinascita) in print, though an awareness of the ongoing "rebirth" in the arts had been in the air from the time of Alberti. The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning "rebirth" Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and nascere Leon Battista Alberti ( February 14, 1404 &ndash April 25, 1472) was an Italian author artist Architect, Poet [4] Vasari's work was first published in 1550 by Lorenzo Torrentino in Florence,[5] and dedicated to Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici. Florence ( Italian: Firenze Florentia and Fiorenza) is the Capital City of the Italian region of Tuscany Cosimo I de' Medici (June 12 1519 &ndash April 21 1574 was Duke of Florence from 1537 to 1574 reigning as the first Grand It included a valuable treatise on the technical methods employed in the arts. It was partly rewritten and enlarged in 1568 and provided with woodcut portraits of artists (some conjectural). A portrait is a painting, photograph, Sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person in which the face and its expression is predominant

The work has a consistent and notorious bias in favour of Florentines and tends to attribute to them all the new developments in Renaissance art—for example, the invention of engraving. Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it Venetian art in particular, let alone other parts of Europe, is systematically ignored. [3][6] Between his first and second editions, Vasari visited Venice and the second edition gave more attention to Venetian art (finally including Titian) without achieving a neutral point of view. Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c 1485 &ndash August 27 1576 better known as Titian, was the leading painter of the 16th-century Venetian John Symonds claimed in 1899 that "It is clear that Vasari often wrote with carelessness, confusing dates and places, and taking no pains to verify the truth of his assertions. ", while acknowledging that despite these shortcomings, it is one of the basic sources for info on the Renaissance in Italy. [7]

Vasari's biographies are interspersed with amusing gossip. Many of his anecdotes have the ring of truth, although likely inventions. Others are generic fictions, such as the tale of young Giotto painting a fly on the surface of a painting by Cimabue that the older master repeatedly tried to brush away, a genre tale that echoes anecdotes told of the Greek painter Apelles. Cenni di Pepo (Giovanni Cimabue (c 1240 — c 1302 also known as Bencivieni di Pepo or in modern Italian Benvenuto di Giuseppe was an Italian painter and creator He did not research archives for exact dates, as modern art historians do, and naturally his biographies are most dependable for the painters of his own generation and the immediately preceding one. Modern criticism—with all the new materials opened up by research—has corrected many of his traditional dates and attributions. [3] The work is widely considered a classic even today, though it is widely agreed that it must be supplemented by modern critical research.

Vasari includes a 42 page sketch of his own biography at the end of his Vite, and adds further details about himself and his family in his lives of Lazzaro Vasari and Francesco Salviati. Francesco de' Rossi (1510-1563 was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence, also active in Rome. [3]

Influence

Vasari's Vite has been described as "by far the most influential single text for the history of Renaissance art"[8] and "the most important work of Renaissance biography of artists". [1] Its influence is situated mainly in three domains: as an example for contemporary and later biographers and art historians, as a defining factor in the view on the Renaissance and the role of Florence and Rome in it, and as a major source of information on the lives and works of early Italian artists.

The Vite have been translated wholly or partially into many languages, including English, Dutch, German and French.

Flood of artist biographies

The Vite started a wave of artist biographies. Other, mainly 17th century biographers often were called the Vasari of their country. Karel Van Mander in The Netherlands was probably the first Vasarian author with his Het Schilderboeck (The Painters' Book) from 1604, the first comprehensive list of biographies of painters from the Low Countries. Karel van Mander (May 1548– September 2, 1606) Flemish painter, Poet and Biographer, was born of a noble family The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands [1] Joachim von Sandrart (1606-1688), author of Deutsche Akademie, was known as the "German Vasari". Joachim von Sandrart ( May 12, 1606 - October 14, 1688) was a German art-historian and painter. [9] In England, Aglionby's Painting Illustrated from 1685 was largely based on Vasari as well. [1]

View of the Renaissance

The Vite is also important as the basis for discussions on the development of style,[10] It influenced the view art historians had of the Early Renaissance for a long time, placing too much emphasis on the achievements of Florentian and Roman artists while ignoring those of the rest of Italy and certainly the artists from the rest of Europe. [11]

Source of information

Finally, it has also been for centuries the most important source for info on Early Renaissance Italian (and especially Tuscan) painters and the attribution of their paintings. In 1899, an author like John Addington Symonds used the Vite as one of his basic sources for the description of artists in his 7 books on Renaissance in Italy. John Addington Symonds ( October 5 1840 - April 19, 1893) was an English poet and literary critic [12], and nowadays it is still, despite its obvious biases and shortcomings, the basis for the biography of many artists like Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ( April 15 1452 – May 2 1519 was an Italian Polymath, having been a scientist Mathematician, Engineer [13]

Contents

The Vite contains the biographies of many important Italian artists, and is also adopted as a sort of classical reference guide for their names, which are sometimes used in different ways. The following list respects the order of the book, as divided into its three parts. The book starts with a dedication to Cosimo de' Medici and a preface, and then starts with technical and background texts about architecture, sculpture, and painting. Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (September 27 1389 &ndash August 1 1464 was the first of the Medici political dynasty de facto rulers of A second preface follows, introducing the actual "Vite" in parts 2 to 5. What follows is the complete list from the second (1568) edition. In a few cases, different very short biographies were given in one section.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Copies of Vasari’s Lives of the Artists Online

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Max Marmor, Kunstliteratur, translated by Ernst Gombrich, in Art Documentation Vol 11 # 1, 1992
  2. ^ University of Leeds website
  3. ^ a b c d Victor Ginsburgh and Sheila Weyers, Persistence and Fashion in Art, Louvain (2005)
  4. ^ Andreas Kablitz, "Surfaces" Vol 9, 2001
  5. ^ Christopher Witcombe, Art History and Technology
  6. ^ Takuma Ito, Studies of Western Art #12, July 2007
  7. ^ John Symonds' "Renaissance in Italy" Vol 3 part 2
  8. ^ Professor Hope, The Warburg Institute, course synopsis, 2007
  9. ^ Abstract from the transactions of the bibliographical society
  10. ^ Elinor Richter, reviewing Philip Sohms study of style in the art theory :"Giorgio Vasari's Vite, the first edition of which was published in 1550, provides the foundation for any discussion of the development of style. Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, OM, CBE ( 30 March 1909 &ndash 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born Art historian The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London. "
  11. ^ Stephanie Leone, The Renaissance Society of Americ, 2007: "[. . . ] the traditional definition of Renaissance art as the humanistic innovations of Florentine and Roman artists, to which Giorgio Vasari's Vite (1550, 1568) gave rise. "
  12. ^ Full text of John Symonds' "Renaissance in Italy"
  13. ^ Bernard Barryte, The life of Leonardo da Vinci, University of Rochester Library Bulletin (1984)

References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911 is a 29-volume reference work that marked the beginning of the Encyclopædia Britannica The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone

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