Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (Volume 1)

Summary

Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects is a collection of biographies of Italian artists from the late thirteenth century to Vasari's own day, arranged to tell the story of how the arts of design, after their decline in late antiquity, were reborn in Tuscany and brought to perfection in the age of Michelangelo. The library text is the first of the ten volumes of Gaston du C. de Vere's English translation of the 1568 edition, published 1912-1915. It contains the translator's preface, Vasari's dedications to Duke Cosimo de' Medici from both editions, the imprimatur of Pope Pius V, the Preface to the Whole Work, the Preface to the Lives, and twenty lives running from Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi; Vasari's technical introduction is omitted by the translator. In the Preface to the Whole Work Vasari defends his purpose of rescuing artists' names from time and weighs the old dispute over whether sculpture or painting is nobler, concluding that both are daughters of design. In the Preface to the Lives he sketches the history of art from Egypt and Greece through Rome, describes its ruin under invasions, the removal of the capital to Constantinople and the zeal that destroyed pagan images, and announces that he will trace its second birth, comparing the arts to human bodies that are born, grow, age and die. The lives begin with Giovanni Cimabue, who as a schoolboy watched Greek painters at work in Santa Maria Novella and whose great panel of the Virgin was carried in procession to that church, giving the Borgo Allegri its joyful name. The life of Giotto is the centre of the volume: the shepherd boy found by Cimabue drawing a sheep on a stone, the fly painted on his master's figure, the perfect circle drawn freehand for the pope's envoy that became a Tuscan proverb, the frescoes of Saint Francis at Assisi, the Navicella mosaic in Rome, work for King Robert in Naples with its witty exchanges, the design of the Florence campanile begun in 1334, and his death in 1336. Other lives include the architect Arnolfo di Lapo, the sculptors Niccola and Giovanni Pisano and Andrea Pisano, the Sienese masters Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers, the prankster Buonamico Buffalmacco from Boccaccio's and Sacchetti's tales, Taddeo and Agnolo Gaddi, and Orcagna, painter of Last Judgment scenes and builder of the tabernacle of Orsanmichele. Vasari mixes anecdote, epitaphs, inventories of works and judgments of style, often citing Dante, Boccaccio, Ghiberti and Petrarch.

Top Lessons

• Learning from nature and from masters

  Giotto is found drawing a sheep from life on a stone with no teacher but nature, and then, under Cimabue, surpasses his master. Vasari presents good art as the joining of a natural gift, close observation of the living world and patient training. The same pattern appears in Cimabue watching the Greek painters and Niccola Pisano studying ancient carvings.

• Mastery can be simple

  Asked for a sample drawing for the pope, Giotto draws only a perfect circle freehand and sends it with confidence. The story teaches that true skill can show itself in the plainest form, and that an expert can recognize it where an untrained eye sees nothing. Vasari adds the proverb about being rounder than Giotto's O to show how the story entered common speech.

• History as rise, fall and rebirth

  In the Preface to the Lives Vasari compares the arts to human bodies that are born, grow old and die, and describes their second birth in Tuscany. This pattern shapes the whole work, which moves from rough beginnings to perfection. Readers can weigh both the power of this scheme and what it might leave out.

• Memory as a duty to the dead

  Vasari opens by saying that time devours both works and names, and that only writers keep the names of artists alive. He collects epitaphs, inscriptions and memorials, including Poliziano's verses for Giotto's portrait in the cathedral. The book treats remembering excellent work as a form of justice and gratitude.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The first volume of the Lives touches medicine only in passing. Orcagna's Paradise in Santa Maria Novella includes a portrait of the Florentine physician Dino del Garbo in the red bonnet lined with miniver that doctors then wore, a small record of medical dress. The Black Death appears indirectly: the offerings made to the Madonna of Orsanmichele during the mortality of 1348 pay for Orcagna's tabernacle, and several painters' careers end in that period. Vasari records deaths of artists from violent or malignant fevers without further detail. The Preface to the Lives compares the arts to human bodies that are born, grow, age and die, a common organic image of history. The anatomical study of the body that Vasari praises in later artists belongs to later volumes.

• Life of Andrea di Cione Orcagna

  The physician Dino del Garbo portrayed among the blessed in physician's dress.

• Life of Andrea di Cione Orcagna

  The Company of Orsanmichele builds a shrine with the gifts given to its Madonna during the mortality of 1348.

• Lives of Taddeo Gaddi and Agnolo Gaddi

  Brief notices of painters carried off by violent or malignant fevers.