Giorgio Vasari

“ We cannot share the facile optimism of Vasari who will admire any work, or any at least in his own school and style, in which there is initiative and force and technical mastery, and in whose eyes to paint feigned architecture on a stucco façade, provided it be deftly done, is as much a ‘cosa bellissima’ as to carve the Marsuppini sarcophagus in S. Croce. We cannot however withhold our admiration when we consider the copious artistic output of the age, the manifold forms of aesthetic expression, the easy surrender of the most intractable materials to the artist’s will. ”

“ And nature gave him a spirit so benign, and with this, both in oil-painting and in fresco, he made certain living forms and other things so soft, so well harmonized, and so well blended in the shadows, that many of the excellent masters of his time were forced to confess that he had been born to infuse spirit into figures and to counterfeit the freshness of living flesh better than any other painter, not only in Venice, but throughout the whole world. ”

“ But he did not therefore abandon his painting; indeed, having a quiet mind, and not being obliged to rack his brain for a livelihood, he gave more attention to it than ever. It is true that either from envy or for some other reason he was accused of being a painter who could do nothing but little figures; wherefore, in executing the altar-piece of the Chapel of the Madonna in S. Fermo, a convent of Friars of S. Francis, wishing to show that the accusation was a calumny, he painted the figures larger than life, and so well, that they were the best that he had ever done. ”

“ He took much delight in making landscapes, copying them from the life of nature exactly as they are; wherefore there are seen in his pictures streams, bridges, rocks, herbs, fruits, roads, fields, cities, castles, sand, and an infinity of other things of the kind. In the Nunziata at Florence, in the court, exactly behind the wall where the Annunciation itself is painted, he painted a scene in fresco, retouched on the dry, in which there is a Nativity of Christ, wrought with so great labour and diligence that one could count the stalks and knots of the straw in a hut that is there ”

“ And the studies of the art of painting were pursued by him with such zeal and diligence, that he was enabled in due time to execute those noble and famous decorations which have brought so much glory to Genoa and to Prince Doria. Wherefore we may believe without a doubt that it is Heaven that raises men from those infinite depths in which they were born, to that summit of greatness to which they ascend, when they prove by labouring valiantly at their works that they are true followers of the sciences that they have chosen to learn ”

“ And he painted his works with good unity and softness, harmonizing the flesh-colours of the heads and of the nudes with the colours of the draperies, which he delighted to make with few folds and simple, as they are in life and nature. This has been of great use to craftsmen, and he deserves therefore to be commended as if he had been its inventor, for in truth the works made before his day can be said to be painted, while his are living, real, and natural, in comparison with those made by the others. ”

“ He made many drawings, likewise, and in particular some for Girolamo del Lino, and some for Girolamo Fagiuoli, a goldsmith and engraver, who desired them for engraving on copper; and these drawings are held to be full of grace. For Bonifazio Gozzadino he painted his portrait from life, with one of his wife, which remained unfinished. He also began a picture of Our Lady, which was afterwards sold in Bologna to Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo, who has it in the new house [Pg 251] built by himself at Arezzo, together with many other noble pictures, works of sculpture, and ancient marbles. ”

“ And, in truth, in this his first work of importance, as also in the nuptials of his Highness, with figures in relief and stories in painting, he has proved himself and given great signs and promise, as he continues to do, that he is like to become an excellent painter; and not in this only, but in some other smaller works, and recently in a small picture full of little figures in the manner of miniature, which he has executed for Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, a much-extolled work ”

“ Now it happened that Giorgio Vasari had to go to Rome with the Cardinal, the son of the Duke, when he went to receive his hat, and Ammanati gave to Vasari a little model of wax showing the shape in which he desired to carve that figure from the marble, and a piece of wood reproducing the exact proportions—the length, breadth, thickness, and inclination from the straight—of the marble, to the end that Giorgio might show them in Rome to Michelagnolo Buonarroti and persuade him to declare his opinion in the matter, and so move the Duke to give him the marble. ”

“ The youths composing this society were Nanni di Prospero delle Corniuole, [2] the goldsmith Francesco di Girolamo, of Prato, Nannoccio of San Giorgio,nota and many others, who proved at a later period to be very excellent masters in their vocations.
At this period, Francesco and Giorgio Vasari, being at that time both children, formed an intimacy in the following manner. In the year 1523, Silvio Passerini, the Cardinal of Cortona, chancing to pass through Arezzo, Antonio Vasari, who was his kinsman, conducted his eldest sou Giorgio to pay his duty to that prelate. ”

“ 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 forms and in the greatest variety of attitudes, and not this only, but likewise the play of the passions and contentments of the soul, being satisfied with justifying himself in that field in which he was superior to all his fellow-craftsmen, and to lay open the way of the grand manner in the painting of nudes, and his great knowledge in the difficulties of design ”

“ They have certain obvious defects that are however counterbalanced by qualities of much value. Vasari’s treatment in many parts lacks system and completeness, his statement is wanting in clearness, his aesthetic comments are often banal. On the other hand there are sections or chapters of great, even enthralling, interest, as when he discourses with all a Florentine’s enthusiasm on the virile and decided handling of a master in fresco painting; or lets us follow step by step from the small sketch to the finished casting the whole process of making a great bronze statue. ”

“ Thus becoming old, he constantly declined more and more, departing to such an extent from the excellence of his first manner, that the works he produced no longer seemed to be by his own hand: daily forgetting somewhat of his art, he descended at length to painting, not the ordinary frescoes and oil paintings of his profession only, but all sorts of things, even the meanest. ”

“ When almost full grown he was taken to the city, where he applied himself to painting under Jacopo Squarcione, a painter of Padua, who—as it is written in a Latin letter from Messer Girolamo Campagnola to Messer Leonico Timeo, a Greek philosopher, wherein he gives him information about certain old painters who served the family of Carrara, Lords of Padua—took him into his house, and a little time afterwards, having recognized the beauty of his intelligence, adopted him as his son. Now this Squarcione knew that he himself was not the most able painter in the world ”

“ Nor did any long time elapse before I obtained by his means, a commission from Messer Lorenzo Gamurrini to paint a picture for which Rosso made me the design, and which I afterwards executed with all the study, labour, and care that I could possibly command, being anxious to improve, as well as to acquire some little reputation and name. And now, had but my power equalled my desire, I should soon have became a tolerably good painter, so earnestly did I labour, and so anxiously did I study my art ”

“ He then returned to Bologna, but had not been there long when he went to Rome, where he made portraits from life of many men of rank, and in particular that of Pope Paul III. But, perceiving that it was no place for him, and that he was not likely to acquire honour, profit, or fame among so many noble craftsmen, he went off to Naples, where he found some friends who showed him favour, and above all M. Tommaso Cambi, a Florentine merchant, and a devoted lover of pictures and antiquities in marble, by whom he was supplied with everything of which he was in need. ”

“ This master, having applied himself to the art of painting for a just and excellent reason, laboured therein not so much out of a desire for fame as from a wish to bring assistance to his needy relatives; and having been born in a family of humble artisans, people of low degree, he sought to raise himself from that position. In this effort he was much spurred by his rivalry with Andrea del Sarto, then his companion, with whom for a long time he shared both work-room and the painter's life; on account of which life they made great proficience, one through the other, in the art of painting. ”

“ The entire work indeed would have proved without doubt a very admirable and honourable one, biit the artist was seized with a wish to return to Genoa, to which place he was attracted by certain love affairs and other fantasies, whereunto his inclinations sometimes led him, with a force which he did not resist so effectually as he might have done. On his departure from Pisa, the master presented the nuns of San Matteo with a small picture in oil, which he had painted for them, and which they still retain in their convent. ”

“ Vasari has no doubt at all about the arts being in the most healthy condition in the best of all possible artistic worlds, but it is easy for us to see that this art of the High Renaissance was not of the very best; that the spirit had died out of it almost as soon as the form had attained to outward perfection. ”

“ Thus it happened one morning, while the Pontiff was at breakfast in the Belvidere, that these collected designs were laid before his Holiness in the presence of Antonio, the masters proposing these plans being Perino del Yaga, Fra Bastiano del Piombo, Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and Giorgio Vasari, who was then very young and in the service of the Cardinal Farnese, by commission from whom and from the Pope, he had prepared not one only but two designs of different character for that work. ”

“ In the same year Giorgio Vasari was in Venice, where he passed thirteen months, employed, as I have said, in the decoration of a ceiling for Messer Giovanni Cornaro, and certain works for the Company of the Calza, when Sansovino, who was directing the construction of Santo Spirito, caused him to make designs for three large pictures in oil, which were to be executed in the ceiling of Santo Spirito, and which Vasari was to paint ”

“ But being seized, before he had finished it, with a desire to go to Venice, Francesco left it to Carlo Portelli of Loro, who finished it after Francesco's design; which design, with many others by the same hand, is in our book.
Having departed from Florence and made his way to Bologna, Francesco found there Giorgio Vasari, who had returned two days before from Camaldoli, where he had finished the two altar-pieces that are in the tramezzo [17] of the church, and had begun that of the high-altar ”

“ And at Fiesole, for the same Signor Sforza, he made many ornaments in his [Pg 27] garden and around certain fountains. Afterwards he executed for the Lord Duke some low-reliefs in marble and in bronze, which were held to be very beautiful, for in that manner of sculpture he is perhaps not inferior to any other master. He then cast, also in bronze, the grating of the chapel built in the new apartments of the Palace, which were painted by Giorgio Vasari, and with it a panel with many figures in low-relief, which serves to close a press wherein the Duke keeps writings of importance ”

“ Our artist is, and ever has been, most liberal of all that he possesses, and most kindly in all things, as it is possible for any one, even an artist, noble as he is, to be; gentle of disposition, he has never offered injury to any one, and has ever loved the distinguished men of his own vocation, as well we know who have lived on terms of close friendship with him for three and forty years, from 1524 that is, to the present year of 1567; since it was at the first mentioned period, when he was labouring at the Certosa, with Pontormo, that I first began to know and love this man ”

“ At the age of ten, having a fine spirit and a lively intelligence, he was sent to Venice to the house of an uncle, an honoured citizen, who, perceiving the boy to be much inclined to painting, placed him with Gian Bellini, an excellent painter very famous at that time, as has been related. Under his discipline, attending to design, he soon showed that he was endowed by nature with all the gifts of intellect and judgment that are necessary for the art of painting ”

“ Very clearly do men of discretion and judgment perceive the presumption and folly of any one who pretends to exercise an art of which he knows nothing, nor do such men fail to remark the dissimulation of those who pretend to like and approve of attempts which they certainly know to be without merit, all which may be exemplified by the works which Giorgio Vasari has had to demolish in the Palace, to the great loss of the Duke, as well as the disgrace of those by whom they were permitted and executed. ”