Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T06:12:40.396Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Composition of Giorgio Vasari's Ricordanze: Evidence from an Unknown Draft*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Philip J. Jacks
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The fame of Giorgio Vasari's Vite de’ eccellcnti pittori satltori ed architettori, both as a masterpiece of Italian literature and the model of modern biography, has perhaps slighted our awareness of the degree to which this author was also a publicist of his own artistic persona. Actually the documentation Vasari left of his professional and domestic affairs is probably more copious than the research he compiled for the lives of his fellow artists. Yet Vasari must have come to the idea of an autobiography relatively late in life. At the end of the second edition of the Vite published in 1568, he devoted “alcune cose degli artefici della nostra Accademia di Firenze,” followed by a “descrizione” of his own career up to the present. Rather than an expression of self-effacement, here the distinction between description and biography seems to be a question of genre. Why Vasari found the scheme of the vita suitable for some contemporaries and not for others is difficult to explain. As for his own life, the prospect of writing the definitive version at this stage no doubt would have seemed a bit premature.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , Winter 1992 , pp. 739 - 784
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article benefited from my discussions with Peter Lynch, Creighton Gilbert, Robert Babcock, Richard Goldthwaite, and Robert Williams. I owe a special note of gratitude to Patricia Rubin for her extensive critical comments and references to archival sources. Thanks also go to the John Enders Faculty Research Fund at Yale University, which supported my travel to Arezzo in March 1990.

References

Anselmi, Gian Mario, Fulvio, Pezzarossa, and Luisa, Avellini. La ‘memoria’ dei mercatores: tendenze ideologiche, ricordanze, artigianalo in versi nella Fireuzc del Quattrocento. Bologna, 1980.Google Scholar
Babcock, Robert G. and DianeJ., Ducharme “A Preliminary Inventory of the Vasari Papers in the Beinecke Library.” Art Bulletin 71 (1989): 300-05.Google Scholar
Baldini, Umberto. Catalogo delta Mostra Vasariana. Florence. 1950.Google Scholar
Bardazzi, Silvestro and Enrico, Castellani. La villa Medicea di Poggio a Caiano. Prato, 1981.Google Scholar
Barocchi, Paola, . Vasari pittore. Milan, 1964.Google Scholar
Barocchi, Paola. ed. Scritti d'arte del Cincpiccento. Milan and Naples, 1973.Google Scholar
Boase, T. S. R. Giorgio I'asari: The Man and the Book. Bollingen Series, 35. Princeton, 1979.Google Scholar
Briquet, C. M. “Les filigranes.” In Watermark Illustrations, ed. Stevenson, A., III. Amsterdam, 1968.Google Scholar
Brucker, Gene, ed. Two Memoirs of Renaissance Florence: The Diaries of Buonaccorso Pitti & Gregorio Dati. Trans. Jean, Martine. New York, 1967.Google Scholar
Cellini, Benvenuto. Ricordi, prose e poesie di Benvenuto Cellini. Ed. Francesco, Tassi. Florence, 1829.Google Scholar
Cochrane, Eric. Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance. Chicago, 1981.Google Scholar
Colasanti, Arduino.“11 memoriale di Baccio Bandinelli.” Repertorium fiir Kunstwissenschaft 27 (1905): 406-43.Google Scholar
Corti, Laura, . Vasari: Catalogo completo. Florence, 1989.Google Scholar
Dabell, Frank.“Domenico Veneziano in Arezzo and the Problem of Vasari's Painter Ancestor.” Burlington Magazine 127 (1985): 29–32.Google Scholar
Davis, Charles. “Frescoes by Vasari for Sforza Almeni, ‘Coppiere’ to Duke Cosimo I . “ Mitteiiungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes zu Florcnz 24 (1950): 127–202.Google Scholar
Del Vita, Alessandro. Inventario c regesto dei manoscritti dell'Archivio Vasariano. Ronfe, 1938.Google Scholar
Del Vita, Alessandro. ed. Le Ricordanze di Giorgio I'asari. Arezzo, 1929.Google Scholar
Del Vita, Alessandro. “Le ricordanze di Giorgio Vasari.” // Vasari 1 (1927): 3-38, 9 7 - 136 . 189–214, 315-55.Google Scholar
Del Vita, Alessandro. LoZihaldonedi Giorgio Vasari. Rome, 1938.Google Scholar
Del Vita, Alessandro. “L'origine e 1'albero genealogico della famiglia Vasari.” Il Vasari 3 (1930): 51–57.Google Scholar
Forlani, Anna. Mostra del discgno italiano di cinque secoli. Florence, 1961.Google Scholar
Foster, Philip.A, Study of Lorenzo de’ Medici's Villa at Poggio a Caiano. New York and London, 1978.Google Scholar
Frey, Hermann-Walter, ed. Neuc Briefe von Giorgio Vasari. Burg-bei-Main, 1940.Google Scholar
Frey, Karl, ed. Der Literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris. 2 vols. Munich, 1922-32.Google Scholar
Garfagnini, Giovanni Carlo, ed. Giorgio Vasari tra decorazione ambientale e storiografia arlistica. Convegno di studi Arezzo, 8-10ottobre 1921. Florence, 1981.Google Scholar
GinoriConti, PrincipePiero, ed. L'Apparato per le nozze di Francesco de’ Medici e di Giovanna d'Austria nelle narrazioni del tempo c da lettere inedite di Vincenzo Borghini c di Giorgio Vasari. Florence, 1936.Google Scholar
Guglielminetti, Marziano. Memoria e scrittura: L'autobiografia da Dante al Cellini. Turin, 1977.Google Scholar
Guicciardini, Francesco. Scritti autobiografici e rari. Opere, 9. Ed. Palmarocchi, R.. Bari, 1936.Google Scholar
Hall, Marcia. Renovation and Counter- Reformation: Vasari and Duke Cosimo in Sta. Maria Novella and Sta. Croce. Oxford, 1979.Google Scholar
Home, Herbert. “A Newly Discovered ‘Libro dei Ricordi’ of Alesso Baldovi netti.” Burlington Magazine 2 (1903): 22-32, 167–174.Google Scholar
Isermeyer, Christian A. “Die Cappella Vasari und der Hochaltar in der Pieve von Arezzo.” In Festschrift fiir C. G. Heise, 137-53- Berlin, 1950.Google Scholar
Jones, P. J. “Florentine Families and Florentine Diaries in the Fourteenth Century.” Papers of the British School in Rome 24 (1956): 183–205.Google Scholar
Kallab, Wolfgang. Vasaristudien. Florence, 1906.Google Scholar
Kent, Francis W. Household and Lineage in Renaissance Florence: The Family Life oj the Capponi, Ginori, and Rucellai. Princeton, 1977.Google Scholar
Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane. Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy. Trans. Lydia, Cochrane. Chicago and London, 1985.Google Scholar
Landi, Emilio. Alesso Baldovinetti pittore fiorentino, con I'aggiunta dei suoi ‘Ricordi'. Florence, 1907.Google Scholar
Lomazzo, Giovani Paolo. Rime divise in setie Libri, nelle quali ad imitatione de i Grotteschi Usati da'pittori, ha cantato le lodidi Dio, & de lecosesacre, di Prencipi, diSignori, Bhuomini letterati, di pittori, scoltori, & architetti … con la vita dell'Autore descritta da lui stesso in rime sciolte. Milan, 1587.Google Scholar
Lomazzo, Giovani Paolo. Scritti sulle arti. Ed. Ciardi, R. P.. Florence, 1973.Google Scholar
Lotto, Lorenzo. Il ‘Libro di spese diverse’ con aggiunta di lettere e d'altri documenti. Ed. Zampetti, P.. Venice and Rome, 1969.Google Scholar
Mellini, Domenico. Descrizione dell'entrata della sereniss. Regina Giovanna d'Austria, et dell'Apparato fatto in Firenze nella Eccellentiss. S. Don Francesco de Medici, Prencipe di Fiorenza, & di Siena. Florence, 1566.Google Scholar
Milanesi, Gaetano, ed. Le Opere di Giorgio Vasari. 8 vols. Florence, 1906.Google Scholar
Neri di, Bicci. Le ricordanze (10 marzo 1453-24 aprile 1475). Ed. Santi, B.. Pisa, 1976.Google Scholar
Pezzarossa, Fulvio. “La memorialistica fiorentina tra medioevo e rinascimento: Rassegna di studi e testi.” Lettere italiane 31 (1979): 96–138.Google Scholar
Phillips, Mark. The Memoir of Marco Parenti: A Life in Medici Florence. Princeton, 1987.Google Scholar
Phillips, Mark. Francesco Guicciardini: The Historian's Craft. Toronto and Buffalo, 1977.Google Scholar
Piccard, Gerhard. Wasserzeichen ,14,Frucht. Stuttgart, 1983.Google Scholar
Poggi, Giovanni. “Le Ricordanze di Neri di Bicci.“ Il Vasari 1 (1928): 317-38:3 (1930): 133-53. 222-34; 4 (1931): 189–202.Google Scholar
Poggi, Giovanni. I ricordi di Alesso Baldovinetti tiuovamente pubblicati e illustrati. Florence, 1909.Google Scholar
Popham, A. E. and Johannes, Wilde. The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle. London, 1949.Google Scholar
Richa, Giuseppe. Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine divise ne’ suoi qnartieri. Florence, 1754.Google Scholar
Satkowski, Leon. Studies in Vasari's Architecture. New York and London, 1979.Google Scholar
Scoti-Bertinelli, Ugo. Giorgio Vasariscrittore. Pisa, 1905.Google Scholar
Schlosser, Julius von. La letteratura artistica. Otto Kurz, E.. Florence, 1964.Google Scholar
La Toscana net ‘500. Giorgio Vasari. Principi, letterati e artisti nelle carte di Giorgio, Vasari, Casa Vasari. Pittura vasariana dal 1532 al 1554, SottochiesadiS. Francesco. Arezzo, 26 settembre-29 novembre 1981. Florence, 1981.Google Scholar
Supino, I. B. , ed. I ricordi di Alessandro Allori. Florence, 1908.Google Scholar
Trexler, Richard. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. New York and London, 1980.Google Scholar
Trexler, Richard. “In Search of Father: The Experience of Abandonment in the Recollections of Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli.” History of Childhood Quarterly 3 (1975): 225-52.Google Scholar
Il Vasari Storiografo e Artista: Atti del congresso intemazionale net IVCentenario della morte. Arezzo-Firenze 2-4 settembre 1974. Florence, 1976.Google Scholar
Veen, H. Th. van. Letteratura artistica e arte di corte nella Firenze granducale: Studi vari. Florence, 1986.Google Scholar
Wedgewood, Ruth Kennedy. Alesso Baldovinetti: A Critical and Historical Study. London and Oxford, 1938.Google Scholar