Early life[edit]

Vasari was born in Arezzo, Tuscany.[1] Recommended at an early age by his cousin Luca
Signorelli, he became a pupil of Guglielmo da Marsiglia, a skillful painter of stained glass.
Sent to Florence at the age of sixteen by Cardinal Silvio Passerini, he joined the circle
of Andrea del Sarto and his pupils Rosso Fiorentino and Jacopo Pontormo where his
humanist education was encouraged. He was befriended by Michelangelo whose painting
style would influence his own.

Painting[edit]

Giorgio Vasari, Italian humanists, Tuscan Poets: Dante, Ptrarque, Guido Cavalcanti, Boccacce, Cino da
Pistoia et Guittone d'Arezzo[2]

Giorgio Vasari, The Garden of Gethsemane

In 1529, he visited Rome where he studied the works of Raphael and other artists of the
Roman High Renaissance. Vasari's own Mannerist paintings were more admired in his
lifetime than afterwards. In 1547 he completed the hall of the chancery in Palazzo della
Cancelleria in Rome with frescoes that received the name Sala dei Cento Giorni. He was
consistently employed by members of the Medici family in Florence and Rome, and worked
in Naples, Arezzo and other places. Many of his pictures still exist, the most important
being the wall and ceiling paintings in the Sala di Cosimo I in the Palazzo Vecchio in
Florence, where he and his assistants were at work from 1555, and the frescoes begun by
him inside the vast cupola of theDuomo; they were completed by Federico Zuccari and
with the help of Giovanni Balducci. He also helped to organize the decoration of

the Studiolo, now reassembled in the Palazzo Vecchio.

Architecture[edit]
Vasari was perhaps more successful as an architect than as a painter. His loggia of
the Palazzo degli Uffizi by the Arnoopens up the vista at the far end of its long narrow
courtyard, a unique piece of urban planning that functions as a public piazza, and which, if
considered as a short street, is unique as a Renaissance street with a unified architectural
treatment. The view of the Loggia from the Arno reveals that, with the Vasari Corridor, it is
one of very few structures that line the river which are open to the river itself and appear
to embrace the riverside environment.

The Uffizi Loggia.

In Florence, Vasari also built the long passage, now called Vasari Corridor, which connects
the Uffizi with the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the river. The enclosed corridor passes
alongside the River Arno on an arcade, crosses the Ponte Vecchioand winds around the
exterior of several buildings.
He also renovated the medieval churches of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce. At both
he removed the original rood screen and loft, and remodelled the retro-choirs in the
Mannerist taste of his time. In Santa Croce, he was responsible for the painting of The
Adoration of the Magi which was commissioned by Pope Pius V in 1566 and completed in
February 1567. It was recently restored, before being put on exhibition in 2011 in Rome
and in Naples. Eventually it is planned to return it to the church of Santa Croce in Bosco
Marengo (Province of Alessandria, Piedmont).
In 1562 Vasari built the octagonal dome on the Basilica of Our Lady of Humility in Pistoia,
an important example of high Renaissance architecture.[3]
In Rome, Vasari worked with Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and Bartolomeo
Ammanati at Pope Julius III's Villa Giulia.