The Composition of Giorgio Vasari'sRicordanze: Evidence from an Unknown Draft

Abstract

The fame of Giorgio Vasari'sVite 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 theVitepublished 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 thevitasuitable 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.