1511 -1574 · Arezzo, Florence and Mannerist culture

Painter, architect, organizer of major projects and author of Lives, Giorgio Vasari transforms Florentine art as much through his works as through the telling of its history.

Giorgio Vasari was born in Arezzo in 1511. Trained in Tuscan circles, he studied with Guglielmo da Marsiglia then joined Florence, where he frequented Andrea del Sarto, Baccio Bandinelli and the Medici circle. Admirer of Michelangelo, he developed a mannerist painting based on drawing, elongated figures, complex poses and major allegorical programs. His career took him to Rome, Naples, Bologna, Venice and several Italian courts. In Florence, Cosimo I de' Medici entrusted him with major undertakings. Vasari directed the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio, notably the vast Salone dei Cinquecento, where battles, allegories and portraits celebrated ducal power. An architect, he designed the Uffizi building from 1560 and created the corridor linking Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace in 1565. He also participated in the transformation of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella according to the principles of the Counter-Reformation. His most famous legacy, however, remains literary. The Lives of the Best Painters, Sculptors and Architects, published in 1550 then enriched in 1568, organize the history of Italian art as a progress culminating with Michelangelo. The book retains irreplaceable testimonies despite its errors and Tuscan biases. Vasari also brings together a Libro de' Disegni, a collection of ancient sheets intended to document the genealogy of drawing. In 1563, with Cosimo I, he founded the Accademia del Disegno. Died in Florence in 1574, he remains a unique figure, at the same time practitioner, theorist, collector and first great historian of artists. The "Giorgio Vasari" selection notably compares The Annunciation and The Deposition from the Cross. His reading favors light.

Vasari constructs a story with the same tools as a palace: artists, works, drawings and monuments are ordered to give shape to a vision of the Renaissance.