David J. Cast - The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari

THE ASHGATE RESEARCH COMPANION TO GIORGIO VASARI

The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari brings together the worlds foremost experts on Vasari as well as up-and-coming scholars to provide, at the 500th anniversary of his birth, a comprehensive assessment of the current state of scholarship on this importantand still controversialartist and writer. The contributors examine the life and work of Vasari as an artist, architect, courtier, academician, and as a biographer of artists. They also explore his legacy, including an analysis of the reception of his work over the last five centuries.

Among the topics specifically addressed here are an assessment of the current controversy as to how much of Vasaris Lives was actually written by Vasari; and explorations of Vasaris relationships with, as well as reports about, contemporaries, including Cellini, Michelangelo and Giotto, among less familiar names. The geographic scope takes in not only Florence, the city traditionally privileged in Italian Renaissance art history, but also less commonly studied geographical venues such as Siena and Venice.

The Ashgate Research Companions are designed to offer scholars and graduate students a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research in a particular area. The companions editors bring together a team of respected and experienced experts to write chapters on the key issues in their speciality, providing a comprehensive reference to the field.

Edited by

DAVID J. CAST

Bryn Mawr College, USA

ASHGATE

The editor and contributors 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

David J. Cast has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Ashgate research companion to Giorgio Vasari / by David J. Cast.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4094-0847-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4724-1391-8 (ebook) -

ISBN 978-1-4724-1392-5 (epub)

1. Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574--Criticism and interpretation. 2. Art, Renaissance--Historiography. I. Cast, David, 1942-, editor of compilation.

N6923.V32A83 2014

709.2--dc23

2013005985

ISBN 9781409408475 (hbk)
ISBN 9781472413918 (ebk-PDF)
ISBN 9781472413925 (ebk-ePUB)

David J. Cast

Charles Hope

Robert Williams

Liana de Girolami Cheney

Norman E. Land

Perri Lee Roberts

William E. Wallace

Paul Barolsky

Karen Hope Goodchild

Ann C. Huppert

Marjorie Och

Melinda Schlitt

Victoria C. Gardner Coates

Sharon Gregory

Robert W. Gaston

Lisa Pon

Hilary Fraser

2 Vasari and Vincenzo Borghini

3 Giorgio Vasari: Artist, Designer, Collector

5 Vasaris 1568 Life of Masaccio

8 Bizarre Painters and Bohemian Poets: Poetic Imitation and Artistic Rivalry in Vasaris Biography of Piero di Cosimo

9 Giorgio Vasari and the Art of Siena

10 Venice and the Perfection of the Arts

11 Giorgio Vasari and Francesco Salviati: Friendship and Art

15 Rewriting Vasari

16 Vasaris Lives and the Victorians

Commonwealth Professor of the History of Italian Renaissance Art at the University of Virginia, Paul Barolsky is the author of the Vasari trilogy, Michelangelos Nose, Why Mona Lisa Smiles, and Giottos Father. His most recent book, A Brief History of the Artist from God to Picasso, includes a chapter on Vasari.

David J. Cast, Professor of the History of Art and Eugenia Chase Guild Professor of the Humanities at Bryn Mawr College, is a specialist in Renaissance art and in the history of the classical tradition. Beyond his books, The Calumny of Apelles: A Study in the Humanist Tradition (Yale University Press, 1981) and The Delight of Art: Giorgio Vasari and the Traditions of Humanist Discourse (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), his work has been published in European and American journals (such as Simiolus, The Burlington Magazine, Word & Image, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, The Art Bulletin), and in many encyclopedias, including the Macmillan Dictionary of Art and the International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture, and in the collective volumes Renaissance Humanism: Foundation, Forms and Legacy (1988); Giorgio Vasari: Art, Literature and History at the Medici Court (1998); Reading Vasari (2005); and The Historians Eye: Essays on Italian Art in Honor of Andrew Ladis (2009). His most recent publication is Artistic Biography in Italy: Vasari to Malvasia in A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).

Liana de Girolami Cheney, is presently Investigadora de Historia del Arte, SIELAE, Universidad de Corua, Spain, retired Professor of Art History, Chairperson of the Department of Cultural Studies at UMASS Lowell. Dr. Cheney received her BS/BA in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Miami, Florida, her MA in History of Art and Aesthetics from the University of Miami, Florida and her Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance and Baroque from Boston University, MA. Dr. Cheney is a Pre-Raphaelite, Renaissance and Mannerism scholar, author, and coauthor of numerous articles and books, including: Religious Architecture of Lowell; James Abbott McNeill Whistler Papers; James Abbott McNeill Whistler and His Birthplace; Andrea del Verrocchios Celebration: 14351488; Botticellis Neoplatonic Images; Neoplatonism and the Arts; Neoplatonic Aesthetics in Literature, Music and the Visual Arts; The Paintings of the Casa Vasari; Readings in Italian Mannerism; The Homes of Giorgio Vasari; Self-Portraits of Women Painters; Essays of Women Artists: The Most Excellent; Symbolism in the Arts; Pre-Raphaelite Medievalism; Giorgio Vasaris Teachers: Sacred and Profane Love; Giuseppe Arcimboldo: The Magic Paintings; Giorgio Vasaris Life and Lives: The First Art Historian by Einar Rud; Giorgio Vasari: pennello, pluma e ardore; Giorgio Vasaris Prefaces: Art and Theory; Giorgio Vasaris Artistic and Emblematic Manifestations; Giorgio Vasari in Context, and Edward Burne-Jones Mythical Paintings. Her forthcoming book is on Agnolo Bronzino: The Florentine Muse