摘要
Giorgio Vasari(1511-74)as an artist and art historian of Italian Mannerism viewed himself as huomo buono et docto in buon letter(a fine and learned man).1 In choosing to practice various arts such as writing treatises,collecting drawings,painting decorative cycles,designing buildings,and decorating facades,Vasari was viewed by humanists as a virtuoso.This Tuscan painter,architect,art collector,writer,and art historian is best known for his Vite de’piùeccellenti architetti,pittori e scultori italiani,da Cimabue insino a’tempi nostri(Lives of the Most Excellent Architects,Painters and Sculptors of Italy,from Cimabue to the present time),which was first published in 1550,followed by an enlarged edition illustrated with woodcuts of artists’portraits in 1568.2 In 1960,Einar Rud(1892-1980),a Danish biographer and a scholar of Vasari,characterized him as the first art historian.3 By virtue of Rud’s text,Vasari is known as“the first art historian”-in particular,of Italian art-since Pliny the Elder wrote Book 35 on the History of Art in Ancient times in the Natural History,published posthumously in 79 CE.4 It is almost impossible to imagine the history of Italian art without Vasari,so fundamental is his Vite(Lives).This sixteenth-century Italian work is the first real and autonomous history of art because of its monumental encompassing of all of the following:(1)preambles for explanatory data on the function of the text;(2)integration of individual biographies(with anecdotal,gossipy,and amusing commentaries);(3)theory of art with articulations about artistic creativity and intentionality;and(4)inclusion of explanations of the function and types of artistic materials as well as their applications and techniques necessary for the productivity of art forms(that is,a formation of an instruction manual for artists and the manual’s application to material culture in the sixteenth century).In his coat of arms,Vasari visualized these creative activities and honored his Aretine artistic ancestry(Figure 1).This study consists of four parts:(1)a brief history of Vasari’s family;(2)a brief discussion of Vasari’s homes,Case Vasari;(3)a discussion on the location of his coat of arms(stemma)in the Case Vasari;and(4)and an interpretation of the meaning of Vasari’s coat of arms in his Aretine home.
