Who was Giorgio Vasari?
He was born in Arezzo, a town forty miles from Florence, and baptised on July 30, 1511. Named after his grandfather, he came from a long line of craftsmen potters skilled in reproducing the black and red Attic vases for which the area was famous. This is reflected in the family’s surname, a variant of the word vasaio, or vase. Giorgio’s great-grandfather was a little-known painter by the name of Lazzaro Vasari, whom he included proudly in The Lives. The painter Luca Signorelli was also a relative, and it was he who first encouraged Giorgio’s father to have his son trained as an artist. Another family member, Cardinal Silvio Passerini, was responsible for taking him to Florence in 1525 to further his studies. Vasari says he was apprenticed at first to Michelangelo, but as he was called away to Rome, was sent to study under Andrea del Sarto. He became a servant of the Medici, and this was the beginning of a lifelong association with the family who were to become his greatest patrons. In
He was born in Arezzo, a town 40 miles from Florence, and baptized on July 30, 1511. Named after his grandfather, he came from a long line of craftsmen potters skilled in reproducing the black and red Attic vases for which the area was famous. This is reflected in the family’s surname, a variant of the word vasaio, or vase. Giorgio’s great-grandfather was a little-known painter by the name of Lazzaro Vasari, whom he included proudly in The Lives. The painter Luca Signorelli was also a relative, and it was he who first encouraged Giorgio’s father to have his son trained as an artist. Another family member, Cardinal Silvio Passerini, was responsible for taking him to Florence to further his studies in 1525. Vasari says he was apprenticed at first to Michelangelo, but as he was called away to Rome, was sent to study under Andrea del Sarto. He became a servant of the Medici, and this was the beginning of a lifelong association with the family who were to become his greatest patrons. In 152
