Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2010

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg discusses 'Lives of the Artists' - the great biographer Giorgio Vasari's study of Renaissance painters, sculptors and architects. In 1550 a little known Italian artist, Giorgio Vasari, published a revolutionary book entitled 'Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times'. In it he chronicled the evolution of Italian art from the early pioneer Giotto to the perfection of Michelangelo.For the first time, Vasari set out to record artists' eccentricities and foibles as well as their artistic triumphs. We learn that the painter Piero di Cosimo was scared of the sound of bells, and witness Donatello shouting at his statues. But amongst these beguiling stories of human achievement, Vasari also explained his own theory of what made great art.In more recent decades, Vasari has been criticised for not allowing factual accuracy to get in the way of a good story. Nonetheless, the influence of his work has been unparalleled. It has formed and defined the way we think about Renaissance art to this day and some credit him with being the founder of the discipline of the history of art. Few artists that Vasari criticised have been comprehensively rehabilitated and Vasari's semi-divine trio of Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo are still seen as the apotheosis of artistic perfection. With:Evelyn WelchProfessor of Renaissance Studies and Academic Dean for Arts at Queen Mary, University of LondonDavid EkserdjianProfessor of History of Art and Film at the University of LeicesterMartin KempEmeritus Professor in the History of Art at the University of OxfordProducer: Thomas Morris.

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the NRTIME podcast. For more details about NRTIME and for our terms of use,
0:05.4	please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for. I hope you enjoy the program.
0:12.8	Hello. In 1550, a little known Florentine quartier and painter published a book that would
0:17.5	transform the way people saw Renaissance art. Georges Vassari's The Lies of the Artists,
0:23.3	excuse me, presented for the first time the biographies and works of Italian painters
0:27.3	and sculptors as the story of an ascent from the breakthroughs of Jotto in the 13th century
0:32.3	towards the perfection of Michelangelo. In his masterwork, Vassari pens vivid sketches,
0:37.7	which include the eccentricities, which drove Italy's artistic innovators. We encounter
0:42.8	Pierre de Cosimo, a painter who was scared of the sound of bells and witnessed not a tello shouting
0:47.6	at his statues. And Vassari sees all these artists as steps towards the triumphs and the semi-divine
0:53.8	trio Michelangelo, a fel and Leonardo. In the process, some say that Vassari unwittingly found
0:59.2	it a whole new discipline of study, the history of art. And despite doubts about the veracity of some
1:04.0	of his stories, without this monumental work artistry would be immeasurably poorer. With me to
1:09.2	discuss Vassari's lives of the artists are Martin Kemp, emeritus professor in the history of art
1:14.0	at the University of Oxford, David Xergin, professor of history of art and film at the University of
1:19.9	Lester and Evelyn Welch, professor of Renaissance studies and academic dean for arts at Queen Mary
1:25.0	University of London. And then before we talk about Vassari himself, can you give us some idea of
1:29.3	the context of the time in Florence? Yes, Vassari's life, which spans the period from 1511 to 1574,
1:37.6	is a time of really quite radical change. In both in Florence and in Tuscany,
1:42.2	Vassari is born in Oretzso, which is a time which owes allegiance, well, the reluctant allegiance
1:47.2	to Florence. And to understand the transformative nature of the period that he lives through,
1:54.0	we need to realise that for the previous 200 years, really, before he's born, Florence has been
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