The Renaissance

Uffizi gallery in Florence, formerly the
government offices (Uffizi) of Tuscany. In
this work he took inspiration from the de-
sign of the Vatican by Donato Bramante
and by Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library
in Florence. Vasari designed a loggia, or
covered passageway, in the Piazza Grande
of Arezzo, where he also worked on the
Church of Santi Fiora e Lucilla. He reno-
vated the Churches of Santa Croce and
Santa Maria Novella in Florence, replacing
medieval features of the churches with a
unified design inspired by classical Roman
architecture. His many commissions al-
lowed him to prosper and become a lead-
ing citizen of Arezzo, where he designed
and decorated a mansion and where he at-
tained the post ofgonfaloniere, or mayor.
In Florence he founded the Academy of
Design with Cosimo de’ Medici and Mich-
elangelo; this institution survives to the
present day as the Academy of Fine Arts
of Florence.

A tireless traveler, Vasari developed on
his wide-ranging journeys a keen instinct
for judging works of art and especially
paintings. From his wanderings he gath-
ered notes and anecdotes that he worked
into hisLives, which was first published in
1550 and was expanded for a new edition
in 1568 and illustrated with woodcut por-
traits. The book begins with an introduc-
tion on the history of painting, sculpture,
and architecture in Italy and then covers
the lives of men who revived these arts in
the Middle Ages: the painters Cimabue and
Giotto, the sculptors of the city of Pisa,
and the architect Arnolofo di Cambio.
Vasari was close to Michelangelo and re-
serves his highest praise for this artist,
whose works he sees as the culmination of
the revival of the art of the classical age.
For the second edition Vasari included a
wider range of painters who lived outside
of his favored city of Florence, including

some Venetians and non-Italians. Vasari’s

book, which coined the term Rinascita, or

Renaissance, provides many valuable in-

sights for modern historians of the Re-

naissance, although he worked in an anti-

quated style that combined historical

speculation and fiction with facts as he

knew them. His book provided inspiration

for many authors and poets, including

Honore de Balzac, George Eliot, and Rob-

ert Browning, who treated the themes of

struggling artists and their works, but

more importantly established a foundation

for the modern field of art history.

SEEALSO: Florence; Medici, Cosimo de’;

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Venice..............................................

A city of northeastern Italy that was a

leading center of artistic innovation

through the Italian Renaissance. Venice was

founded in the fifth century by Romans

fleeing an invasion of the Lombards, bar-

barians who were overrunning northern

Italy. The settlers built their shelters on a

series of low-lying islands that rose above

a surrounding lagoon, protected from the

tides of the Adriatic Sea by a series of bar-

rier islands. Adoge, or duke, ruled the is-

land settlements, which remained part of

the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire

until Venice emerged as an independent

city-state in the tenth century. The city ex-

tended its control to Dalmatia, the coast-

land along the eastern fringe of the Adri-

atic Sea, and began to send expeditions to

the east. During the Crusades—medieval

campaigns to wrest the city of Jerusalem

and the Holy Land from the Muslims—

Venice established trading routes with sev-

eral ports in the eastern Mediterranean.

Venetian merchants such as Marco Polo

voyaged via the Silk Road and other routes

as far as China and other points in East

Venice