venetian architecture 751
interpretations displaced the slippery meanings doubtless propagated in
numerous everyday conversations in the Piazza.
Writers of the early modern period not only pioneered the guidebook
and the topographical description; they also established the tradition of
the artist’s biography. The most influential model was, of course, Giorgio
Vasari, who made at least two visits to Venice in 1542 and 1566.31 Most of
his information about architects in Venice and the Veneto is found not in
the first edition of his Lives of the Artists of 1550 but in the second edition
published in 1568. Two years later, on the death of the Florentine archi-
tect and sculptor Jacopo Sansovino, Vasari amplified the biography of his
fellow Tuscan in a separate revised edition, published in Venice by the
architect’s grandson Giacomo Sansovino.32 It is now recognized that, on
Jacopo’s death, Francesco furnished Vasari with additional material—not
only to inflate his late father’s reputation but also to support his attempts
to reclaim outstanding payments. Vasari’s biography stressed Jacopo’s
radical impact on the townscape of Venice:
Sansovino’s method of building was the reason why public and private
edifices began to be constructed with new designs and better order, and
according to the ancient teaching of Vitruvius [.. .] he has, as said, with his
knowledge and judgment caused that city to be made almost completely
new, and to learn the true and good method of architecture.33
As in antiquity, epistolary collections offered a particularly personal
angle. One of the most prolific and influential poligrafi of 16th-century
Venice, Pietro Aretino, originated from Vasari’s home town of Arezzo.34
The initial volumes of his correspondence, addressed to popes, princes,
emperors, artists and literati, were issued by Francesco Marcolini, a pivotal
cultural figure who also published the first volumes of Serlio’s treatise on
architecture and the earliest printed compositions of the composer Adrian
Willaert.35 As a close friend of both Jacopo Sansovino and Titian, Aretino
31 Juergen Schulz, “Vasari at Venice,” Burlington Magazine 103 (1961), 500–10.
32 Bruce Boucher, The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, 2 vols (New Haven/London, 1991,
1:160–62.
33 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols (Florence 1878–85), 7:502–03;
English trans. from Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, vol. 2, trans. George Bull (London,
1987), pp. 325, 328.
34 Christopher Cairns, Pietro Aretino and the Republic of Venice: Researches on Aretino
and his Circle in Venice, 1527–1556 (Florence, 1985).
35 Aretino’s letters were published in Venice in six volumes between 1538 and 1557.
See Ettore Camesasca, ed., Lettere sull’arte di Pietro Aretino, with commentary by Fidenzio
Pertile, 3 vols (Milan, 1957–60). Francesco Marcolini published the first volume of Aretino’s