L.pon, Michelangelo's Lives Sixteenth-Century Books by Vasari, Condivi, and Others

Michelangelo's Lives: Sixteenth-Century Books by Vasari, Condivi, and Others
Author(s): Lisa Pon

Source: The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 1015-1037
Published by: The Sixteenth Century Journal
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Sixteenth CenturyJournal
XXVII/4 (1996)
Michelangelo's Lives: Sixteenth-Century
Books by Vasari, Condivi, and Others
Lisa Pon
Harvard University
This study examines how a number of books published in the sixteenth century
played important roles in formulating a public identity for Michelangelo as a singular
artist touched by genius.The books discussed include GiorgioVasari's first and second
editions of his Vite de' piu' eccellenti architetti, pittori et scultori;Ascanio Condivi's biogra-
phy Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti; the funerary pamphlet called Esequie del divin
Michelagnolo Buonarroti; and a special offprint edition ofVasari's 1568 biography of
Michelangelo. These books were neither the first biographies of Michelangelo, nor
the earliest texts written about artists. Nonetheless, they were instrumental in building
a public image of Michelangelo as an artist of outstanding stature; they did so through
their dialogues with other texts and other genres, their amplified effects as printed and
published books, and their tangible presence as objects which could be bought or
given.
IN I552,ANTON FRANCESCO DONI published a dialogue between a native Florentine
and a foreign tourist as part of his book I Marmi. The two men stand in Michel-
angelo's Medici Chapel, admiring the sculpture and discussing Florentine affairs,
when the foreigner chides the native about the absence of so many great Floren-
tines, living and dead: "Where's your Dante? Your Petrarch? How's Boccaccio? ...
Where [is] Michelangelo?"t Michelangelo had in fact left his native city almost
twenty years before the publication of Doni's text, leaving unfinished the very
chapel in which Doni set this dialogue. I Marmi is only one of a number of books
published in the mid-sixteenth century that refer to that missing artist. Giorgio
Vasari wrote two of the most well known of these books; his account of Michelan-
gelo's life is included in his series of biographies of artists called, in the first edition,
Le vite de'pi44 eccellenti architetti, pittori et scultori italiani da Cimabtie insino a tempi nostri
(1550). Recent scholarship has explored how these biographies restructured or
lAnton Francesco Doni, I Marmi, ed. Ezio Chiorboli (Bari: Laterza, 1928), 2:22: "Il vostro Dante
dove e? il vostro Petrarca? il Boccaccio come si sua? ... dove Michel Angelo?"
Earlier versions of this essay were read at the 1994 meeting of the Renaissance Society of
America, and the Renaissance Study Group (1993) and Renaissance Forum at Harvard
University (1994).
1015
1016 Sixteenth CentturyJotirnal XXVII / 4 (1996)
even radically reshaped events of his subjects' lives.2 This study broadens that inter-
est by examining how a number of mid-sixteenth-century books played important
roles in formulating a public identity for Michelangelo as a singular artist touched
by genius: as one book called him, "il divin Michelagnolo."3
These books appeared during Michelangelo's lifetime in the early 1550s,
around the time of his funeral in 1564, and four years after his death in 1568, and
so were not the first biographies of him. Paolo Giovio's De viris ilhizstributs from the
early sixteenth century includes an account of Michelangelo's life, but it was not
published in the sixteenth century.4 Nor were the books discussed here the earliest
texts written about artists, since they postdate, for example, Ghiberti's manuscript
Commentaries by roughly a century.5 Nonetheless, these earlier writings did not
establish the artists that they discuss as figures of unique genius but embedded them
into broader histories.This handful of books was instrumental in building the six-
teenth-century public image of Michelangelo as an artist of outstanding stature;
they did so through their dialogues with other texts and other genres, their ampli-
fied effects as printed and published books, and their tangible presence as objects
which could be bought or given.
* * *
GIORGIO VASARI, author of the Vite, was the man who was given the task of com-
pleting the Medici Chapel about a quarter of a century after Michelangelo's depar-
ture from Florence. Despite Michelangelo's prolonged absence and the statement
in his last surviving letter from Florence,"I shall not come back here again,"6 in the
mid-sixteenth century he was very much present in the minds of Florentines.
Cosimo I de' Medici tried to persuade Michelangelo to return to Florence on a
number of occasions, first sending the sculptorTribolo to Rome in the 154Os7 and
2Some prominent examples are William E. Wallace, "Michelangelo's Assistants in the Sistine
Chapel," Gazette des Beaux-Arts 110 (1987):201-216; Patricia Rubin, "What Men Saw:Vasari's Life of
Leonardo daVinci and the Image of the Renaissance Artist,"Art History 13 (1990):34-46; Paul Barolsky,
The Faun in the Garden: Michelangelo and the Poetic Origins of Italian Renaissance Art (University Park, Pa.:
Pennsylvania State UP, 1994); and Don Riggs, "Was Michelangelo Born under Saturn?" Sixteenth Cen-
turyJournal 26 (1995):99-121. Patricia Rubin, Giorgio Vasari:Art and History (New Haven:Yale UP,
1995) appeared after this essay had been completed.
3Jacopo Giunta, Esequie del divin MAlichelagnolo Buonarrotti (Florence: Appresso i Giunti, 1564). On
Michelangelo as genius, see Martin Kemp, "The Super-Artist as Genius," in Genius: The History of an
Idea, ed. P. Murray (NewYork: Blackwell, 1989), 32-53; and David Summers, Michelangelo and the Lan-
guage of Art (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981), 259. Michelangelo was first called "divino" in Ludovico
Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1516), 33: 2.
4Julius Schiosser, La litterature artistique, trans.Jacques Chavy (Paris: Flammarion, 1984), 226-229.
'Schdosser, La littrature artistique, 135-140.
6Michelangelo to Febo di Poggio, September 1534; see Carteggio di Michelangelo, ed. Paolo Baroc-
chi and Renzo Ristori, 5 vols. (Florence: Sansoni, 1965-1983), 4:66, CMXLI.
70n Tribolo's trip to Rome, see RudolfWittkower, "Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana," Art
Bulletin 16 (1934): 169; Der literarische NachlaJ3 Giorgio Vasaris, ed. Karl Frey (NewYork: Olms, 1982),
1:402 n.; GiorgioVasari, La vita di Michelangelo nelle redazione del 1550 e del 1568, ed. Paola Barocchi
(Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1962), 4:1598, n. 655.
Pon / Michelangelo's "Lives" 1017
later enlisting the help ofVasari himself in the mid-1550s.8 Michelangelo replied
that leaving Rome "would cause a great disaster in the construction of Saint Peter's,
great shame and the greatest sin."9 He was occupied with vaulting the great
Roman church and would not return.
But if the living man would not come back to Florence, his life could be
recalled in a Florentine biography.Vasari's first edition of Le vite was published in
Florence by the city's ducal printer, Lorenzo Torrentino, in March 1550,10 the same
month as Michelangelo's seventy-fifth birthday, on March 6.The book is structured
as the story of the triumph of Florentine art, with each advance marked by a great
Florentine: Giotto, Brunelleschi, and ultimately, Michelangelo, the only living,
active artist included in Vasari's text."t A biography of a living artist was a new
thing, and with this book Michelangelo received a tribute that was, as Johannes
Wilde puts it, "a birthday present the like of which was never given to any other
artist."12
The publication of the Vite gaveVasari a chance to bring himself prominently
to Michelangelo's notice by demonstrating publicly his admiration for the artist
who was universally acknowledged to be a great genius. It broughtVasari wide-
spread and immediate attention, garnering mention by the likes of Benedetto
8For exampleVasari's letter of August or September 20, 1554, expressing his "contento solo, che
la vostra anima insieme col corpo, innanzi che vadi a rivedere quelle anime famose che fanno orna-
mento al celo, cosi' come l'opere sante feciono in vita, dia di se una veduta a questo'almo paese. Perche',
oltre che'l Duca non desidera altro che godere de' vostri ragionamenti e consigli, senza affaticarvi
nell'opere, gioveresti non poco a Sua Eccellenza et alla casa vostra faresti non poco favore et utile ...";
Der literarische NachlaJ3, 1: 401, ccxv. See also Cosimo's letter to Michelangelo of May 8, 1557; Carteggio,
5:97, MCCLII; andVasari, Michelangelo, ed. Barocchi, 4:1601-1609.
9Carteggio, 5: 21, MCXCVII, Michelangelo's reply of September 19, 1554: "partend'ora di qua sarei
causa d'una gran ruina della fabrica di Santo Pietro, d'una gran vergognia e d'un grandissimo pecato";
see also Michelangelo's letters to Vasari of May 11, 1555, and June 22, 1555: Carteggio, 5:30, MCCV, and
5:35, MCCIX, respectively.
10For more on Torrentino and the ducal press, see Domenico Moreni, Annali della tipografiafioren-
tina di Lorenzo Torrentino imnpressore ducale, ed. Mario Martelli (Florence: Le Lettere, 1989); Goffredo
Hoogewerif, "Leditore delVasari: Lorenzo Torrentino," in Studi Vasariani:Atti del Convegno internazionale
per il IVcentenario della prima edizione delle Vite del Vasari (Florence: Sansoni, 1952), 92-104; Berta Marac-
chi Biagiarelli, "Il privilegio di stampatore ducale nella Firenze Medicea," Archivio storico italiano 123
(1965):309-370; Claudia di Filippo Bareggi, "Giunta, Doni, Torrentino: Tre tipografie fiorentine fra
Reppublica e Principato," Nuova rivista storica 58 (1974):318-348.
Other publishers were considered. In 1547, Anton Francesco Doni thought he was to publish
Vasari's work: see Doni's letter to Francesco Revesla in Salvatore Bongi, Annali di Gabriel Giolito de'Fer-
rari da Trino Monferrato, stampatore in Venezia (Rome: Presso i Principali Librai, 1890-1897), 1:261. In the
same year, Paolo Giovio suggested a Roman press; see Der literarische Nachlafl, 1:199, XCVI. In October
1547, the manuscript was in the hands of the ducal printer, Lorenzo Torrentino; see Wolfgang Kallab,
Vasaristudien (Vienna:W Grasser & Kie, 1908), 83.
1"The 1550 Lives contains the biography of another living artist, Benedetto da Rovezzano, who
being blind, was asVasari puts it, "morte per arte, et ancora vivo per la vita"; see GiorgioVasari, Le Vite
de' piu eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori: Nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. Rosanna Bettarini and
Paolo Barocchi (Florence: Sansoni, 1966), 4:28. R. John Shearman made the important observation
that this biography is a second- and previously unacknowledged-life of a living artist in the 1550 Vite
at a presentation of part of this essay at the Renaissance Forum at Harvard in 1994.
12Johannes Wilde, "Michelangelo, Vasari, and Condivi," in Michelangelo: Six Lectures (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1978), 1.
1018 Sixteenth CentturyJournal XXVII / 4 (1996)
Varchi, Paolo Pino, and Pietro Aretino even before the book's publication.t3 It pro-
vided him with the opportunity to offer copies of the Vite as gifts to dignitaries
both in the Roman curia and the imperial court,14 and it gave him an occasion to
dedicate his book to the duke of Florence, Cosimo I.
The patron to whom a book is dedicated is not a patron in Michael Baxandall's
sense of a "client" who commissions and pays for a work and has tight control over
its production.t5 The book, like the painted altarpieces Baxandall discusses, is a
"deposit of a social relation" between its author and its recipient, but the relation-
ship does not run in a one-way, patron-to-artist direction. Instead, it is a network
of exchange mediated by the giving of gifts and favors.16 Within a court culture,
courtiers offered service in the hope of receiving the prince's favor in return. Both
service and favor can be manifested materially, as monetary reward or medallions of
precious metal, or more intangibly, as opportunities for advancement or acts of loy-
alty. The court artist participates in similar exchanges, not receiving payment for
individual works of art, but remuneration for service to the court through a con-
tinuous stipend.t7 Some years after the publication of the first edition of the Vite,
Vasari called this type of remuneration "that salary or prize or gift thatYour Excel-
lence through your grace has in mind to make" in return for his past and continu-
ing service as painter and architect in the Medicean court.t8
13Paolo Pino, Dialogo di pittura (Venice: P. Gherardo, 1548), fol. 32: "Et Gergio da Rezzo giovane,
il qual, oltra non promette riuscir raro nell'arte, e ancho vertuosissimo, et e quello, che come vero
figliuol della pittura ha unito, et raccolto in un suo libro con dir candido tutte le vite, et opere de pii
chiari pittori."Vasari's Vite was also mentioned in 1547 by Anton Francesco Doni's published letter (see
n.9 above), in Benedetto Varchi's lecture to the Florentine Academy (later published as Due lezzione...
[Florence: Torrentino, 1549]), and in 1549 by Pietro Aretino (in an unidentified printed work noted in
Giorgio Vasari, La Toscana nel '500. Principi: Letterati e artisti nelle carte di Giorgio Vasari, Casa Vasari (Flor-
ence: EDAM, 1981), 221; see alsoVasari, Lives, ed. Bettarini and Barocchi,"Commento I," ix.
14A list of names that includes friends ofVasari and important personages in the Roman curia and
the imperial court inVasari's hand on a letter of Cosimo Bartoli ofApril 5, 1550, has been convincingly
interpreted by Karl Frey, Der literarische
Nachlafi,
1:282-283, as a list of people to whomnVasari intended
to send copies of his book.The list includes Annibal Caro; Balduino del Monte, brother of Pope Julius
III; Cardinal Giovanni Salviati; Cardinal Alessandro Farnese; Cardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi; Francesco
Mendoza Bodavilla, cardinal of Burgos; Cardinal Georges d'Armagnac; Michelangelo; Bindo Altoviti;
Alfonso Cambi; Guidobaldo II of Urbino; and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, ambassador of Charles V.
15Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Ffteenth-Century Italy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988),
1-14.
16This discussion of patronage is informed by the thought-provoking essays by Patricia Simons,
"Patronage in the Tornaquinci Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence,
"
in Patronage, Art, and Society in
Renaissance Italy, ed. EW. Kent and Patricia Simons (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987), 221-250; and by
Werner Gundersheimer, "Patronage in the Renaissance: An Exploratory Approach,
"
in Patronage in the
Renaissance, ed. Guy Fitch Lytle and Stephen Orgel (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981). The classical
anthropological description of gift giving is Marcel Mauss, The
Gift:The
Form and Reason for Exchange in
Archaic Societies, trans.W D. Halls (London: Routledge, 1990), esp. 10-14ff.
17See Martin Warnke, The Court Artist: On the Ancestry of the Modern Artist, trans. D. McLintock
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993), 132-142.
18Giovanni Gaye, Carteggio inedite d'artisti dei secoli xiv, xv, xvi (Florence: Molini, 1840), 3:263-
264, CCXXXVII. The general depository of the Medici court, II Vinta, paraphrased Vasari's request in a
letter to Cosimo:"Havendo servito et servendo 1'EV., prima per pittore et apresso per architettor ancora
... [Vasari] desidera che ... 'E.V fermi et dichiari quello o salario o premio o dono, che 1'EV. per sua
gratia ha in animo di farli";Warnke, Court Artist, 136, disagrees with Gaye's date of 1568 for this letter,
suggesting instead that it was written in 1560.
An early gesture ofVasari's interest in becoming Cosimo's court painter was his
dedication of the 1550 Vite. A letter to the duke, which accompanied a copy of the
book, points out thatVasari had never served Cosimo despite twenty-odd years of
loyalty to the Medici family and emphasizes "with what devotion I have been ready
for your command."19 More publicly, the letter of dedication at the beginning of
the 1550 Vite entreats Cosimo to "look favorably on my simple work, remembering
how I must provide myself with the daily necessities of life [which] has not allowed
me time for other studies than those of the brush?"20 It would be reductive to sug-
gest thatVasari's appointment as court painter to Cosimo, with an annual stipend
beginning in 1554,21 resulted solely from the dedication of the 1550 Vite, but the
publication, andVasari's growing public stature which resulted from it, could only
have helped. After all, by 1550 Michelangelo had been granted Roman citizenship
and had lived outside of Florence during the whole of Cosimo's tenure as duke.22
Vasari's 1550 Vite added luster to Cosimo's city by refraning Michelangelo as quint-
essentially Florentine by virtue of his talents and his birth.The opening of the biog-
raphy states: "The benign ruler of heaven ... chose to give to Michelangelo as a
homeland Florence, most dignified of cities, so that one of her own citizens might
bring to absolute perfection the achievements for which Florence was already justly
renowned."23 Though the artist was at that point living exclusively in Rome, he
was effectively reclaimed inVasari's book as a Florentine.24
This decidedly Florentine emphasis ofVasari's biography of Michelangelo must
have made the Roman response that followed all the more stinging. In July 1553,
Ascanio Condivi, a devoted follower of Michelangelo, published his own biogra-
phy, La Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti, with the distinguished Roman printer
19
Vasari to Cosimo de' Medici, Der literarische Nachlafi, 1:270, cxxxi: "con quanta devotione io
abbi
spettato,
che mi si comandi, ancor' che non sia stato messo daVostra Eccellentia in opera."
?Vasari, Vite, ed. Bettarini and Barocchi, 1:3:"Mi basta che Ella si degni di gradire la mia semplice
fatica, considerando che la necessita di proccaciarmi i bisogni della vita non mi ha concesso che io mi
eserciti con altro mai che col pennello."
21Archivio di Stato di Firenze: filza 394, fol. 6: "Giorgio Vasari d'Arezzo pittore con provvisione
di fl. venticinque al mese, cominciando addi p.mo di marzo 1554," cited in Ugo Scoti-Bertinelli, Giorgio
Vasari scrittore (Pisa: Nistri, 1905), 58, n. 1.
22Cosimo became duke of Florence in 1537.
23Vasari, Michelangelo, ed. Barocchi, 1:4: "il bengnissimo Rettor del cielo .... volse dargli Fiorenza,
dignissima fra laltre citta, per patria, per colmare al fine la perfezione in lei meritamente di tutte le virtui
per mezzo d'un suo cittadino."The passage in this first edition continues, "avendo gia mostrato un prin-
cipio grandissimo e maraviglioso in Cimabue, in Giotto, in Donato, in Filippo Brunelleschi et in Lion-
ardo daVinci, per mezzo del quale non si poteva se non credere che col tempo si dovessi scoprire un
ingegno che ci mostrasse perfettissimamente, merce della sua bonta, linfinito del fine."
24This "rhetorical repatriation" has also been recognized by Karen-edis Barzman, "Perception,
Knowledge, and the Theory of Disegno in Sixteenth-Century Florence," in From Studio to Studiolo: Flor-
entine Draftsmanship under the First Medici Grand Dukes, ed. Larry Feinberg (Seattle: U Washington P,
1991). In the next century, Galileo would also use a book to negotiate a position within the Florentine
court. He named one of his astronomical discoveries after his desired Medici patrons and publicized that
gesture through his book Sidereus nuncius. See Mario Biagioli, Galileo Courtier (Chicago: U Chicago P,
1993), esp. 45-49.That the text ofVasari's Vite was inflected by his ties to the Medici was already recog-
nized by the seventeenth-century writer of a history of art, Karel van Mander; see Walter Melion, Shap-
ing the Netherlandish Canon: Karel van Mander's Schilder-Boeck (Chicago: U Chicago P, 1991), 97.
Antonio Blado.25 This biography was dedicated not to the duke of Florence but to
the bishop of Rome, Pope Julius III, and was published, as Condivi writes,
"because certain persons who wrote about this great man without knowing him as
intimately as I do, partly related events that had never occurred and partly omitted
such as would be very much worthwhile noting."26 Condivi was without a doubt
referring toVasari, and he was partly correct. Condivi described himself as a faithfiul
pupil of Michelangelo's, enjoying "the love, conversation, and close familiarity" of
his master;27 ifVasari later alleged that he too had studied with the great man, ear-
lier in Florence, it seems clear that in 1550Vasari did not know Michelangelo espe-
cially intimately. He had been introduced by the Florentine Bindo Altoviti in
Rome in 1542 or 1543 but mainly drew on his studies of the older artist's works
and the memories of people who had known Michelangelo personally; in Wilde's
felicitous phrase, "oral tradition and autopsy were [his] only sources."28 Condivi,
on the other hand, could write that he had collected his material for the biography
"with deftness and with long patience from the living oracle himself,'29 a statement
that has led his book often to be interpreted as an autobiography written with
Condivi serving as amanuensis.30
I will come back toVasari's response to Condivi's charges in his second edition
of the Vite of 1568.At this point, it is enough to note that by 1553 there were two
biographies of Michelangelo-an extraordinary fact, considering that just three
years earlier there were no published biographies of any living artist. In other
words, by the early 1550s Michelangelo's life, still in progress, had twice been trans-
formed into a written life that could be readily exchanged in a number of social sit-
uations:31 They were dedicated to patrons, denigrated by rivals, and purchased by
readers. The act of reading is itself an exchange of knowledge and information,32
and we have seen that the accuracy ofVasari's information was itself a point of
25 For information about Antonio Blado, see Gian Ludovico Masetti Zannini, Stampatori e librai a
Roma nella seconda meta del cinquecento (Rome: Fratelli Palombi, 1981), 1:61-84; F Barberi, "Antonio
Blado," in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana,1968), 10:753-
756; Giuseppe Fumigalli,Antonio Blado, tipografo romano del secolo XVI (Milan, 1893).
26Ascanio Condivi, La Vita di Alichelagnolo Buonarroti (1553), cited inWilde,"Michelangelo,Vasari,
Condivi," 8.
27Condivi, La Vita, unpaginated preface: "de l'amore, de la conversatione et de la stretta dimes-
tichezza di Michelagnolo Buonarroti pittore, et scultore unico."
28Wilde,"Michelangelo,Vasari, Condivi'" 3.
29Condivi, La Vita, unpaginated preface: "con destrezza e con lunga pazienza dal vivo oraculo suo.'
30An exemplar of Condivi's book, owned by Ugo Procacci, which bears sixteenth-century mar-
ginalia recording Michelangelo's responses to various particulars of Condivi's text would seem to suggest
a more active role for Condivi than that of mere scribe; see Ugo Procacci, "Postille contemporanee in
un esemplare della Vita di Michelangiolo del Condivi," in Atti del Convegno di Studi Michelangioleschi
(Rome: Ateneo, 1966), 278-294.
31Arjun Appadurai, "Introduction: Commodities and the Politics ofValue," in The Social Life of
Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986), esp. 13-
16, would call these social situations "commodity contexts."
32See Natalie Zemon Davis, "Beyond the Market: Books as Gifts in Sixteenth-Century France,"
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 33 (1983): 71-73.
dispute.These various exchanges bring up questions about the market and reader-
ship of these biographies, questions to which we will later return.33
* * *
IF THE INTANGIBILITY of Michelangelo's life experience itself had already been rei-
fied in the form of two published biographies while he was alive, after his death at
the age of eighty-nine on February 18, 1564, even his body could be taken over as
an object of value. Michelangelo had often expressed his desire to be buried near
his father in Florence, andVasari later related how "Duke Cosimo had meantime
resolved to have the man whom he had been unable to honor while he was living
brought to Florence after his death and given a noble and costly burial."34 In accor-
dance with both their wishes, Michelangelo's remains, unlike those of Dante,
Petrarch, or Boccaccio, were returned to Florence.35 And as Michelangelo's life had
been pulled into a polemic between Florence and Rome by the biographies of
Vasari and Condivi, his death and the events just after it were shaped into a narra-
tive of an almost hagiographic nature by various written accounts.
The most important of these is a small book called the Esequie del Divin Mich-
elagnolo Buonarroti, published by the Giunti press soon after the artist's funeral
memorial on July 14, 1564, which was the first in a sudden crop of books about
Michelangelo.36 It gives a description of the extraordinary episode in which
Michelangelo's coffin was opened, after reaching Florence with unexpected speed:
All of us present ... believed that we would find the corpse already putre-
fied and decayed, because it had already been in the coffin for twenty-two
days or more, and twenty-five days since his death. But when it was
opened, there was no bad smell whatsoever, and you would have sworn
that he was resting in a sweet and most quiet slumber.The same features
of the face, the same appearance, except for a lack of color, which was that
33The question ofVasari's own financial gain or loss from the publication of the Lives must remain
open.The only reference known to me ofVasari's receiving or paying money for copies of either edition
of the Vite closes the list of names on the back of a letter mentioned in n. 15. That list ends with the
statement written inVasari's hand:"12 baiocchi per i libri."A baiocco is a copper coin of very little value
produced by the Roman pontificate, which in the next century was worth four florentine quattrini;
Vasari himself uses the term: "ell'era un lavoro di pochi baiocchi" ("it was a work worth few pennies");
see Salvatore Battaglia, Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana (Turin: Unione tipografico editrice
torinese, 1961-), s.v. "baiocco."The statement "12 baiocchi per i libri" has been interpreted by Frey as
a reference to the cost of shipping the books to the people listed above the notation, though the sum is
still surprisingly small. See, for comparison, figures for sending books from Rome to Lyon in 1550 in
William Pettas, The Giunti of Florence: Merchant Publishers of the Sixteenth Century (San Francisco:
Rosenthal, 1980), 124 ff. Could the figure refer to the purchase of copies at a much discounted price
for the author? The available information allows no firm conclusions.
34The desire to be buried near family members became widespread in Florence in the early quat-
trocento; see Samuel Kline Cohn, The Cult of Remembrance and the Black Death: Six Renaissance Cities in
Central Italy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1992), 143-144.Vasari, MZlichelangelo, ed. Barocchi, 1:133:
"il Duca, il quale aveva disegnato che, poi che non l'aveva potuto aver vivo et honorarlo, di farlo venire
a Fiorenza e non restare con ogni sorte di pompa onorarlo dopo la morte."
35Little is known about the Roman ceremonies pertaining to Michelangelo's death, aside from a
report that his body was taken to the basilica dei Santi Apostoli "con grande onore"; see Vasari, Michel-
angelo, ed. Barocchi, 4:2139-2142, and Vasari, Le Vite, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols. (Florence: Sansoni,
1906), 7:286, n. 1.
1022 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXVII / 4 (1996)
of death. No limb was decayed or revolting, and touching his head and
cheeks, which everyone did, they seemed soft and lifelike, as if he had
died only a few hours before. This filled everyone with amazement.37
This "amazement" had a very specific connotation. Bodies that refused to decay
and seemed merely in the deep peace of sleep were saints' bodies, and these char-
acteristics of the state of the body were frequently used as essential evidence of
holiness in sanctification proceedings.38 The association of the incorruptibility of
Michelangelo's body with that of a saint's was explicitly noted at the time; one wit-
ness of the opening of Michelangelo's coffin wrote to the artist's nephew, "Surely,
as [Vincenzo Borghini, who ordered the coffin opened] said, it is a divine sign that
the body was not decayed."39 The description of the difficulties in moving Michel-
angelo's body into the sacristy of Santa Croce because of "the clamor of the popu-
lace who had been drawn there without knowing why, just following the body as
if driven by a divine frenzy" also echoes stories from saints' lives.40
Other aspects of the story told by the Esequie fall more specifically into the lit-
erary type of thefurta sacra narrative, stories of the furtive removal of a saint's
relics.41 Michelangelo had wanted to be buried in Florence, the Esequie assures us,
36See The Divine Michelangelo: The Florentine Academy's Homage on His Death in 1564: A Facsimile
Edition of "Esequie del Divino Michelagnolo Buonarroti Florence 1564, trans. RudolfWittkower and Margot
Wittkower (London: Phaidon, 1964), and the text ofVasari, Michelangelo, ed. Barocchi, 1:132-191, as
well as the notes of 4:2134-2222. Other publications from 1564 include: Poesie di diversi authori latine e
volgari,fatte nella morte di Michel'Agnolo Buonarroti. Raccolte per Domenico Legati (Florence); Paolo del
Rosso, Versi latini, e toscani in lode di Michelagnolo Buonarroti (Florence: Giunti); Lionardo Salviati, Orazi-
one di Lionardo Salviati nella morte di Michelagnolo Buonarroti (Florence: Figliuoli di L. Torrentino); Ghe-
rardo Saracini, Versi latini, e toscani in lode di Michelagnolo Buonarroti (Florence: Giunti); Giovan Maria
Tarsia, Oratione o vero Discorso di M. Giovan Maria Tarsia: Fatto nell'Essequie del divino Michelagnolo Buonar-
roti (Florence: Bartolomeo Sermatelli); and BenedettoVarchi, Orazionefunerale di M. benedetto Varchifatta,
e recitata da Lui pubblicamente nell' essequie di Michelagnolo Buonarroti in Firenze, nella Chiesa di San Lorenzo
(Florence: Giunti).
37Giunta, Esequie, cited inVasari, Michelangelo, ed. Barocchi, 1:148-149: "Noi tutti e egli ancora
credevamo trovare quel corpo gia putrefatto e guasto, perche era stato in quella cassa 22 giorni o piu, e
dal di della morte ne era corsi 25; ma aperta che fu, non si senti odore alcuno cattivo, e aresti giurato
che si riposasse in un dolce e quietissimo sonno. Le medesime fattezze del viso, la medesima cera, fuori
un poco il colore, che era come di morto, niuno membro guasto o schifezza; toccandoli la testa e le
gote, che lo fece ognuno, pastose e nataurali, come se di poche ore innanzi fusse passato: cosa che empie
tutti di stupore."
38AndreVauchez, La saintete en Occident aux derniers siecles du Moyen Age d'apres les proces de canoni-
sations et les document hagiographiques (Rome: Ecole
franpaise
de Rome, 1988), 499-529. See also Sharon
T. Strocchia, Death and Ritual in Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1992), 48;
Katherine Park, "The Sensitive Corpse: Body and Self in Renaissance Medicine," Fenway Court (1990-
1991):82. On a dead saint as in a deep sleep, see Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function
in Latin Christianity (Chicago: U Chicago P, 1982), 76, citing Paulinus on Saint Felix. On a "very sweet
smell" giving evidence of the presence of a saint's relics, see Einhard, The History of the Translation of the
Blessed Martyrs of Christ Marcellinus and Peter, trans. Barrett Wendell (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP,
1926), 36, 55, 81.
39Don Giovanni di Simone to Lionardo Buonarroti, March 18, 1564, Carte Michelangiolesche
inedite, ed. Giovanni Daelli (Milan, 1865), 50-53.
40Giunta, Esequie, cited inVasari, Michelangelo, ed. Barocchi, 1:148: "tumulto del popolo che vi
aveva tratto e che, senza sapere perche, voleva andare come spinto da un furor divino, dove andava quel
corpo." Compare, for example, to Einhard, Marcellinus and Peter, 36.
41Patrick Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton UP,
1990), 118-124.
and so his nephew "had the body taken from Rome with care, and sent it to its
native city in a bale as if it were some merchandise."42 Some scholars have spoken
with the voice of practicality, suggesting that the transport of the body "in a bale as
if it were some merchandise" was "of course, the only way in which a coffin could
be sent across the mountains."43Yet the idea of theft inherent in theflrta sacra genre
is heightened inVasari's retelling of this story: the body is sent not only "with care"
["cautamente"] but "with secrecy ["segretamente"], this mode [of transport] taken
so as to prevent an outcry in Rome and the possibility of Michelangelo's body
being kept back and not allowed to leave for Florence."44 The Esequie andVasari's
version of the same events both depended on a literary form about the removal of
a saint's body, with the saint's approval, from places where he or she was not appro-
priately venerated. Notably, the place where insufficient devotion was accorded to
the saint was often Rome.45
The reuse of these tropes-the sweet-smelling corpse, the spontaneous crowd
appearing at the unannounced arrival of the body, the theft of the sacred remains-
is itself a borrowing from the literary genre of sacred biography.Thomas Heffernan
demonstrates how even in cases in which the biographer had close personal ties
with his subject, the vita of a saint is often enriched with embedded texts from ear-
lier saints' lives.46 These borrowings are not meant as misrepresentations of the
events in the subject's life, but rather serve to emphasize the doctrine of commtInio
sanctorum, the essential oneness of the saintly individual and the saintly community.
The related repetitions in the Eseqtiie del divino Michelagnolo and inVasari's rendition
of the events surrounding Michelangelo's funeral work in a similar manner to
anoint Michelangelo's death, and his life, with sanctity.
Vasari's elaboration of the secrecy surrounding the removal of Michelangelo's
body from Rome is one of the few changes from the story as told in the Eseqtiie.
Descriptions of events, and even large portions of text from the Eseqtiie, are
repeated with only minor alteration inVasari's rendition of the events surrounding
the funeral, which appears in his second biography of Michelangelo, published in
the 1568 edition of his series of artists' lives.47 The closeness between the texts of
Vasari's revised biography of Michelangelo and the Esequie has led some scholars to
believe that the latter had been written byVasari himself, and if others have con-
vincingly suggested other authors,48 it seems clear that the Eseqtiie originated from
42Giunta, Esequie, cited inVasari, Michelangelo, ed. Barocchi, 1:144: "cautamente cavato il corpo di
Roma e, come fussi una mercatanzia, inviatolo alla patria in una balla."
43Wittkower and Wittkower, The Divine Michelangelo, 16.
44Vasari, Michelangelo, ed. Barocchi, 1:133-134:"fu ad uso di mercanzia mandato in una balla seg-
retamente; il quale modo si tenne acci6 in Roma non s'avesse a fare romore, e forse essere impedito il
corpo di Michelangelo e non lasciato condurre in Firenze."The rhetoric of body snatching would con-
tinue to grow in the Michelangelo literature; seeVasari,
Michelangelo,
ed. Barocchi, 4:2146-2154.
43Geary, Furta Sacra, esp. 3-35, 108-128. Geary states that the fundamental model for the furta
sacra narrative was in Einhard, Translation of Marcellinus and Paul, 118, a removal of relics from Rome.
46Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Mlliddle
Ages
(Oxford:
Oxford UP, 1988), esp. 72-87, 100-122, 140-143.
47SeeVasari, Michelangelo, ed. Barocchi, 1:132-191, which gives both texts side by side.
48Jacopo Giunti signed the letter of dedication but is not generally accepted as the author;Witt-
kower and Wittkower, The Divine
Michelangelo,
33-41, have convincingly argued that the Esequie was
written byVicenzo Borghini.
1024 Sixteenth
CentuiryjJotrnal
XXVII / 4 (1996)
the small circle of Florentines that includedVasari. One version of the Esequie con-
tains the first public mention of the Giunti as the publishers of the second edition
ofVasari's Vite.49
When portions of the Eseqtiie were in large part incorporated into Vasari's
second biography of Michelangelo, the function of that text changed. It no longer
served the commemoration of a great man's death as part of a funeral booklet, but
it became instead the closing section of a description of that man's life.The funeral
booklet, a genre at this point rare in Italy and reserved exclusively for emperors,50
provided a bibliographic context in which readers approached the text. There is
another case in which a given text is physically presented in different types of
books, with the result of different functions.Vasari's 1568 biography of Michelan-
gelo was extracted from the full series of lives and published by itself under the title
La Vita del Gran Michelagnolo. This offprint made the biography of Michelangelo
available, asVasari said, "by itself and separated from the other lives," and we will use
it to ask who the readers were for whomVasari wrote.51
* * *
IF WE RETURN to where we began,Anton Francesco Doni's Florentine and foreigner
in Michelangelo's Medici Chapel, we find that the tourist advises his companion to
"read the biography of Filippo Brunelleschi written by GiorgioVasari."52 The book
mentioned by this well-read traveler is clearly the first edition of the Vite, and
Doni's fictitious tourist can stand in for a great number of real readers of that 1550
edition.Vasari himself commented on the popularity of his book, writing that
"besides the many things that have been said and written to me from many parts
-of the very large number that was printed of my book [the 1550 edition]53-
there does not remain one single volume in the hands of the booksellers."54 He
49Wittkower and Wittkower, The Divine
Michelangelo,
57: "It may suffice to have said this much,
because the whole story [of the Accademia] will shortly appear in greater detail in the Lives of the Painters
and Sculptors. This work has been sent to press again by the same Giorgio with the additional Lives of
more than thirty famous artists who have died since the book first appeared.We are publishing the new
edition."The last phrase appears only in the variant of the pamphlet datedJuly 14, 1564, and not in one
with earlier date ofJune 28 of the same year.
50See Olga Berendsen, "The Italian Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Catalfalques" (Ph.D.
diss., NewYork University, 1961), 26; andWittkower andWittkower,ne Divine Michelangelo, 33.
5'The following discussion supplements David Cast's more ontological analysis, "Reading Vasari
Again: History, Philosophy," Word and lmage 9 (1993): 29-38.
52Doni, I Marmi, 2:22: "Leggete la vita di Filippo di ser Brunellesco scritta da messer Giorgio
Vasari...." Doni had, in fact, in March 1547 expected to be the publisher for the first edition ofVasari's
Vite.
53
There is only indirect evidence for the size of either the 1550 or 1568 edition.We can estimate
that the first edition might have had 1,500 copies, the same number as Cosimo Bartoli's translation of
Alberti's Architettura of the same year and the same press; the figure is mentioned in the preface of Bar-
toli's second edition of 1565. In a petition to become ducal printers after Lorenzo Torrentino's death,
the Giunti stated that an average run was about a thousand copies; see Maracchi Biagiarelli, "II privilegio
di
stampatore,"
349.
' Vasari, Vite ed. Bettarini and Barocchi, 1:175: "01tre a quello che da molte parti me n'e venuto
detto e scritto, d'un grandissimo numero che allora se ne stampo non se ne trova ai librai pure un
volume." Even ifVasari was exaggerating the popularity of the first edition, the production of a second
edition, and such a lavish one, suggests the success of the first edition.
made those comments at the beginning of his more ambitious second edition of
the Vite, published in 1568 by the Giunti Press.Vasari had proposed this expanded
version at the end of the first edition, where he promised "before too long, an addi-
tion to this volume with the biographies of those living ... ,"
55
but he was overly
optimistic in his assessment of how long it would take to produce this addition. In
the years between 1550 and 1568,Vasari was busy with a number of important
artistic commissions, including major frescoes in the PalazzoVecchio in Florence.56
Nonetheless, he managed to inflate the scale of his new project for the Vite, so that
in the end he no longer conceived it as an addendum to the first edition but instead
wrote the second edition, as he said, "almost anew."57
The physical form of the books which presented the second edition differs sig-
nificantly from the earlier Vite. In spite of a smaller type size, the 1568 edition
swelled to a full three volumes from the two-volume 1550 version, with many of
the added pages given to a much expanded discussion of the third period of artists.
A series of woodcut portraits of the artists, made from pictures collected byVasari,
graced the beginnings of the biographies (fig. 1). A number of tables and indexes
of the artists discussed, the portraits included, and the places where the works dis-
cussed were to be found are present in each volume and heralded on each title
page.58These features of the books, new or newly amplified in the edition of 1568,
are bibliographic manifestations of the ambitiousness ofVasari's rewriting and indi-
cations of how he and his publishers expected and directed how the books were to
be used.
The text ofVasari's Vite has been studied with close attention to its sources, its
contribution to artistic theory, and its ties to rhetoric and to literature.60 The
55Vasari, 1550, 2:993:"Promettendovi pur' da me fra no' molto tempo una aggiunta di molte cose
appartenenti a questo volume, con le vite di que' che vivono."
56Among other projects,Vasari worked in the Quartiere degli Elemente, the Quartiere di Leone
X, and the Sala del Cinquecento during this period.Vasari also wrote the Ragionamenti explaining the
iconography
of his paintings in the PalazzoVecchio.
7Vasari, Lives, ed. Bettarini and Barocchi, 1:6: "quasi tutto fatto di nuovo."
58For example, in vol. 1: "LE VITE/ DE PIV ECCELLENTI PITTORI,/ SCVLTORI, E ARCHITETTORI/ Scritte!
DA M. GIORGIO VASARI PITTORE/ ET ARCHITETTO ARETINO, / Di Nuovo dal Medesimo Riviste/ Et Ampliate /
CON I RITRATTI LORO/ Et con l'aggiunta delleVite de' viui, & de' morti/ Dall' anno 1550. insino al
1567./ Prima, e Seconda Parte./ Con le Tavole in ciascun volume, Delle cose e piu Notabili, / De' Ritratti,
Delle vite
degliArtefici,
Et dei/ Luoghi doue sono l'opere loro./ CON LICENZA E PRIVILEGIO DI N S PIOV ET/ DEL
DUCA DI FIORENZA E SIENA/ IN FIORENZA Appresso i Giunti 1568."
59For an excellent study of the production of meaning through bibliographic changes, see D. F.
MacKenzie, "Typography and Meaning: The Case of William Congreve," in Buch und Buchhandel in
Europa im achtzehntenJahrhundert, ed. Giles Barber and Bernhard Fabian (Hamburg: Hauswedell, 1981),
81-126.The present essay owes much to the same author's Panizzi Lectures from 1985: Bibliography and
the Sociology of Texts (London: British Library, 1986).
60The literature onVasari is large and ever growing; the most important recent addition is Patricia
Rubin, Giorgio Vasari: Art and History (New Haven:Yale UP, 1995). Some other selected authors I had
in mind in connection with the above categories (listed in the same order) are Kallab, Vasaristudien;Julius
Schlosser, La litterature artistique; Carl Goldstein, "Rhetoric and Art History in the Italian Renaissance
and Baroque," Art Bulletin 73 (1991): 641-652; and Paul Barolsky, Michelangelo's Nose:A Myth and Its
Maker (University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1990); idem, Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by
Vasari (University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1991); and idem, Giotto's Father and the Family of Vasari's
Lives (University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1992). See also the collected essays from the conferences
flslt- n- 'r3
U-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.- .'.W......_.
..'._.,W
Fig.
1. GiogioVasan Le Vite
de'pia'
mealent
puton,
Florence: Giunti, 1568.
Opening page
of the vita of
Michelangelo Courtesy Deparment
of Prin
and
Graphic Arts, The
Houghton Library,
Harvard
University
_.f~~~~~~~~~~~~~
... . ....
Ca
F..
.. 0,
Fig 2.GogoVaaL ia e vnVfcean Floenc G.n..156
I
at~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~lt
-WI~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fig.
2.
Giorgio
Vasari, Le Vita del gran MUichelagnolo.
Florence:
Giuntii
1568.
Opening page of the vita of
Michelangelo.
Courtesy Department of Printing
and Graphic
ArtsThe Houghton Library, Harvard Uniersity.-
findings from these studies will be supplemented in this analysis by looking at the
material form ofVasari's Vite-books that were given and bought, collected and
read-through a focus on a single book, an offprint of the Life of Michelangelo from
the 1568 second edition.61 The production of this book, La Vita del gran Michela-
gnolo, which some bibliographers believe is the first example of an
offprint,62
was
very closely linked to the 1568 full series of biographies. It was conceived at some
point between the printing of the third volume's register of signatures on leaf
HHHhhh3 r and the printing of the biography preceding that of Michelangelo.63
It too was published by Giunti, and all but the two final pages of text of the biog-
raphy is printed with the same typographic forms as the complete Vite, with the
pagination unchanged.64As a result, the first page of the biography in the offprint
is numbered 717, though it is preceded by only two pages of a dedicatory letter
addressed to Alessandro de' Medici (see fig. 2). Most of the pages of the biography
are identical to those in the 1568 Vite, repeating the misnumbered pages and occa-
sional misspellings of Michelangelo's name in the headline of the pages that appear
in the complete series. For example, the page 715 is misnumbered 717 both in the
third volume of the whole series and in the
offprint
(figs. 1 and 2). The only dif-
ference between the edition of the single life and the version that was included in
the larger series is the addition of a type ornament tailpiece under the last line "Il
fine della vita di Michelag. Buonarruoti, pittore/Scultore, & Architetto
celebrating anniversaries of the publication of the first edition of the Lives and of the death of its author:
Convegno internazionale vasariano, Studi Vasariani:Atti del Congresso Internazionale per il IV Centennaio
della Prima Edizione delle Vite del Vasari (Florence: Sansoni, 1952); and Il Vasari Storiografo e Artista:Atti del
Congresso Internazionale nel IV Centenario della Morte (Florence: Instituto nazionale di studi sul Rinasci-
mento, 1974.
6tVasari's offprint is mentioned by Pierre Deschamps, Manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres: Sup-
plement (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1880), vol. 2, col. 846; Wilde, "MichelangeloVasari, and Condivi," 1;
Ugo Procacci, "Di un estratto della vita di Michelangiolo dall'edizione Giuntina del 1568 delleVite del
Vasari," La Bibliophilia 32 (1930):448-450; Harvard College Library, Department of Printing and
Graphic Arts, Catalog of Books and Manuscripts,
pt.
2, Italian Sixteenth-Century Books, compiled by Ruth
Mortimer (Cambridge: Belknap / Harvard UP, 1974), 715-716 (with extensive bibliographic descrip-
tion); and La Toscana nel '500, 284-285.There are two other sixteenth-century books related to the
second edition ofVasari's Vite. One, entitled Ritratti de' pia eccellenti pittori scultori et architetti contenuti nelle
vite di M. Giorgio Vasari Pittore, &Architetto Aretino, was also produced in 1568 by the Giunti. As the title
indicates, it contains impressions of the woodcut portraits in the second edition, along with an index.
The second, a biography of Jacopo Sansovino, was produced without indication of place of publisher.
It is a revision of the biography in the 1568 edition, "ampliata, riformata, e corretta," as the title page
states, byVasari himself. For more on the Ritratti, see Harvard College Library, Italian Sixteenth-Century
Books, 2:714; for more on the Sansovino life, see Vita di M.Jacopo Sansovino scultore e architetto della Repub-
blica di Venezia descritta da M. Giorgio Vasari e da lui medesimo ampliata rformata e corretta, ed.jacopo Morelli
(Venice: Appresso Antonio Zatta e Figli, 1789); Vasari, Le Vite, ed. Milanesi, 7:485 n.1; Giorgio Vasari:
principi, letterati e artisti, 234-235.
62See B. H. Breslauer, "The Origin of Offprints," Te Book Collector 6 (1957): 403.
63The register gives the signature Rrrr as a quaderno; it was in fact printed as a half-page duerno,
which allows the biography of Michelangelo to begin on a new signature.
64The last signature of the offprint EEeee is new.This signature contains the last two pages of text
from the Life, with a type ornament tailpiece added, a register, and the Giunta device and colophon.
One owner of a copy now in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence (Tordi 1133) apparently dis-
liked how the book was so clearly produced as an offprint from the 1568 edition; every page number is
meticulously excised, and every signature is carefully obscured by a paper patch.
Fiorentino." This extra ornament not only marks the end of the biography but the
end of the book as well.
The publication of the extracted life is a sign ofVasari's attention to his second
biography of the most revered artist of his day.This revised biography of Michelan-
gelo was of great concern toVasari.After the publication of the 1550 Vite, he saved
sonnets and letters from Michelangelo
himself,
which were reprinted in the 1568
version, and immediately after that artist's death in 1564, he repeatedly solicited
information and drawings from Lionardo Buonarroti, Michelangelo's nephew and
heir, and from others.65We have already seen some reasons this particular biogra-
phy was so important to Vasari, and we can note here that the ways in which the
biography could be read were altered by its presentation alone. Even in the context
of the full series of 1568, the position of Michelangelo's biography had changed. It
was no longer the culminating and final chapter it had been in the first edition,
becoming instead the high point of an enormously expanded third section ending
with a description of works byVasari himself. Some scholars have felt this change
to have disrupted the purity of the historical structure of the Vite while others
believe that the second edition suffered no such disfigurement.66 Nonetheless,
an
even more radical change was the production of this offprint, in which Vasari
removed Michelangelo's biography from what he called the "useful and necessary"
technical introductions to painting, sculpture, and, architecture; from the frame-
work of the three historical periods of art makers and art; and from the serial struc-
ture of a collection of lives.
In other words, the biography presented in its offprint form was designed to
function differently from the complete series. The letter of dedication (see appen-
dix) is the only text written specifically for this offprint, and reading it with an
attentive eye allows us to use it as a point of departure for a discussion of three
"communities of readers" targeted byVasari for the offprint:67 the patron to whom
the book was dedicated, the less economically advantaged readers who are explic-
itly mentioned in the dedication, and overlapping with the last two groups, the
65See Der literarische
NachlaJ3,
for exampleVasari to Lionardo Buonarroti, March 4,1564, 2:28-30,
CDXXXI;Vasari to Buonarroti, March 10, 1564, 2:48-49, CDXXXII, and Vasari to Buonarroti, December
12, 1566, 2:282-283, DLIII. For a discussion of information concerning the Roman Pietci requested and
received byVasari in this period, see Lisa Pon "Michelangelo's First Signature," Source: Notes in the History
ofArt 15 (1996): 16-21.
66For the former opinion, see Schlosser, La litteature artistique, 311; for the latter, see Anna Maria
Brizio, "La prima e la seconda edizione delle 'Vite,"' in Studi Vasariani, 83-90; or Robert Williams,
"Vincenzo Borghini andVasari's Lives" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1988.)
67The phrase "community of readers" is borrowed from Roger Chartier, L'ordre des livres: Lecteurs,
auteurs, bibliotheques en Europe entre XIVe et XVIIIe siecle (Aix-en-Provence: Alinea, 1992), 13-33. These
books did not necessarily reach these targeted groups of readers as successfully as Vasari might have
hoped. The analysis of Christian Bec, Les livres des Florentins (Florence: Olschki, 1984), of the records
from the Magistri dei Pupilli shows thatVasari's Vite does appear in late-sixteenth-century inventories,
though with less frequency than works like Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Furthermore, both the second edi-
tion of the Vite and the offprint of Michelangelo's life are included in the 1604 stock catalog of the
Giunti Press, Catalogvs librorvm qui in Iunctarum bibliotheca Philippi haeredum Florentiae prostant (Florence,
1604), 531.
readers of Ascanio Condivi's 1553 rival biography of Michelangelo. Let us begin
with the patron.
Accept then the gift [Accettate adunque il dono]
THE DEDICATORY LETTER of the offprint is not dedicated to the same person as the
1568 full edition; it is addressed to Alessandro, son of Ottaviano de' Medici, rather
than to Cosimo de' Medici.This rededication of the same text may seem ingenious
if not disingenuous, especially sinceVasari wrote to Alessandro that he "both cannot
and should not" address it to any other patron,68 even as he wrote to Cosimo that
"it would be almost impiety, if not ingratitude, if I were to dedicate these lives to
others."69Yet the function of a book as a public gift honoring a patron is relatively
independent of the main body of the text
itself,
andVasari understood this very
well. In the letter of dedication to Cosimo I de' Medici in the 1550 edition,Vasari
writes: "Deign then, your Excellence, to accept [this book], to favor it, and if the
loftiness of your preoccupations will allow it, sometimes to read it."70 The act of
actually reading the text is understood to be conditional to the demands of the
duke's responsibilities, and ranks a poor third after accepting and favoring the gift;
the publicity of giving and receiving, magnified by the reproductive medium of
print, is of primary importance.71
The
offprint
is therefore a way to make another gift to be given and to be
accepted, a function which its letter of dedication makes clear: "So accept the gift
of this life, which I make to you very gladly, and with a happy spirit."72 In the Vita
delgran MichelagnoloVasari was able to dedicate without ingratitude to Cosimo one
of"queste vite" to another person, and Alessandro, son of Ottaviano de' Medici,
was a good choice. Ottaviano had been a close friend and supporter until his death
in 1546, and he gave Vasari a number of important commissions, including the
1534 portrait of Lorenzo il Magnifico.73 The depths of the younger man's emo-
tional ties to the older can be gauged from comments inVasari's correspondence. In
1534, he noted his fortune for having Ottaviano "as a guide, and to give me
68,Io, e non posso, e non debbo ad altro mio patrone, e signore indirizzarla, che a voi," Vita del
gran Michelagnolo, dedicatory letter.
69Vasari, Lives, ed. Bettarini and Barocchi, 1:7: "non sarebbe quasi impieta, non che ingratitudine,
che io ad altri dedicassi queste vite"; on dual dedications of books, see Davis, "Beyond the Market," 73-
75.
70Vasari, Vite, ed. Bettarini and Barocchi, 1:3: "Degnisi adunque l'EccellenzaV[ostra] d'accettarla
[questa opera], di favorila e, se da laltezza de' suoi pensierei le sara concesso, talvolta di leggerla." This
letter was reprinted in the 1568 edition as well.
71, would argue that the aura of the book as gift is not destroyed by the mechanical reproduction
of printing, as Walter Benjamin might suggest, but is in fact increased by the amplification of the audi-
ence made possible by that mechanical reproduction. For a discussion of the necessity of this type of
publicity surrounding courtly gift giving, see Marcello Fantoni, "Feticci di prestigio: II dono alla corte
Medicea," in Rituale Cerimoniale Etichetta, ed. Sergio Bertelli and Giuliano Crifo (Milan: Bompiani,
1985), 142.
72"Accetate adunque il dono che io vi faccio di questa vita ben volontierei, e con lieto animo."
73See, for example, Vasari, II Libro delle Ricordanze, ed. Alessandro del Vita (Arezzo: R. Istituto
d'archeologia storia dell' arte, 1938), 20, 21, 22, 27-28, 30, 32, 34, 35, 36, 48, 72, for commissions
between 1533 and 1541. On Ottaviano's patronage more generally, see Anna Maria Bracciante, Ottavi-
ano de' Medici e gli artisti (Florence: S.PE.S., 1984).
strength"; that same year he thanked Ottaviano for "treating me like a son."74 In the
1550 dedication of the Vite to Cosimo,Vasari recalled "the happy memory" of Otta-
viano,75 who was by then dead four years. But the living son as well as the father's
memory could be honored, and the offprint of Michelangelo's life was a perfect
opportunity, as Ottaviano had been a good friend of Michelangelo's as well. They
were so close in fact that Ottaviano asked Michelangelo to be godfather to one of
76
his
sons,
so it is
appropriate
that the Vita
delgran Michelagnolo
is dedicated to Otta-
viano's son.Vasari salutes Alessandro in the dedicatory letter in a manner that recalls
Ottaviano as well as his other ancestors: "the living image, in whom shines and is
clearly seen, the goodness, the greatness,
and the valor of spirit, not only of his
father, but also of his most ancient forebears."77
In 1568, Alessandro was thirty-two years old. He was about to be appointed
ambassador to Rome by Cosimo I, on the threshold of a brilliant career in the
church that ultimately culminated in his month long reign as Pope Leo XI in
1605.78 One of his later notable acts as a churchman was his sponsorship in 1584 of
a "Medici Press for the Oriental Languages" in Rome, designed under the auspices
of Pope Gregory XIII to produce copies of the holy scriptures in foreign languages
for the missions in the Middle East,79 an act which shows that Alessandro under-
stood how to use the power of the printed book to cultivate an audience, asVasari
had before him.We turn now an audience cultivated byVasari through his offprint
of the
Life
of Michelangelo.
"Those who either will not want or will not be able to have the entire book"
[Chi o non vorra, o non potrac havere tutto il libro]
VASARI'S LETTER OF DEDICATION for the
offprint
specifically mentions an intended
market: "Because many will want this life of Michelangelo by itself, separated from
the other [biographies], it appears here to satisfy those people by having printed
74See Der literarische
Nachlafl:Vasari
to Ottaviano de' Medici, December 1534, 1:30, XI, where
Vasari expresses his thanks that he has "un Ottaviano de' Medici per guida e datomi forze"; see also
Vasari to Ottaviano de' Medici, September 18-December 9, 1534, 1:27, x:"si alto et honorate principe
che per gratia vostra mi tenete in luogo di figliuolo."
7Vasari, Vite ed. Bettarini and Barocchi, 1:2: "[Io] sono infinitamente tenuto alle felici ossa del
Mag[nifico] Ottaviano de' Medici, dal quale io fui sostenato, amato e difeso mentre che e' visse."
76Vasari-della Pergola/Grassi/Previtali (Milan, 1962), 7:230: "gli battez6 un suo figluolo." The
editors add a footnote that explains this as "Ottaviano ... volle che Michelangelo gli tenesse a battesimo
un suo figliuolo." Though neither the baptismal records of Bernardetto di Ottaviano (Archivio del
Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, Libro dei Battesimi Maschi 1522-1532, fol. 157) nor of Alessandro di
Ottaviano (AOSMF, Libro dei Battesimi Maschi 1533-1542, fol. 59 v) name the cotnpare, it seems likely
that ifVasari's statement is correct, Michelangelo was godfather to Bernardetto, who was born June 3,
1531, before Michelangelo's final departure from Florence.Alessandro was bornJune 2,1536 (not 1535,
as is often stated).
77"Una viva imagine, in cui risplende, e vedesi chiaramente, la bonta, la grandezza, e valor
d'animo non pure di esso padre, ma ella ancora insieme de' vostri piu antichi avoli, e genitori."
78See Ludwig Pastor, The History of the Popes (Saint Louis: Herder, 1894), 15:17-28;Alessandro del
Vita, "Lo Zibaldone di GiorgioVasari: Lettere di Papa Leone X a PietroVasari," nl Vasari 13 (1935), 44-
64; and the MS biography, "Vita del Cardinale di Firenze che fu Papa Leone XI scritta da un suo con-
sigliere insin al tempo che fu mandata in Francia da ClementeVIII,"MS 4201, Biblioteca Casanatense.
79Pastor, History of the Popes, 21:205.
1032 Sixteenth
CenturyjJotrnal
XXVII / 4 (1996)
some number apart from the other [lives] which are in the complete work. May it
be pleasing to those who either will not want, or will not be able to, have the
whole book altogether."80Vasari seemed acutely aware, then, of the economic con-
sequences of producing such a lavish second edition.The additional third volume
would have added a significant increase in the price of the full series, just to cover
the extra thousand leaves of paper needed, since paper was a major expense.8 The
portraits of the artists and the elaborate borders surrounding them also would have
added to the cost of a copy of the 1568 edition.
The offprint was much cheaper to produce. At forty-four leaves, it uses less
than an eighth the paper of the third volume of the full series. The costs of labor
would have been negligible, since the main body of text was printed, as we have
seen, from the type set for the ongoing production of the full series. The printing
of the new title page and dedicatory letter would not have required a major effort
on the part of the printer. In fact, the Giunti Press in particular was so comfortable
with the idea of adding new front matter to already printed books that in 1565 they
petitioned for and received permission to replace the timeworn first and last pages
of old stock from the estate of another bookseller.With new title and end pages
bearing the current year, Filippo and Jacopo Giunti argued, it would be easier to
find buyers for these old books.82 SimilarlyVasari and his Giunti publishers hoped
that with new front matter, the extracted biography of Michelangelo would find an
appropriate market.
Moreover, there was a population in Florence, composed, as Zygmunt
Wazbinski stated,"not only of the court, the great families and the church but also
the popolino and the craftsmen,"83 and was noted for its vocal and enthusiastic atten-
tion to art and artists. For example, the selection of the artist to complete the paint-
ing of the interior of the Cathedral dome, left incomplete atVasari's death in 1574,
80"Perche molti vorranno essa vita del Buonaruoto sola, e separata dall'altre, ci e parso per sodis-
fare a ciascuno, farne stampare alcun numero fuori di quelle, che sono nell'intero dell'opera: e si com-
piaccia a chi 6 non vorra, 6 non potra havere tutto il libro insieme."
81Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, L'Apparition du Livre (Paris: Editions A. Michel, 1958),
168, estimate that in 1571 paper was one-third the total expenditure for a book. Bareggi, "Giunta,
DoniTorrentino," 319, n. 6, gives the specific prices for paper and other materials (ink, oil, copper and
lead for type, etc.) for the late-fifteenth-century Ripoli press. It seems that it was possible to own just
one volume of the multivolume set. One of the most extensive and well-cataloged libraries in the inven-
tories of the Magistrato dei Pupilli, that of one Inghiramo di Girolamo Inghirami da Prato, recorded in
1579, contains "l'ultima parte delle vite de Scultori e pittori."The library of Inghiramo indicates inter-
ests in literature, manifested by books of Ovid, Dante, Boccaccio,Ariosto, among others, and in history,
including "la prima parte della Historia di messer Paolo Giovo" and a "Historia del mondo." See Lean-
dro Perini, "Libri e lettori nella Toscana del Cinquecento," in Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell'Europa
del '500, vol. 1, Strumnenti e veicoli della cultura (Florence: Olschki, 1983), 124, entry 48.
82Filippo and Jacopo "comprorono gia piu volumi di libri di piu sorte, et che essendo le prime
carte et l'ultime per il tempo macchiate et maculate di maniera che no saria possibile trovarne compar-
tori se non fusse loro per gratia concesso di poter di nuovo stampare le dette carte cosi lacerate sotto il
presente anno, acci6 possino piu facilemente vendergli"; Archivio di Stato di Firenze: Magistrato
Supremo 26, Delib. November 1, 1565-September 13, 1566, November 20, 1565, published as Docu-
mentV in Pettas, The Giunti of Florence, 180.
83Zygmunt Wazbinski, "Artisti e pubblico nella Firenze del Cinquecento. A proposito del topos
'cane abbaiante,"' Paragone 28 (1977): 16: "non soltanto la corte, le grandi famiglie e le chiese, ma anche
il popolino e gli artigiani."
was accompanied by the comments of many "cane abbaiante" or "cane mordente,"
fierce, impulsive unhibited critics 84 Federico Zuccari, who eventually left the
project to work for Gregory XIII in Rome, clearly felt their bites: "When I was
painting the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore, many sonnets, songs, and madrigals
making fun of my work sprang up."85The argumentative attitude Zuccari describes
is not surprising. Doni's dialogues in I Marmi, with which we began, are populated
with archetypal Florentines like Giorgio the shoemaker, Filippo the cooper, and
Galloria the butcher, who banter with each other vigorously, commenting on and
sometimes conversing with the sculpture in their city.
Vasari also mentions those who would not want the complete edition but
might be interested in a biography of Michelangelo alone. By the time the second
edition was published, interest in Michelangelo and his work was flourishing.Vasari
comments in 1568, though not in 1550, that he will not discuss the composition
of Michelangelo's Last Judgment at length "because it has been copied and printed
so often, both in large and small format, that it doesn't seem necessary to lose time
in describing it."86 In the year before Michelangelo's death, 1563,Vicenzo
Borghini described how the Medici Chapel had become a powerful draw for visi-
tors to the city.87Yet another sign of a growing following were the numerous occa-
sional booklets generated by Michelangelo's funeral in 1564. The book which
Vasari largely incorporated into his 1568 biography and another booklet were pub-
lished by the Giunti while two others were published by other Florentine presses.
All of these texts appeared in the form of small books of the same general scale as
Vasari's offprint; their publication may have stimulated the project for making the
off1print, as another small book about Michelangelo, Condivi's biography of 1553,
surely did.88
84Wazbinski, "Artisti e pubblico," 16.
85Federigo Zuccari, cited in Wazbinski, "Artisti e pubblico," 11: "Quando dipingevo la cupola di
Santa Maria del Fiore a Firenze nacquero molti soneti, canzoni, madrigali che deridevano la mia
opera...."
86Vasari, Michelangelo, ed. Barocchi, 1:74: "Perche se n'e ritratte e stampate tante, e grandi e pic-
cole, che e' non par necessario perdervi tempto a descriverla."
87Vicenzo Borghini to Cosimo, February 3, 1563, cited in Zygmunt Wazbinski, "La cappella dei
Medici e l'Accademia del Disegno," in Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell'Europa del '500 (Florence, 1978),
1:64, n. 41: "EtVE.I. sa, che non prima viene un forestiero di conto a Firenze che subito, come a un
miracolo, non corra a veder questo luogho..."; see alsoVasari, Le Vite, ed. Milanesi, 6:716.We have seen
how even earlierAnton Francesco Doni saw fit to set his dialogue between a Florentine and a foreigner
in the Medici Chapel.
88The Esequie is forty-two pages in quarto. The other publications from the year 1564 in quarto
include Paolo del Rosso, Versi latini, e toscani in lode di Michelagnolo Buonaroroti (Giunti); Lionardo Salviati,
Orazione di Lionardo Salviati nella morte di Michelagnolo Buonarroti (Figliuoli di L. Torrentino), forty-two
pages; Gherardo Saracini, Versi latini, e toscani in lode di Michelagnolo Buonaroti (Giunti); Giovan Maria
Tarsia, Oratione o vero Discorso di M. Giovan Maria Tarsia. Fatto nell'Essequie del divino Michelagnolo Buonar-
roti (Florence: Bartolomeo Sermatelli, 1564), thirty-six pages; and BenedettoVarchi, Orazionefunerale di
M. benedetto Varchifatta, e recitata da Lui pubblicamente nell'essequie di A'Iichelagnolo Buonarroti in Firenze, nella
Chiesa di San Lorenzo (Giunti), sixty-four pages. Poesie di diversi authori latine e volgari,fatte nella morte di
Michel'Agnolo Buonarroti: Raccolte per Domnenico Legati is in octavo.
It's not a minor thing (Non e egli picciola cosa)
VASARI GRACEFULLY CLOSES the dedicatory letter, asking Alessandro to accept his gift
"because it is by chance not a minor thing, as many perhaps will believe."Vasari
suggests that there are two reasons for its success: the greatness of the affection with
which he presents it to Alessandro and the greatness of its subject, who, Vasari
writes, is "the most noble and most excellent artist who perhaps ever was."89 I have
already outlinedVasari's closeness to Alessandro and his family, and Michelangelo's
growing cult in the sixteenth century. I turn now to those people who,Vasari tells
us, will perhaps believe that his biography of Michelangelo is a "picciola cosa."
As we have seen, Ascanio Condivi published his Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti
in Rome in 1553, three years afterVasari's first edition of the Vite had appeared. It
is quite clear that Vasari's biography of Michelangelo in the second edition is a
response to Condivi's book, even inVasari's choice of publisher. The Giunti Press,
which put outVasari's second edition, and the Blado Press, which produced Con-
divi's book, had been fierce competitors since the 1530s, when the two published
a series of rival editions of important texts by Machiavelli, including The Prince,
within weeks or even days of each other.90
There is also a textual dialogue betweenVasari's 1568 edition of the Vite and
Condivi's 1553 biography of Michelangelo about the value of the other author's
book.91 Condivi published his Vita di Michelangelo, one recalls, because of "certain
persons who wrote about this great man without knowing him as intimately as I
do."92Vasari responded directly to these charges in his 1568 text of Michelangelo's
biography:
He who wrote Michelagnolo's life after the year 1550 .. has said that
some persons, through not having associated with him, have related things
that never happened, and have left out many that are worthy to be
recorded .... The [preceding] entries I have copied from the book [of
accounts of Domenico Ghirlandaio] itself,
in order to prove that all that
was written at that time as well as all that is about to be written, is the
truth. Nor do I know that anyone has been more associated with him
89"Accetate adunque il dono che io vi faccio di questa vita ben volontierei, e con lieto animo, per-
cioche non e egli picciola cosa per aventura; come forse molto faranno sia credere; conciosia, che
sebene, come opera mia, e meno, mediocre, ell'& per6 grandissima, per l'affetto, col quale io la vi dono,
e per quello, che in se contiene: che sono lopere egregie del piu grande, nobile, e eccell. Artefice: che
forse sia stato ancor rnai."
90In the case of the Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio, both editions appeared in 1531, the
Blado edition, protected by a papal privilege, three weeks after the Giunti.This provoked a Giunti pro-
test against the papal privilege, since the Giunti had obtained permission to publish from the Machiavelli
heirs. ClementVII exempted the Giunti from prohibition on December 20, 1531. For In Principe, the
Blado edition appeared January 4, 1532, the Giunti on May 8, 1532, with a disparaging allusion to the
Blado edition in the dedication. Both publishers put out editions of Historiefiorentine in 1533, with the
Giunti letter of dedication dated two days after Blado's, but the colophon is dated almost a year later.
See Pettas, The Giunti of Florence, 70-72, with further bibliography.
9'The best discussion may be found inWilde, "MichelangeloVasari, and Condivi."
92Condivi, cited in Wilde, "MichelangeloVasari, and Condivi," 8.
than I have been, or has been a more faithful friend and servant to him, as
can be proved even to one who does not know the facts.93
Vasari felt it was important to make this digression to address explicitly Condivi's
charges.
The Vita del gran Michelagnolo allowedVasari to make his claims against Condivi
in the material form of his biography as well as in its content.The
offprint
was of
a similar physical scale as Condivi's biography, a book in quarto of forty-four leaves
to Condivi's fifty, and while I can make no claims about similar prices, the single
life, inexpensively produced by using the typographic forms made for the second
edition, must certainly have been closer in price to the Condivi biography than the
three-volume Vite. It might have been hoped to capture the audience that could
buy and had read Condivi's biography but could not afford the complete 1568 Vite
and thus allowVasari the opportunity to emphasize his own closeness to Michelan-
gelo to the same audience that had read Condivi's charges of inaccuracy and lack
of familiarity.
The next edition ofVasari's Life of Michelangelo alone, which was published in
1760, shows that the dialogue between the two texts was still alive. It was certainly
produced in response to a 1746 reissue of Condivi's text, which the editor, Gio-
vanni Bottari, acknowledged was a rare book but added that "not all rare books are
excellent." He continued:
Some are rare, having been neglected because they are little valued, and
have been forgotten. It may be that such is the case with the said Vita, as
Vasari had already written one, published in 1550, and added significantly
to it in 1568, that is five years after the death of Michelangelo.TheVita of
Condivi ended ten years before his death, which renders it incomplete.94
Bottari admires howVasari's 1568 biography encompasses the whole of Michelan-
gelo's life and work, contrasting it to the incompleteness of Condivi's text. This
appreciation is also shared by Johannes Wilde:
As a source of information [Vasari's 1568 vita] may be consulted without
recourse to the two biographies which preceded it; it contains their infor-
mation, amplified by valuable additions.95
93Vasari, cited inWilde, "MichelangeloVasari, and Condivi," 15.The Italian is given inVasari, Vite,
ed. Bettarini and Barocchi, 7:7: "Queste partite ho copiate io dal proprio libro per mostrare che tutto
quel che si scrisse allora, e che si scrivera al presente, e la verita, ne so che nessuno labbi piu praticato
di me e che gli sia stato piu amico e servitore fedele, come n'e testimonio fino chi nol sa; ne credo che
ci sia nessuno che possa mostrare maggior numero di lettere scritte da lui proprio, ne con piu affetto che
egli ha fatto a me."
94Vasari-Bottari, 1, n. 1: "[Il libro di Condivi] e posto nel catalogo de' libri rari dal Beyero; ma
non tutti i libri rari sono eccellenti.Alcuni sono rari, perche essendo stati trascurati, come di poca stima,
sono andati in dimenticanza. Potrebbe essere, che tale fosse la detta Vita, perche gia laveva scritta il
Vasari, e stampata nel 1550. e poi, accresciutola notabilissimamente, data fuori nel 1568. cioe 5. anni
dopo la morte di Michelagnolo; dove che laVita del Condivi termina 10. anni avanti la sua morte, il che
la rende mancante."The 1746 edition of the Condivi biography was edited by Anton Francesco Gori.
95Wilde,"Michelangelo,Vasari, and Condivi," 16.
1036 Sixteenth
CentturyjJotrnal
XXVII / 4 (1996)
Vasari's 1568 text is seen here as an ideal primary source about Michelangelo. Pub-
lished just four years after the subject's death, it covered the entire span of Michel-
angelo's life and also incorporated important earlier texts.
But the previous biographies byVasari and Condivi are more than sources
absorbed into the 1568 life.They, and for that matter, the Esequlie, can demonstrate
how Michelangelo's identity was fashioned and perceived earlier in the sixteenth
century.These books are bibliographic remains of social exchanges between artists,
authors, and patrons who celebrated and benefited from Michelangelo's genius. In
the 1550 biographyVasari opened his bid to become Cosimo's court artist by
returning Michelangelo to Florence through a text, if not in person. Condivi
countered with his claim of greater intimacy with Michelangelo thanVasari at that
point could contend.The Esequiie and the parallel passages inVasari's 1568 biogra-
phy gave accounts of the return of Michelangelo's remains to Florence that exploit
the convention of the removal of a saint's relics to a place that would venerate the
saint properly.
The offprint of Michelangelo's biography may seem to be the slightest of
examples in this analysis because it is the mechanical repetition of the text pub-
lished in the 1568 Vite.Yet, as we have seen, it was that new presentation of the text
as an
offprint
which allowed the biography to reach communities of readers differ-
ent in specific ways from the readers of the full series of biographies. Furthermore,
the
offprint,
separated from the structure of a series of biographies and describing
in a single book the full span of Michelangelo's life, made of the 1568 biography an
early example of that important art historical genre: the monograph. It provided its
author with the format of a single book about a personVasari believed was a singu-
lar individual: as he said in his dedication to Alessandro, "the greatest artist who
perhaps ever was."
A P P E N D I X
Allo Illustre, e Molto Magnifico M. Alessandro De' Medici, Cavaliere
dell'Ordine di santo Stefano, Signor suo osservandiss.
Haverebbono molti voluto de' nostri Artefici, e altri, che si dilettano delle cose
del disegno, che io dopo la morte di Michelagnolo, havessi aggiunto quello,
che egli oper6 da che io mandai fuori la vita sua lanno 1550 insino al suo
ultimo giorno; e i'havessi, gia e buona pezza, publicato. Ma io non havendo
potuto in cio loro compiacere prima, che hora, per essere stato occupatissimo:
Ho finalmente fatta tutta di nuovo la detta vita, e datala alla stampa de' i nostri
GIUNTI insieme con quelle di molti altri, che alle prime mancavano. Ma
perche molti vorranno essa vita del Buonarruoto sola, e separata dall'altre, ci e
parso per sodisfare a ciascuno, farne stampare alcun numero fuori di quelle, che
sono nell'intero dell'opera: e si compiaccia a chi 6 non vorra, 6 non potra
havere tutto il libro insieme. Il che fatto, ho pensato, che io, e non posso, e non
debbo ad altro mio patrone, e signore indirizzarla, che a voi; il quale siete non
pure figliuolo del Magnifico M. Ottaviano de' Medici (dal quale fui non altri-
menti; che se io stato gli fussi figliuolo, allevato, amato, et al virtuosamente
operare incaminato) ma una viva imagine, in cui risplende, e vedesi chiara-
mente, la bonta, la grandezza, e valor d'animo non pure di esso padre, ma ella
ancora insieme de' vostri piu antichi avoli, e genitori, la qual cosa tanto piu
debbiamo amirare, et honorare, quanto piu e vero quello, che disse il nostro
Dante, cio&, che
Rade volte discende per gli rami
ihumana probitate. Accettate adunque il dono' che io vi faccio di questa vita
ben volontierei, e con lieto animo, percioche non e egli picciola cosa per aven-
tura; come forse molto farannosi a credere; conciosia, che sebene, come opera
mia, e meno, che mediocre, ell'e per6 grandissima, per l'affetto, col quale io la
vi dono, e per quello, che in se contiene: che sono l'opere egregie del piu
grande, nobile, et eccell. Artefice: che forse sia stato ancor mai, il quale dono
con le molte pitture, che sono di mia mano, e da me state fatte, ne' primi anni
della miia giovanezza nel vostro palagio, faranno pure fede al mondo (non dico
a voi, che ben sapete l'animo mio) che io in qualche parte riconosco, e son
grato de' beneficii. Di Firenza li sei di Febraio 1567.
DiV illustre, e molto Mag. Sig.
Servitore affeziontiss. Giorgio Vasari 96
96GiorgioVasari, La Vita del gran Michelagnolo, first and second pages of unpaginated letter of ded-
ication. I have used the copy in the Houghton Library (call number Typ 525.68.865). Other copies are
to be found in the collections of the Biblioteca Corsini, Rome; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Flor-
ence;The British Library, London; Metropolitan Museum of Art Library, NewYork; Indiana University
Libraries, Bloomington, Indiana; and, University of Kansas Library, Kansas.

L.pon, Michelangelo's Lives Sixteenth-Century Books by Vasari, Condivi, and Others

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L.pon, Michelangelo's Lives Sixteenth-Century Books by Vasari, Condivi, and Others

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Michelangelo's Lives: Sixteenth-Century Books by Vasari, Condivi, and Others

Author(s): Lisa Pon

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