Vita del gran Michelangnolo..., Giorgio Vasari

Exhibition Label: "Giorgio Vasari and Court Culture in Late Renaissance Italy," Sep-2012, Sally Cornelison and Susan Earle Vasari published this excerpt from the second edition of the Lives in 1568. Considered to be the first example of an offprint, it is entitled “Life of the Great Michelangelo Buonarroti” and is dedicated to Alessandro de’ Medici, the son of Vasari’s early patron and mentor, Ottaviano. The vita is prefaced with one of the 144 portraits in the 1568 edition that Vasari designed and a certain “Master Christopher” cut from wood blocks. In the portrait’s frame three allegorical figures represent the media in which the multitalented Michelangelo worked; they hold tools relating to the arts of Painting (top), Sculpture (left), and Architecture (right). Shown without the trademark black hat that appears in Michelangelo’s other printed portraits on display, here he wears a fur- trimmed brocade. In the Lives’ woodcuts Vasari used fur collars to identify artists he held in particularly high esteem and whose work was indebted to the art of classical antiquity.