Giorgio Vasari and the Birth of the Museum

Maia Wellington Gahtan is Program Director, MA Museum Studies at the Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florence, Italy.

• Preface; Introduction: Giorgio Vasari and the birth of the museum, Maia Wellington Gahtan; Part I Vasari's Collections: Decorations and collections in Vasari's houses in Arezzo and Florence, Alessandro Cecchi; Giorgio Vasari and the Libro de' disegni: a paper museum or portable gallery, Anna Forlani Tempesti; Giorgio Vasari, collector of epitaphs, Maia Wellington Gahtan. Part II Vasari and Illustrium Imagines: Giorgio Vasari, Paolo Giovio, portrait collections and the rhetorics of images, Nadia Cannata; Vasari, Borghini and Cristofano dell'Altissimo: the papal portraits in the Sala delle Carte Geografiche, Rick Scorza; Portrait galleries, artists' biographies and the birth of academies and museums, Tommaso Casini. Part III Vasari's Exhibitions: Vasari, exhibitor of art: Medici collections of antiquities, Andrea Galdy; Giorgio Vasari, Rome and early forms of display of Medici collections in Florence: models and afterlife, Donatella Pegazzano; The order, the itinerary, the beholder: considerations on some aspects of the Ragionamenti del Sig. Cavalier Giogio Vasari, Emilie Passignat; Virtual guided museum tours: Vasari's I Ragionamenti and Bartoli's Ragionamenti accademici, Henk Th. van Veen; Giorgio Vasari, architect: the Uffizi of the gallery, Claudia Conforti. Part IV Vasari's Museological Concepts and Their Afterlife: The Accademia del Designo and its museology, Luigi Zangheri; Paper museums and the multimedia practice of art history: the case of Stefano Mulinari's Istoria Pratica (1778-80) in the Uffizi, Ingrid R. Vermeulen; Vasari: the territory beyond, Elizabeth Pilliod; Bibliography; Index.

'This is a first-rate collection of essays and a valuable addition to the growing Vasari literature ... Recommended.' Choice 'The essays contained in Giorgio Vasari and the Birth of the Museum offer varied perspectives on understanding the influence of Vasari’s Lives of the Artists on the creation and development of the modern museum. Individual lives are sometimes the focus of an author’s discussion, but it is the structure of the Lives that is most significant. With his Lives Vasari created the intellectual context for the study of individual artists’ careers within a narrative of art’s history, and that narrative was then enshrined within museums.' CAA reviews 'Within a broad museological and museographical perspective, this book has the merit of setting up a dialogue among the conceptual categories of collecting, conservation, display, and museology and of demonstrating how fundamental the multifaceted Vasari’s impact was on the history of museums. Among writings on art, collecting, and museography, emerging from these essays are numerous interesting suggestions and paths for further investigation and research.' Renaissance Quarterly 'Overall, Gahtan has edited this work with much care and precision. Readers are led through logical, interesting, and strongly source-focused articles written by Vasari specialists. The constant use of Vasari's Vite and an individual adherence to the main themes of collecting, preserving, and exhibiting tie this collection together and provide well-articulated and researched chapters. This work is a clear example of how cross-disciplinary studies can truly be beneficial in exploring the source material available to a greater extent through different lenses.' Parergon