This book project investigates Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) as court artist to the Medici in Florence, focusing mainly on the organization of the projects he directed in the ducal palace, now called Palazzo Vecchio. Vasari is known for his ability to complete large-scale enterprises within remarkably short timeframes, yet how he managed to achieve this in practical terms has remained largely unexplored. Based on extensive archival research, this book reconstructs the complex structure of Vasari’s workshop. It explores how he, as court artist, negotiated the pressures of patronage, deadlines, and shifting political demands, all while managing a team of assistants and pupils.
This further allows to reconsider the image of the artist that emerges from contemporary literary sources, largely written by Vasari himself. The book places particular emphasis on the tension between the long-assumed ideal of singular authorship and the reality of collective production. A key example is the ceiling of the Sala Grande, which was publicly praised in Vasari’s 1568 edition of the Vite as the work of “a single painter,” even though the collaborative effort behind it was widely known.
Rather than reading Vasari’s texts as straightforward self-promotion, this study contextualizes them within a network of editorial voices, practical limitations, and institutional ambitions. By integrating workshop history, textual analysis, and court politics, it offers a new reading of Vasari’s artistic identity—one shaped not only by invention and authorship, but by negotiation, collaboration, and institutional constraint. It contributes to broader debates on authorship, artistic labour, and the construction of artistic authority in early modern Europe.
