9. Vasari’s Life of Andrea del Castagno and Domenico Veneziano

        A Study in the Practice of Writing Art History

        MELBA DALSIN


 

...In order to justify the unrivaled dominance of Florentine artists, Vasari made use of specific rhetorical and literary devices. In the Life of Andrea and Domenico, Vasari’s story of murder can be read in symbolic terms as a metaphor for Florence’s artistic triumph over Venice....

 

In his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects of 1550 and 1568, Giorgio Vasari set a precedent for how the history of art is written, with an emphasis on the progression of style and individual biographies. In the combined biography of Andrea del Castagno and Domenico Veneziano, Vasari recounts the tale of Andrea’s vicious murder of Domenico. However, this story has been proved false by recent scholarship and as a result of this and other inconsistencies some scholars have argued that the Lives is fabricated and that it is of little use in the study of art history. In more recent times, other scholars such as Paul Barolsky and Patricia Rubin have attempted to reevaluate Vasari and his contribution to the field of art historical studies. In this paper I will use the joint biography of Andrea del Castagno and Domenico Veneziano to examine Vasari’s literary and rhetorical devices and their role in shaping his history of Italian Renaissance art. I will also look at how Vasari’s style of writing art history has influenced the form in which others have made contributions to the field. Specifically, I will explore how contemporary scholars writing about these artists take the Lives into account, whether to lend support to an argument or to discredit Vasari. The aim of this paper is to show that despite some historical 'mistakes,' Vasari’s biographies nonetheless reveal a great deal about the development and progression of Renaissance style and the values and ideologies of the period. While the claim that Andrea murdered Domenico may appear to the contemporary scholar as a mistake that deserves no further consideration, I will argue that it has both symbolic and moral significance.

Vasari’s biography of Andrea del Castagno and Domenico Veneziano begins on a moral note, with a condemnation of envy. He says, “How reprehensible is the vice of envy, which should never exist in anyone, when found in a man of excellence, and how wicked and horrible a thing it is to seek under the guise of a feigned friendship to extinguish not only the fame and glory of another but his very life” (447). By beginning the biography in this way, Vasari reveals to the reader that this will be a story of artistic rivalry and a horrific betrayal resulting from envy. This introduction could also have been meant to serve as a warning to other artists in particular, about the perils of envying their colleagues.

While he condemns envy between artists, Vasari praises competition as “necessary and useful to the world” (447). He seemed to have believed that it was through artistic competition that the visual arts would progress towards perfection and that artists would fulfill their potentials. According to Clifton, rivalry figures as a recurrent theme in the Lives. Rivalry between artists was a topos that Vasari would have been familiar with from Pliny’s Natural History, which tells the story of a competition between Appelles and Protogenes (Clifton 28). This is just one of many topoi that Vasari uses throughout the Lives. Some of the others include the divinely inspired artist, the artist that died before fulfilling his potential, and the peculiar artist. In this case it seems that Vasari used the topos of artistic rivalry in order to illustrate broader stylistic concerns and also to make the story compelling for his readers. On Vasari’s use of artistic rivalries in the Lives, Clifton writes, “They are described frequently in the pages of early modern artists’ biographies, where – while reflecting very real relations between artists – they are used as a framework for broader considerations of stylistic and theoretical differences and of notions of artistic change” (25).

In this biography, Vasari tells us the story of Andrea’s early life and how he came to be an artist. Upon a chance encounter with a painter when he was young, he instantly became infatuated with art and “began to scratch drawings of animals and figures on walls and stones with pieces of charcoal or with the point of his knife” (Vasari 448). According to Vasari it was not long before word of Andrea had reached Bernardetto de’ Medici, who brought him to Florence to study art. This narrative element of this biography serves to develop Andrea’s character for the reader. It also reinforces the idea that artistic talent is naturally occurring and that it was fate, rather than chance, that brought Andrea to seek shelter and come upon the painter.

In regards to Andrea’s style, the biography emphasizes his skill in drawing or disegno, but that he struggled with the colouring of his paintings. Vasari even goes so far as to say, “And if Nature had given grace of colouring to this craftsman, even as she gave him invention and design, he would have been held truly marvelous” (450). By using the word 'Nature,' Vasari further illustrates the idea that Andrea’s talent was natural rather than the result of years of study. Although Vasari denounces Andrea for murdering Domenico and criticizes his use of colour, he pours lavish praise upon his disegno. Vasari states that in his St. Jerome with the Trinity in Santissima Annunziata, Andrea had “executed the foreshortenings with a much better and more modern manner than the others before him had shown” (449). This statement is evidence of Vasari’s preoccupation with the progression of artistic style and it is this progression that forms the overriding theme of the Lives.

Though Vasari gives an account of Andrea’s early life, he does not do the same for Domenico. The biography focuses mainly on the life and works of Andrea, with only a brief discussion of Domenico’s career as an artist and a few of his works. Significantly, however, Vasari credits Domenico with bringing the practice of painting in oil (most likely referring to the Flemish technique of oil painting) to Florence. Vasari says that Domenico was “summoned to Florence by reason of the new method that he knew of painting in oil” (450) and that this was a practice, “which as yet was not known in Tuscany” (451). Also significant, is Vasari’s praise for Domenico’s style, which he refers to as “lovely and graceful” (452). In describing Domenico’s works, Vasari uses the words 'grace' and 'graceful' repeatedly, which is noteworthy due to his claim that Andrea’s works lacked grace (448). This shortcoming in Andrea’s works resulted from a difficulty in colouring, which detracted from their overall appeal. Perhaps Vasari meant to suggest that Andrea envied Domenico because he saw that Domenico’s paintings had a certain quality of gracefulness that was lacking from his own. Furthermore, by praising Domenico’s talents, Vasari emphasizes his criticism of Andrea. Regarding Domenico’s Madonna and Child from the Carnesecchi Tabernacle, he wrote that it was “approved and greatly extolled by the citizens and the craftsmen of those times” (Vasari 451). This praise for Domenico further fuelled Andrea’s jealousy.

Vasari’s biography of Andrea del Castagno and Domenico Veneziano has a distinct literary form. He develops a very clear image of these artists as characters within the drama that was his history of Renaissance art. Through the use of specific adjectives and a narrative plot, he creates personal identities for them are meant to provoke as response in the reader. We are supposed to be outraged by Andrea’s cruel betrayal of Domenico, who was a “good and affectionate fellow” (Vasari 451). Despite his condemnation of Andrea’s moral character, Vasari clearly admired him as an artist. He writes that “Andrea, following the art of painting and devoting himself heart and soul to its studies, displayed very great intelligence in the difficulties of that art” (448).

In telling the story of how Andrea befriended Domenico and then carried out his murder, Vasari goes into a great amount of narrative detail. He recounts for the reader’s benefit the series of events leading up to the murder as well as the aftermath. The result of this narrative dimension is to make the biography engaging and interesting, and not simply a record of important works in an artist’s career. It has been proposed that the literary form that Vasari used for the Lives was influenced by classical rhetoric, Renaissance biography, and the Italian novelistic tradition (Goldstein 646). Through the synthesis of these different styles, Vasari “turned a fragmentary tradition of discussion and appreciation into a coherent and forceful representation of achievement that has endured since his time” (Rubin 1). In essence, he created a new discipline of study that was to become art history.

As mentioned above, Vasari’s Lives has been extremely influential on how other art historians have written about the discipline of art history. An emphasis on a progression of style in general, the individual style of an artist, as well as biography, have become important elements in art history. The contemporary literature on Andrea del Castagno and Domenico Veneziano is no exception to the rule. Marita Horster’s extensive monograph on Andrea del Castagno seems to have been influenced to some extent by Vasari’s form of art history. According to Horster this study “has a threefold purpose: to bring together and evaluate the documents and literary notices that have a bearing on his life and work, to establish a probable chronology of his surviving oeuvre, and to examine afresh its style and iconography” (7). This stated objective is not so far from what Vasari was doing. And just as he relied heavily upon visual sources for the Lives, the same can be said for this study, which includes hundreds of illustrations and a detailed catalogue.

The text of the monograph consists of short chapters dealing with Andrea’s life and work, his surviving paintings, his drawings, a visit to Rome, and his influence on other artists. While this work is written in the form of a monograph and is not a biography of the artist, it does share many similarities with Vasari’s biographical approach. The first chapter, “Castagno’s Life and Work,” follows a similar structure to the biographies of the Lives. Horster begins with Andrea’s family lineage and proceeds to discuss certain documents and records that have helped to establish a sequence of dates and events pertaining to his life. Much like Vasari, she also traces the sequence of Andrea’s artistic career, referencing specific works of art.

Throughout this study Vasari’s name comes up repeatedly, which is to be expected. What is surprising is Horster’s lack of critical engagement with Vasari’s biography of Andrea and Domenico, considering the stated aim of the monograph. She addresses Vasari’s allegations of murder in order to correct his mistake by presenting evidence that had been found to exonerate Andrea, in the form of a document proving that Domenico had outlived Andrea by four years (Horster 17). She also suggests a possibility for the origin of this longstanding myth. However, she fails to discuss any possible symbolic meaning for the murder or its rhetorical function within the biography. In terms of Vasari’s characterization of Andrea, Horster does not consider the relevance or significance of how he is presented to the reader. She takes at face value the story that Andrea was found as a little shepherd boy by Bernardetto de’Medici. Although, this story may possess some degree of truth to it, it is essential to remember that it was used in a calculated way by Vasari as a literary topos for the discovery of natural talent. As far as her judgment of Andrea’s artistic style, she does not seem to share Vasari’s unflattering view of his colouring. In her discussion of The Last Supper, Horster praises Andrea’s vivid use of color, saying that “The colours which are now striking in their purity and clarity are the pale rose, the light blue, the delicate violet and the light golden-yellow” (Horster 24).

Frederick Hartt’s study of Andrea’s early career, takes a different approach than Horster’s. Although he includes a few biographical details, they do not serve to determine the structure of the writing. Hartt focuses specifically on Andrea’s earliest works and the subsequent development of his personal style. Based on stylistic conventions, Hartt discusses Andrea’s artistic influences and compares and contrasts his works with those of his contemporaries. His treatment of Vasari is rather limited, although this is to be expected in a paper with such a narrow focus.

Hartt’s comments on Vasari are generally dismissive and critical, and he even goes so far as to suggest that he deliberately mislead his readers. For example, in his discussion of the portraits of the hanged rebels of Anghiari, he says that Vasari spoke about them as if he had seen them, which was impossible because they had been torn down (Hartt 161). However, he concedes that there may be a small amount of truth to some of Vasari’s tales. In regards to Vasari’s story of Andrea’s artistic discovery by Bernardetto de’Medici, he so eloquently writes, “Some irritating grain of truth must underlie these layers of narrative pearl” (Hartt 161). Unlike Horster, Hartt is unwilling to accept Vasari’s literary topos as historical truth.

In The Paintings of Domenico Veneziano, Hellmut Wohl presents an in-depth exploration of this “elusive” artist and his works. By calling the first chapter “The Vita of Domenico Veneziano,” Wohl is probably commenting on Vasari’s role in shaping the history of Domenico. The chapter follows a chronological sequence of his life and career. He begins by telling the reader that by the time Vasari wrote about Domenico there was relatively little reliable information on him and his life had become greatly mythologized (Wohl 1). He then goes on to discuss Vasari’s claim that Domenico brought the Flemish technique of oil painting to Florence, and what this meant in the context of the Lives. Wohl suggests that Vasari’s credited Domenico with the knowledge of oil painting in order to cast him as a “representative of Venetian colore” (5). It is also noted that in none of Vasari’s sources is Andrea’s colouring criticized, and thus Wohl believes that Vasari invented this criticism in order to support his own story.

Wohl treats Vasari’s account of Domenico as embellished and fictionalized. He writes that, “The legendary and the real biographies of Domenico Veneziano – Vasari’s and that based on the painter’s works and documentation – have essentially different structures. Vasari’s is a literary creation, based on what earlier sources transmitted to him, embellishing them in order to make the story they told more convincing” (6). He also sees Domenico’s art in a different light than does Vasari. He believes that the artist was much more than a talented colorist and that his work played a fundamental role in influencing the artists of the High Renaissance. Of the St. Lucy Altarpiece, he writes that not only is the use of color characteristic of Domenico’s style, but so are his contours, “which rather than drawing attention to themselves, modulate the three-dimensional inflections of solids in space” (33).

Patricia Rubin and Paul Barolsky have played an important role in the reevaluation of the Lives and its significance, both as a work of art history and literature. In his book Giotto’s Father and the Family of Vasari’s Lives, Barolsky explores the cultural significance of the Lives. He argues that Vasari’s narratives have historical grounding and highlight the significance of art during the Renaissance. He writes, “Vasari’s tall tales, fables, parables, jokes, and anecdotes are themselves, like the artists and works of art to which they refer, grounded in history. They tell us much about the iconography of art, about the social, political, religious, and cultural contexts of Renaissance art” (Barolsky xvi). However, he praises the Lives primarily as a great literary achievement, rather than as a piece of historical writing.

Barolsky describes Vasari’s conception of art history in terms of a family tree. In addition to familial associations, artists were also bound to one another by morals. While many artists of the Renaissance had family members who worked in the same profession, even artists who were not related to each other through family ties were supposed act like brothers. “He sees artists as paternal, filial, and fraternal in their love of their fellow artists, even when these artists are not in fact related consanguineously” (Barolsky xvii). In reference to this view of relations between artists, the section on Andrea’s murder of Domenico is called “A Case of Fratricide.” Barolsky says that when Andrea calls Domenico his 'brother,' Vasari is alluding to the biblical story of Cain and Abel (54). He declares that Andrea is a traitor and that he should have loved Domenico as a brother. According to Barolsky, “No artist in all of Vasari’s pages is so brutal, vicious, violent, and evil as Castagno” (53).

Patricia Rubin’s book on Vasari explores his role in shaping the practice of art history and how he composed his history of Italian Renaissance art. She notes that the Lives provided a model for future study and established art history as a topic that was worthy of consideration (6). Rubin also looks at the different rhetorical devices that Vasari employed and how they have shaped the meaning of his work. She sees this use of rhetoric as essential to structure of the Lives and tells us, “history was a literary art for Vasari and his contemporaries” (151). In contrast to Barolsky, who sees the Lives as extremely fictionalized, Rubin sees the publication as a product of its time with the “same validity as all the other great cultural manifestations of the period” (403).

Like Barolsky, Rubin also deals with the infamous myth of Andrea’s murder of Domenico. She believes that Vasari had confused Domenico Veneziano with another painter named Domenico del Matteo, who had been murdered by another artist named Andrea (175). Whether this represents the source of Vasari’s mistake is unimportant. What is important, is the moral of the story. According to Rubin, Vasari was trying to demonstrate the difference between good competition, which would result in admiration and glory, and bad competition, which would result in envy and sin. Although Vasari condemns Andrea’s behaviour, Rubin claims that he is still the hero of this double biography because after killing Domenico he is able to continue on with his artistic career. She also calls the murder a “perverse triumph of drawing over color, Florentine over Venetian tradition” (177).

I, too, would argue that while there may be some truth to Vasari’s stories, it is more valuable to explore their symbolic meaning than to judge their historical accuracy. Although we now know that Andrea did not murder Domenico, it is still worthwhile to explore what this narrative tells us about the lives of Renaissance artists as well as Vasari’s personal view stylistic progression. As Rubin suggested, the story is revealing about the ideology of the period. Vasari wanted to emphasize that envy was a terrible sin, especially when found in artists. These cultural producers were supposed to compete with one another in order to improve their craft, but also to further the development of art itself. However, this artistic competition or rivalry was not meant to inspire envy because, as Barolsky argued, the artists were expected to share a bond similar to that found between brothers. When Vasari writes that Andrea calls Domenico his “brother,” he alludes to the betrayal of the bond connecting them as artists.
As well as demonstrating truths about the ideology of the period, Vasari’s rhetoric also holds symbolic meaning. It is no secret that Vasari wrote the Lives as a panegyric to the city of Florence and that he dedicated the 1550 edition to Duke Cosimo de’Medici (Goldstein 644). As such, it is not surprising that the majority of artists in the Lives are Florentines. In order to justify the unrivaled dominance of Florentine artists, Vasari made use of specific rhetorical and literary devices. In the Life of Andrea and Domenico, Vasari’s story of murder can be read in symbolic terms as a metaphor for Florence’s artistic triumph over Venice.

Through his praise of Andrea’s disegno and Domenico’s colorito, Vasari sets them up as rivals representing the artistic traditions of Florence and Venice respectively. According to Rosand, Vasari had selected disegno as the most important principle of painting, while the Venetians saw colorito as the most important because it was the element that most resembled nature (33). Rosand also emphasizes that the concept of colorito referred to more than just the colours themselves, but also the way they were applied. Hall discusses how this rivalry between disegno and colorito was disputed, but she says, “significantly, no one reversed Vasari’s priorities and insisted on the superiority of colore to disegno” (2).

Clearly, interpreting the Lives is no easy task and there is no one right ways to go about doing so. However, by exploring Vasari’s method of writing art history and his use of literary and rhetorical devices, the Lives can prove an invaluable resource for studying the history of art in general and the Italian Renaissance in particular. It is also essential for the art historian to consider the role that Vasari has played in shaping the form of art historical writing. His influence is more far-reaching and pervasive than many realize. In this paper I have used the Life of Andrea del Castagno and Domenico Veneziano as a case study to explore Vasari’s literary craft of writing and his use of literary topoi and rhetorical devices. I have also suggested how contemporary scholars have been influenced by Vasari, and how they take the Lives into account. I hope to have demonstrated that Vasari’s 'mistakes' and 'fictional' anecdotes are in fact what make the Lives both engaging and informative. It is his stories that tell us so much about the lives of Renaissance artists and the ideologies and morals of that period.


Works Cited

Barolsky, Paul. Giotto's Father and the Family of Vasari's Lives. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992.

Clifton, James. Vasari on Competition. Sixteenth Century Journal 27.1 (1996), pp. 23-41.

Goldstein, Carl. Rhetoric and Art History in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque. The Art Bulletin 73.4 (1991), pp. 641-52.

Hall, Marcia. Color and meaning : practice and theory in Renaissance painting. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Hartt, Frederick. The Earliest Works of Andrea Del Castagno: Part One. The Art Bulletin 41.2 (1959), pp. 159-81.

Hartt, Frederick. The Earliest Works of Andrea Del Castagno: Part Two. The Art Bulletin 41.3 (1959), pp. 225-36.

Horster, Marita. Andrea Del Castagno: A Complete Edition with a Critical Catalogue. Oxford: Phaidon, 1980.

Rosand, David. Titian. New York: Abrams, 1978.

Rubin, Patricia Lee. Giorgio Vasari: Art and History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives of the Artists: A Selection. Vol. L164. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1965.

Wohl, Hellmut. The paintings of Domenico Veneziano: a study in Florentine art of the early Renaissance. New York: New York University Press, 1980.

 

Return to Table of Contents


 

 

MELBA DALSIN

Melba Dalsin is a fourth year student in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Western Ontario. Her main areas of interest are contemporary art, museology, and curatorial practices. Next year, she hopes to continue her education in art history as a graduate student.