ABSTRACT
A woodcut appears at both the beginning and the end of the 1568 edition of Le Vite de piu eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori designed by the author of the book, the painter and architect Giorgio Vasari. Vasari is best known for his literary work honouring artists, the Vite. In both his literary and his visual work, Vasari created imaginary worlds inhabited by historic brotherhood of artists. Vasari placed artists in an historical continuum in yet another, more enigmatic commemorative project, his monumental scrapbook collection of artists’ drawings, the Libro de’ disegnicreated in the 1560s. Vasari’s visual language transformed the Libro into a memorial mortuary for the drawings of artists. The visual commemoration of artists is mentioned as an important function of the Accademia in its founding document. Vasari also commemorated Michelangelo, along with other artists, in a less public, more personal way when he decorated the walls and ceilings of his homes in Arezzo and Florence.
