ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to analyse the ways in which literary texts are used in Giorgio Vasari's Lives and the purposes to which his citational practices are put. As a source of auctoritas that Vasari uses the words of poets and the Italian literary tradition. Such poets have created a reputation for themselves, and a shared memory, and they act as auctoritates even in the field of art. Vasari's own written production reflects the words of the major Italian literary texts, and it is reinforced at various levels by such writings. There is one fascinating example in Vasari of how quotation of a literary source functions as an authoritative and memorative hook, and then provides the basis for variation and, to some extent, reversal.
