Summarize the articles

Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Artists, second edition, 1568

From the Preface to the Third Part:

But he who bears the palm from both the living and the dead, transcending and eclipsing all

others, is the divine Michelagnolo Buonarroti, who holds the sovereignty not merely of one of

these arts, but of all three together (i.e. painting, sculpture, architecture).

This master surpasses and excels not only all those moderns who have almost vanquished nature,

but even those most famous ancients who without a doubt did so gloriously surpass her; and in

his own self he triumphs over moderns, ancients, and nature, who could scarcely conceive

anything so strange and so difficult that he should not be able, by the force of his most divine

intellect and by means of his industry, draughtsmanship, art, judgment, and grace, to excel it by a

great measure; and that not only in painting and in the use of colour, under which title are

comprised all forms, and all bodies upright or not upright, palpable or impalpable, visible or

invisible, but also in the highest perfection of bodies in the round, with the point of his chisel.

And from a plant so beautiful and so fruitful, through his labours, there have already spread

branches so many and so noble, that, besides having filled the world in such unwonted profusion

with the most luscious fruits, they have also given the final form to these three most noble arts.

And so great and so marvellous is his perfection, that it may be safely and surely said that his

statues are in all their parts much more beautiful than the ancient; for if we compare the heads,

hands, arms, and feet shaped by the one with those of the others, we see in his a greater depth

and solidity, a grace more completely graceful, and a much more absolute perfection,

accomplished with a manner so facile in the overcoming of difficulties, that it is not possible

ever to see anything better.

And the same may be believed of his pictures, which, if we chanced to have some by the most

famous Greeks and Romans, so that we might compare them face to face, would prove to be as

much higher in value and more noble as his sculptures are clearly superior to all those of the

ancients.

From the Life of Titian:

The year 1546 having come, he went at the invitation of Cardinal Farnese to Rome, where he

found Vasari, who, having returned from Naples, was executing the Hall of the Cancelleria for

the above-named Cardinal; whereupon, Tiziano having been recommended by that lord to

Vasari, Giorgio kept him company lovingly in taking him about to see the sights of Rome. And

then, after Tiziano had rested for some days, rooms were given to him in the Belvedere, to the

end that he might set his hand to painting once more the portrait of Pope Paul, of full length, with

one of Farnese and one of Duke Ottavio, which he executed excellently well and much to the

satisfaction of those lords. At their persuasion he painted, for presenting to the Pope, a picture of

Christ from the waist upwards in the form of an "Ecce Homo," which work, whether it was that

the works of Michelagnolo, Raffaello, Polidoro, and others had made him lose some force, or for

some other reason, did not appear to the painters, although it was a good picture, to be of the

same excellence as many others by his hand, and particularly his portraits. Michelagnolo and

Vasari, going one day to visit Tiziano in the Belvedere, saw in a picture that he had executed at

that time a nude woman representing Danae, who had in her lap Jove transformed into a rain of

gold; and they praised it much, as one does in the painter's presence. After they had left him,

discoursing of Tiziano's method, Buonarroti commended it not a little, saying that his coloring

and his manner much pleased him, but that it was a pity that in Venice men did not learn to draw

well from the beginning, and that those painters did not pursue a better method in their studies.

"For," he said, "if this man had been in any way assisted by art and design, as he is by nature,

and above all in counterfeiting the life, no one could do more or work better, for he has a fine

spirit and a very beautiful and lively manner." And in fact this is true, for the reason that he who

has not drawn much nor studied the choicest ancient and modern works, cannot work well from

memory by himself or improve the things that he copies from life, giving them the grace and

perfection wherein art goes beyond the scope of nature, which generally produces some parts

that are not beautiful.