VASARI e la storia della statuaria italiana

Speranza

For Vasari, the history of Italian statuary falls into three sections.

The first a pre-history running down to the end of the TRECENTO. VASARI's HERO: NICOLA PISANO.

The second, the EARLY RINASCIMENTO -- the period, that is, between the competition for the bronze doors of the Baptistry in FIRENZE in 1400 and the emergence of BUONARROTI. VASARI's hero: DONATELLO.

The third, 'the modern age'. Vasari's hero: BUONARROTI.

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His criterion of judgement is their relationship to the ANTIQUE.

Whereas NICOLA PISANO was no more than an AGENT by whom the art of statuary was improved, the works of DONATELLO are "up to the level of the good antiques".

While those of BUONARROTI, "are in every respect MUCH FINER than the ancient ones."

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The theory of continuous upward progress was fortified by the belief that a similar development had taken place in Greece, where the three phrases were represented by

CANACHUS

whose statues are lacking in vivacity and truth,

MIRONE, who 'endowed his works with such excellent proportion and grace that they might be termed beautiful'

and

POLICLETO -- by whom 'absolute perfection' was attained.

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In one respect, VASARI recognsied that this analogy might be misleading, in that the motive power behind GREEK sculpture was self-generated, whereas ITALIAN sculpture was a RENEWAL, and its course was therefore influenced by the availability of ANTIQUE sculptures.

During the first phrase, 'the admirable sculptures ... buried in the RUINS OF ITALY remained hidden or unknown."

The second was one of discovery, though so exigous were the remains that sculptors were necessarily guided by the light of nature rather than by that of the antique.

In the THIRD phase, more and better sculptures became known.

"Some of the finest works mentioned by PLINIO," writes VASARI, "were dug out of the earth: the LAOCOONTE, the ERCOLE (Farnese), the great TORSO DEL BELVEDERE, the VENERE, the CLEOPATRA, the APOLLO DEL BELVEDERE and countless others, which are copied in their softness and their hardness from the best living examples, with actions which do not distort them, but give them motion and display and utmost grace.'

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This made it possible for sculptors in VASARI's day to attain 'the zenith of DESIGN'.

This view was not particular to VASARI. It was held universally, and is accountable for the main difference between EARLY AND HIGH RENAISSANCE sculpture, that the background of the first is a sense of struggle towrds a distant goal, while that of the second is a feeling of achievement, the sense of life lived on a plateau from which the only advance possible is a descent.

What VASARI, writing in 1550,  could NOT foresee, was that the revolution which was associated with the name of BUONARROTI would be followed by TWO further stylistic revolutions led by Giovanni "Bologna" and BERNINI, and that these later revolutions would also spring from the action of classical Greco-Roman ancient sculpture on the creative imaginationf of great artists.