Beschreibung:

SCAMOZZI, Vincenzo (1548-1616)] -- Giorgio VASARI (1511-74). Le vite de' piu eccellenti Pittori, Scultori, et Architettori . Florence: Giunta, 1568. 3 parts in 3 volumes, 4° (247 x 167mm). Collation as Feltrinelli sale part I (Christie's New York, 7 October 1997 lot 110, 290; 206; 345 (of 346) leaves, without final blank in volume III. Roman and italic letter. Architectural woodcut border composed of 2 concentric parts of putti and figures, inset in vol. I is an allegorical woodcut depicting the awakening of the souls of dead artists, in vol. II the Giunta lily device with a view of Florence below, and in vol. III the Florence view only, the inner title border and allegorical cut repeated on HHHhhh3v, portrait of Vasari and view of Florence inset within inner title border on B4v, 144 medallion portraits of artists within one of 6 architectual frames of allegorical artist figures, 8 medallion ovals left blank, historiated woodcut initials, Giunta device at the end of vol. II and on final recto of vol. III, typographic head- and tailpieces. Cancel slip on Rrr4r (vol.III), MS. correction on TT3r (vol.I), MS. correction on YYyyy3r (vol.III) line 25, last line beginning 'so discorrere...' present on K4v (vol.I), and variant title in vol. I with allegorical cut. (Small section clipped from first title, light dampstain in vol. I, some light spotting, occasional light browning.) Modern calf-backed vellum-covered boards (light spotting to sides). Provenance : Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548-1616, annotations). Second edition and the FIRST ILLUSTRATED AND COMPLETE EDITION and IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY ANNOTATED BY VINCENZO SCAMOZZI The 'first modern history of art' (PMM 88), Vasari's Vite ( Lives ) is the Bible of Italian renaissance art history. It contains biographies of Italian painters from the 13th- to 16th century, and remained the chief authority for its period. It was first published in 1550, but the second edition was substantially expanded to include a further 28 biographies of more recent artists, including Titian. The 1568 edition also contains a new dedication to Cosimo de' Medici, an autobiography, and a treatise on artistic technique. Vasari names himself as one of the woodcut artists, as well as a 'Maestro Christofano', who has been identified as either Cristoforo Coriolano or Cristoforo Chrieger While Vasari's magnum opus is now read mostly for its vivid and amusing accounts of the careers of individual artists, it was at the same time an extremely important theoretical text. In this connection, it is worth recalling that Vasari was not only a prolific painter and draughtsman, but also a distinguished architect, his most celebrated achievement being the Uffizi in Florence. The habit of adding marginalia to copies of the Vite obviously arose at an early date, perhaps especially among artists - the Carracci and El Greco are notable examples - who objected to what they regarded as Vasari's Florence-centred vision of the artistic universe. The present copy belonged to the Vicentine architect and architectural theorist, Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548-1616), and is annotated by him on 114 pages and a further 188 pages have marginal notation marks. It proved a vital point of departure for him in composition of his own treatise, L'idea della architettura universale , of which six books were published in 1615. Nadia Munari, writing on Scamozzi in the Macmillan Dictionary of Art (1996), observed that 'the development of the theoretical aspects of his treatise shows the influence exerted by such works as Giorgio Vasari's Vite and Daniele Barbaro's commentaries on Vitruvius, of which Scamozzi possessed his own carefully annotated copies.' (Macmillan 1996, vol.28, p.33). Predictably, Scamozzi's marginalia are principally concerned with architectural matters, notably in the introductory section, and in the Vita of Brunelleschi. They vary considerably in character, with numerous narrowly technical observations on the one hand, but also barbe