Giorgio Vasari was a painter and architect, born in 1511. Great friend of Michelangelo, he’s one of the most famous artists from Arezzo.
In 1529, he visited Rome where he studied the works of Raphael and other artists of the Roman High Renaissance. Vasari was perhaps more successful as an architect than as a painter. His loggia of the Palazzo degli Uffizi by the Arno opens up the vista at the far end of its long narrow courtyard, a unique piece of urban planning that functions as a public piazza, and which, if considered as a short street, is unique as a Renaissance street with a unified architectural treatment.
In Arezzo it is possible to admire the “Logge” in the amazing Piazza Grande and you can also have the chance to visit Casa Vasari: the building came into his possession in 1540 and was restored by himself over the following years. It is composed of 3 floors and a hanging garden: on the “noble floor” the rooms are decorated by Vasari himself and some of his apprentices.
Giorgio Vasari was also the first art historian with his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, dedicated to Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, which was first published in 1550. He was the first to use the term “Renaissance” in print.