Vasari on Technique

by Giorgio Vasari

Overview

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1571) is well known for his celebrated work on the lives of the Renaissance artists. But not many people know that Vasari was a painter and architect as well as a biographer, and that he wrote one of the most valuable treatises on the technical methods of the painters, architects, and sculptors of his time. This is the first and only English translation of this important technical material (originally published in 1550 as an introduction to Vasari's Lives of the Artists).
Vasari, as a practical craftsman, brings to his work as unusual understanding of the processes and materials he writes about, and conveys this knowledge to the reader in a style of the pleasantest and most readable kind. In the section on architecture, he describes the methods used in constructing rustic fountains and grottos; how Michelangelo developed new uses for architectural materials; the architectural uses of enriched plaster; the Renaissance view of Ionic, Doric, Gothic, and other types of architecture; and many similar topics.
In the selection on sculpture, the reader will learn about the making of the model, completion of the statue, reliefs, bronze casting, modelled plaster work, sculpture in wood, and other processes. The final section, on painting, discusses aesthetics, perspective, foreshortening, how colors were blended, fresco painting, painting in tempera, oil painting, and much more.
Scholars and historians of art have long used this book as the most detailed and valuable sourcebook of its time. But its full, readable discussions, combined with the sense of actuality and historical presence it contains, make it also perhaps the best possible description of the Renaissance artists in the heyday of their achievement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486149165
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	07/12/2012
Series:	Dover Art Instruction
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	9 MB

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Vasari on Technique

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By Giorgio Vasari

Dover Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 1960 Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-20717-9

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CHAPTER 1

Of the different kinds of Stone which are used by Architects for ornamental details, and in Sculpture for Statues; that is, Of Porphyry, Serpentine, Cipollaccio, Breccia, Granites, Paragon or Test-stone, Transparent Marbles, White Marbles and Veined Marbles, Cipollini, Saligni, Campanini, Travertine, Slate, Peperigno, Ischia Stone, Pietra Serena and Pietra Forte.

§ 1. The author's object in the Discussion of Architecture.

How great is the utility of Architecture it does not fall to me to tell, since the subject has been treated at length and most carefully by many writers. For this reason, leaving on one side the limes, sands, wood, iron armatures, mode of preparing the foundations, as well as everything else that is used in a building; disregarding also the questions of water and localities and sites, already enlarged on by Vitruvius and by our own Leon Battista Alberti, I shall only discuss, for the use of our artificers and for whoever likes to know, the essential qualities of buildings, and in what proportions they should be put together and of what parts composed in order to obtain that graceful beauty that is desired. In short, I shall collect all that seems to me necessary for the purpose in view.

§ 2. Of the working of hard stones, and first of Porphyry.

In order that the great difficulty of working very hard and compact stones may be clearly understood, we shall treat distinctly but briefly of every variety which our workmen handle, and first of porphyry. This is a red stone, with minute white specks, brought into Italy from Egypt, where it is generally believed that the stone when quarried is softer than it is after it has been exposed to rain, frost and sunshine; because all these influences make it harder and more difficult to work. Of this stone numberless works are to be seen, some of them shaped with the chisel, some sawn into shape, and some again gradually worked up by means of wheels and emery. There are many different examples in divers places; for instance, square, round, and other pieces smoothed for pavements, statues for edifices, a great number of columns large and small, and fountains with various masks, all carved with the greatest care. There are also sarcophagi still extant, with figures in low and half relief, laboriously wrought, as at the temple of Bacchus, outside Rome, by Sant' Agnese, where is said to be the sarcophagus of Santa Costanza, daughter of the Emperor Constantine, on which are carved many figures of children with grapes and vine-leaves, that testify how great was his labour who worked them in a stone so hard. There is another example in an urn, near to the door known as the Porta Santa in San Giovanni in Laterano, which is decorated with scenes containing a great number of figures. There is also in the piazza della Ritonda a very beautiful urn made for sepulchral purposes that is worked with great care and diligence. It is of extremely graceful and beautiful form, and is very different from the others. In the house of Egizio and of Fabio Sasso there used to be a seated figure, measuring three and a half braccia, preserved to our days with the remains of the other statues in the Casa Farnese. In the courtyard also of the Casa la Valle, over a window, is a she-wolf most excellently sculptured, and, in the garden of the same house, the two prisoners bound, each four braccia in height, executed in this same porphyry by the ancients with extraordinary skill. These works are lavishly praised to-day by all skilled persons, knowing, as they do, the difficulty the workers had in executing them owing to the hardness of the stone.

In our day stone of this sort is never wrought to perfection, because our artificers have lost the art of tempering the chisels and other instruments for working them. It is true that they can still, with the help of emery, saw drums of columns into slices, and cut other pieces to be arranged in patterns for floors, and make various other ornaments for buildings. The porphyry is reduced little by little by means of a copper saw, without teeth, drawn backwards and forwards between two men, which, with the aid of emery reduced to powder, and kept constantly wet with water, finally cuts its way through the stone. Although at different times many ingenious attempts have been made to find out the method of working porphyry used by the ancients, all have been in vain, and Leon Battista Alberti, the first to make experiments therein not however in things of great moment, did not find, among the many tempering-baths that he put to the test, any that answered better than goats' blood; because, though in the working it removed but little of that hardest of stones and was always striking sparks of fire, it served him nevertheless so far as to enable him to have carved, in the threshold of the principal door of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, the eighteen antique letters, very large and well proportioned, which are seen on the front of the step, in a piece of porphyry. These letters form the words BERNARDO ORICELLARIO. And because the edge of the chisel did not suit for squaring the corners, or giving the necessary polish and finish, he had a little revolving drill made, with a handle like a spit, which was easily worked by placing the said handle against the chest, and putting the hands into the crank in order to turn it. At the working end, instead of a chisel or bit, he fixed copper discs, larger or smaller according to need, and these, well sprinkled with emery, gradually reduced and smoothed the stone, producing a fine surface and finishing the corners, the drill all the while being dexterously twirled by the hand. But all this effort cost so much time, that Leon Battista lost heart, and did not put his hand to anything else, either in the way of statues, or vases, or other delicate work. Others, afterwards, who set themselves to smoothing stones and restoring columns by the same special process, have done it in this way. They make for the purpose large and heavy hammers, with the points of steel, keenly tempered with goats' blood, and worked in the manner of diamond points; with these they carefully tap on the porphyry, and ' scabbling ' it, or working it down, little by little the best way they can, finally reduce it, with much time and trouble, to the round or the flat, as the workman chooses,—not however to the form of statues, because of this we have lost the art—and they polish it with emery and leather, scouring it till there comes a lustre very clear and well finished.

Now although every day refinements are being made on human inventions, and new things enquired into, yet even the moderns, who from time to time have tried fresh methods of carving porphyry, various tempering-baths, and very carefully refined steels, have, as was said above, up till recent years laboured in vain. Thus in the year 1553 Pope Julius III, having been presented by Signor Ascanio Colonna with a very handsome antique porphyry basin, measuring seven braccia across, ordered it to be restored, for some pieces were missing, that it might adorn his vineyard: the work was undertaken, and many things tried by the advice of Michelagnolo Buonarroti and of other excellent masters, but after a great length of time the enterprise was despaired of, chiefly because it was found impossible to preserve some of the arrises, a matter essential to the undertaking: Michelagnolo, moreover, even though accustomed to the hardness of stones, gave up the attempt, as did all the others, and nothing more was done.

At last, since no other thing in our days was lacking to the perfection of our arts, except the method of satisfactorily working porphyry, that not even this should still be to seek, it was rediscovered in the following manner. In the year 1555, Duke Cosimo, wishing to erect a fountain of remarkable beauty in the court of his principal palace in Florence, had excellent water led there from the Pitti Palace and Garden, and ordered a basin with its pedestal to be made for the said fountain from some large pieces of porphyry found among broken fragments. To make the working of it more easy to the master, he caused an extract to be distilled from an herb, the name of which is unknown to me, and this extract had such virtue, that red-hot tools when plunged into it acquired the hardest possible temper. With the aid of this process then, Francesco del Tadda, the carver of Fiesole, executed after my design the basin of the said fountain, which is two and a half braccia in diameter, together with its pedestal, just as it may be seen to-day in the above-named palace. Tadda, judging that the secret imparted to him by the duke was very precious, set himself to put it to the test by carving something, and he has succeeded so well that in a short time he has made, in three ovals, life-size portraits in half-relief of Duke Cosimo and of the duchess Leonora, and a head of Christ, executed so perfectly that the hair and beard, most difficult to reproduce in carving, are finished in a manner equal to that of the ancients. The Duke was talking one day of these works with Michelagnolo when his Excellency was in Rome, and Buonarroti would not believe in them; therefore, by the Duke's order, I sent the head of Christ to Rome where it was seen by Michelagnolo with great wonder, who praised it highly and rejoiced greatly to see the sculpture of our time enriched by this rare gift, which until our day had been searched for in vain. Tadda has recently finished the head of the elder Cosimo de' Medici in an oval, like those mentioned above, and he has executed and continues to execute many other similar works.

All that remains to be said of porphyry is that, because the quarries are now lost to knowledge, it is necessary to make use of what is left of it in the form of ancient fragments, drums of columns and other pieces; and that in consequence he who works in porphyry must ascertain whether or not it has been subjected to the action of fire, because if it have, although it does not completely lose its colour, nor crumble away, it lacks much of its natural vividness and never takes so good a polish as when it has not been so subjected; and, what is worse, it easily fractures in the working. It is also worth knowing, as regards the nature of porphyry, that, if put into the furnace, it does not burn away (non si cuoce), nor allow other stones round it to be thoroughly burnt; indeed, as to itself, it grows raw (incrudelisce) as is shown in the two columns the men of Pisa gave to the Florentines in the year 1117 after the acquisition of Majorca. These columns now stand at the principal door of the church of San Giovanni; they are colourless and not very well polished in consequence of having passed through fire, as Giovanni Villani relates in his history.

§ 3. Of Serpentine.

After porphyry we come to serpentine, which is a green stone, rather dark, with little crosses long and yellowish all through its texture. The artificers busy themselves with making columns and slabs for pavements in edifices from it, in the same way as from porphyry. It is never seen carved into figures, although it is very often used for the bases of columns, the pedestals ot tables, and other works of a ruder kind. Though this sort of stone is liable to fracture, and is harder than porphyry, it is sweeter to work and involves less labour. Serpentine is quarried in Egypt and Greece and the sound pieces are not very large; consequently no work of greater dimensions than three braccia in any direction is ever seen of serpentine, and such works as exist are slabs and pieces of pavement. A few columns are found also but not very massive nor thick, as well as some masks and sculptured brackets, but figures never. This stone is worked in the same manner as porphyry.

§ 4. Of Cipollaccio.

Softer than serpentine is cipollaccio, a stone quarried in various places; it is of a crude yellowish green colour and has within it some square black marks, large and small, and also biggish white marks. Of this material one may see in various places columns both massive and slender, as well as doors and other ornaments, but not figures. There is a fountain of this stone in Rome in the Belvedere, that is to say a niche in a corner of the garden where are the statues of the Nile and of the Tiber; Pope Clement VII had this niche made, after a design by Michelagnolo, to adorn the statue of a river god that it might look very beautiful in this setting made in imitation of natural rocks, as indeed it actually does. Cipollaccio is also sawn into panels, round and oval, and into similar pieces which, when arranged with other stones in pavements and other flat surfaces, make lovely compositions. It takes a polish like porphyry and serpentine and is sawn in the same manner. Numberless pieces of it are found in Rome, buried under the ruins; these come to light daily and thus of ancient things modern works are made, such as doors and other ornamental details, which, wherever placed, are decorative and very beautiful.

§ 5. Of Breccia ('Mischio,' Conglomerate).

Here is now another stone, called 'mischio ' (breccia), from the mixture of various stones coagulated together and made one by time and by the mordant action of water. It is found in abundance in several places, as in the mountains of Verona, in those of Carrara, and of Prato in Tuscany, and in the hills of the Impruneta in the neighbourhood of Florence. But the best and choicest breccias have been found, not long ago, at San Giusto at Monte Rantoli, five miles distant from Florence. In this material Duke Cosimo has commissioned me to decorate all the new rooms of the palace with doors and chimney pieces, and the effect is most beautiful. Also for the garden of the Pitti, very fine columns seven braccia high have been quarried from the same place, and I am astonished that in this stone such large pieces should be found free from flaws. Being of the nature of limestone, it takes a beautiful polish and in colour inclines to a reddish purple streaked with white and yellowish veins. But the finest examples of all are in Greece and Egypt, where the stone is much harder than ours in Italy, and it is found in as many different colours as mother nature has delighted and still delights to produce in all perfection. In the breccias formed in this way one sees at Rome at the present day both ancient and modern works, such as columns, vases, fountains, door ornaments, and various inlays on buildings, as well as many pieces in the pavements. There are various sorts, of many colours; some draw to yellow and red, others to white and black, others again to grey and white speckled with red and veined with numerous colours; then there are certain reds, greens, blacks and whites which are oriental: and of this sort of stone the Duke has an antique urn, four and a half braccia across, in his garden at the Pitti, a thing most precious, being as I said of oriental breccia very beautiful and extremely hard to work. Such stones are all very hard, and exquisite in colour and quality, as is shown by the two columns, twelve braccia high at the entrance of St. Peter's in Rome, which support the first arcades of the aisles, one on each side. Of this stone, the kind which is found in the hills of Verona, is very much softer than the oriental; and in that place is quarried a sort which is reddish, and inclines towards a vetch colour. All these kinds are worked easily in our days with the tempering-baths and the tools used for our own local stones. Windows, columns, fountains, pavements, door posts and mouldings are made of them, as is seen in Lombardy and indeed throughout Italy.

§ 6. Of Granite.

There is another sort of extremely hard stone, much coarser and speckled with black and white and sometimes with red, which, on account of its grain and consistency, is commonly called granite. In Egypt it exists in solid masses of immense size that can be quarried in pieces incredibly long, such as are seen nowadays in Rome in obelisks, needles, pyramids, columns, and in those enormous vessels for baths which we have at San Pietro in Vincola, at San Salvadore del Lauro and at San Marco. It is also seen in columns without number, which for hardness and compactness have had nothing to fear from fire or sword, so that time itself, that drives everything to ruin, not only has not destroyed them but has not even altered their colour. It was for this reason that the Egyptians made use of granite in the service of their dead, writing on these obelisks in their strange characters the lives of the great, to preserve the memory of their prowess and nobility.

From Egypt there used also to come another variety of grey granite, where the black and white specks draw rather towards green. It is certainly very hard, not so hard however, but that our stonecutters, in the building of St. Peter's, have made use of the fragments they have found, in such a manner that by means of the temper of the tools at present adopted, they have reduced the columns and other pieces to the desired slenderness and have given them a polish equal to that of porphyry.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

PREFATORY NOTE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
OF ARCHITECTURE
CHAPTER I.

1. The Author's object in the Discussion of Architecture
2. "Of the working of hard stones, and first of Porphyry"
3. Of Serpentine
4. Of Cipollaccio
5. "Of Breccia ('Mischio,' Conglomerate)"
6. Of Granite
7. Of Paragon (Touchstone)
8. Of Transparent Marbles for filling window openings
9. Of Statuary Marbles
10. Of Cipollino Marble
11. Of White Pisan Marble
12. Of Travertine
13. Of Slates
14. Of Peperino
15. Of the Stone from Istria
16. Of Pietra Serena
17. Of Pietra Forte
18. Conclusion of Chapter
CHAPTER II.
The Description of squared Ashlar-work (lavoro di quadro) and of carved Ashlar-work (lavoro di quadro intagliato)
19. The work of the Mason
CHAPTER III.
"Concerning the five Orders of Architecture, Rustic, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite, and also German Work"
20. Rusticated masonry and the Tuscan Order
21. The Doric Order
22. A constructive device to avoid charging architraves
23. The proportions and parts of the Doric Order
24. The Ionic Order
25. The Corinthian Order
26. The Composite Order
27. Of Terminal figures
28. German Work (the Gothic Style)
CHAPTER IV.
"On forming Vaults in Concrete, to be impressed with Enrichment: when the Centerings are to be removed, and how to mix the Plaster"
29. The Construction of enriched Stucco Vaults
30. Stucco made with Marble Dust
CHAPTER V.
"How Rustic Fountains are made with Stalactites and Incrustations from water, and how Cockle Shells and Conglomerations of vitrified stone are built into the Stucco"
31. Grottoes and Fountains of 'Rocaille' work
CHAPTER VI.
On the manner of making Pavements of Tesselated Work
32. Mosaic pavements
33. "Pictorial Mosaics for Walls, etc."
CHAPTER VII.
"How one is to recognize if a Building have good Proportions, and of what Members it should generally be composed"
34. The Principles of Planning and Design
35. An Ideal Palace
NOTES ON 'INTRODUCTION' TO ARCHITECTURE
PORPHYRY AND PROPHYRY QUARRIES
"THE SASSI, DELLA VALLE, AND OTHER COLLECTIONS OF ANTIQUES OF THE EARLY PART OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY"
THE 'PORPHYRY TAZZA OF THE SALA ROTONDA OF THE VATICAN
"FRANCESCO DEL TADDA, AND THE REVIVAL OF SCULPTURE IN PORPHYRY"
"THE CORTILE OF THE BELVEDERE IN THE VATICAN, IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY"
PARAGON (TOUCHSTONE) AND OTHER STONES ASSOCIATED WITH IT BY VASARI
TUSCAN MARBLE QUARRIES
"THE ROUND TEMPLE ON THE PIAZZA S. LUIGI DEI FRANCESI, AND 'MAESTRO GIAN'"
RUSTICATED MASONRY
VASARI'S OPINION ON MEDIAEVAL ARCHITECTURE
EGG-SHELL MOSAIC
IDEAL ARCHITECTURE; AN IDEAL PALACE
OF SCULPTURE
CHAPTER I. (VIII.)
"What Sculpture is; how good works of Sculpture are made, and what qualities they must possess to be esteemed perfect"
36. The Nature of Sculpture
37. Qualities necessary for Work in the Round
38. Works of Sculpture should be treated with a view to their destined position
39. The Proportions of the Human Figure
40. Artists must depend on their Judgement rather than on the Measuring Rule
CHAPTER II. (IX.)
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41. The small Sketch-Model in Wax of Clay
42. The Preparation of Wax
43. Polychrome Wax Effigies
44. The Manipulation of Wax over an Armature
45. The Small Model in Clay
46. The Full-sized Model in Clay
47. Drapery on the Clay Model
48. Transference of the Full-sized Model to the Marble Black
49. Danger of dispensing with the Full-sized Model
50. The Tools and Materials used in Marble Carving
CHAPTER III. (X.)
"Of Low and Half Reliefs, the difficulty of making them an how to bring them to perfection"
51. The Origin of Reliefs
52. Pictorial or Perspective Reliefs
53. Low Reliefs (Bassi Rilievi)
54. Flat Reliefs (Stiacciati Rilievi)
CHAPTER IV. (XI.)
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55. The Full-sized Model for Bronze
56. The Piece-Mould in Plaster
57. The Construction of the Core
58. The Piece-Mould lined with a Skin of Wax
59. This Skin of Wax applied over the Core
60. The fire-resisting Envelope applied over the Wax
61. The External Armature
62. The Vents
63. The Wax melted out
64. The Mould in the Casting-pit
65. The Composition of the Bronze
66. Making up Imperfections
67. A simpler Method of Casting small Figures and Reliefs
68. Chasing the Cast and Colouring the Bronze
69. Modern Tours de Force in small Castings
CHAPTER V. (XII.)
Concerning Steel Dies for making Medals of bronze or other metals and how the latter are formed from these metals
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80. On Colouring
CHAPTER V. (XIX.)
81. The Fresco process
CHAPTER VI. (XX.)
"Of Painting in Tempera, or with egg, on Panel or Canvas, and how it is employed on the wall which is dry"
82. Painting in Tempera
CHAPTER VII. (XXI.)
Of Painting in Oil on Panel or Canvas
83. "Oil Painting, its Discovery and Early History"
84. How to Prime the Panel or Canvas
85. "Drawing, by transfer or directly"
CHAPTER VIII. (XXII.)
Of Painting in Oil on a Wall which is dry
86. Mural Painting in Oil
87. Vasari's own Method
CHAPTER IX. (XXIII.)
88. Painting on Canvas
CHAPTER X. (XXIV.)
"Of painting in Oil on Stone, and what stones are good for the purpose"
89. Oil painting on Stone
CHAPTER XI. (XXV.)
"Of Painting on the wall in Monochrome with various earths: how objects in bronze are imitated: and of groups for Triumphal Arches or festal structures, done with powdered earths mixed with size, which process is called Gouache and Tempera"
90. Imitative Paintings for Decorations
CHAPTER XII. (XXVI.)
Of the Sgraffiti for house decoration which withstand water; that which is used in their production; and how Grotesques are worked on the wall
91. Sgraffito-work
92. "Grotesque, or Fanciful Devices, painted or modelled on Walls"
CHAPTER XIII. (XXVII.)
How Grotesques are worked on the Stucco
CHAPTER XIV. (XVIII.)
"Of the manner of applying Gold on a Bolus, or with a Mordant, and other methods"
93. Methods of Gilding
CHAPTER XV. (XXIX.)
Of Glass Mosaic and how it is recognized as good and praise-worthy
94. Glass Mosaics
95. The Preparation of the Mosaic Cubes
96. The Fixing of the Mosaic Cubes
CHAPTER XVI. (XXX.)
Concerning the Compositions and Figures made in Inlaid Work on Pavements in imitation of objects in Monochrome
97. Pavements in Marble Mosaic and Monochrome
98. Pavements in Variegated Tiles
99. Pavements in Breccia Marble
CHAPTER XVII. (XXXI.)
"Of Mosaic in Wood, that is, of Tarsia; and of the Compositions that are made in Tinted Woods, fitted together after the manner of a picture"
100. Inlays in Wood
CHAPTER XVIII. (XXXII.)
On Painting Glass Windows and how they are put together with Leads and supported with Irons so as not to interfere with the view of the figures
101. "Stained Glass Windows, their Origin and History"
102. The Technique of the Stained Glass Window
CHAPTER XIX. (XXXIII.)
"Of Niello, and how by this process we have Copper Prints; and how Silver is engraved to make Enamels over Bas-relief, and in like manner how Gold and Silver Plate is chased"
103. Niello Work
104. The Origin of Engraving
105. Enamels over Reliefs
CHAPTER XX. (XXXIV.)
"Of Tausia, that is, work called Damascening"
106. Metal Inlays
CHAPTER XXI. (XXXV.)
"Of Wood Engraving and the method of executing it and concerning its first Inventor: how Sheets which appear to be drawn by hand and exhibit Lights and Half-tones and Shades, are produced with three Blocks of Wood"
107. Chiaroscuro Wood Engravings
108. Dependence on Design of the Decorative Arts
NOTES ON 'INTRODUCTION' TO PAINTING
FRESCO PAINTING
TEMPERA PAINTING
OIL PAINTING
ENRICHED FAÇADES
STUCCO 'GROTESQUES'
"TARSIA WORK, OR WOOD INLAYS"
THE STAINED GLASS WINDOW
VASARI'S DESCRIPTION OF ENAMEL WORK
INDEX