The Vasarian Renaissance Paradigm
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The Renaissance is traditionally associated with the revival of classical Greek and Roman literature, philosophy and art and the aesthetic and intellectual innovations they inspired. In addition, the Renaissance is typically associated with the Florentines of the late-fourteenth to mid-sixteenth centuries. Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects published in 1550 and again in 1565 was its most authoritative written articulation.[1] The Vasarian rinascita saw the ideals of progress and perfection as its key qualities.[2] Indeed, within his Tuscan-centric vision, Vasari argued that 'perfection' was attained by Tuscan artists alone. These artists occupied a privileged position in history, appointed by God to revive and indeed surpass the great arts of the ancients and to launch their contemporaries into a bright future entirely embedded in a Christian framework. Vasari's narrative exerted influence well into the twentieth century, being the most influential Renaissance text ever composed in the West.
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​In its literal translation, the verb rinascere means 'to be born again'. In his Lives, Vasari uses the term specifically to characterise the stages of art development up until his own day. For Vasari, the perfection of the classical arts in his own time took centuries to attain suggesting that it was an evolving process:
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...the rise of the arts to perfection [the classical past], their decline [the Middle Ages] and their restoration or, to say it better, renaissance.[3]
​Vasari unambiguously introduces the notion of rinascita into the discourse of the time. For Vasari, this rebirth of the arts was a gradual process that took approximately three centuries, beginning with the works of Cimabue (1240-1302) and '...improving little by little from a humble beginning, and finally ... arriv[ing] at the height of perfection'[4] with Michelangelo (1483-1520) in Vasari's own time. This slow trajectory towards perfection evolved through distinctive stages, including imitazione (imitation) and adeguazione (adaptation), both of which were necessary to surpass the classical models and achieve perfezione (perfection) in Vasari's temporal present.
​Vasari's narrative is imbued with a humanist impulse typical of his day, with the close imitation of the classical past and the astute adaptation of those models for the present. Emulating the great ancient classical masters like Aristotle and Pliny, The Lives is a biographical celebration that links Vasari's context to both past and future, yet maintains a focused relevance to his contemporary day. Such imitation of the past was part and parcel of Vasari's characterisation of the Medici rulers to whom he had dedicated his work. In part three of the text he praised their contributions to the city of Florence in a true Aristotelian manner, signifying the permanence of their magnificence:
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...men of rare and beautiful genius, from whom the world receives such beauty, honour, convenience and benefit, deserve to live forever in the minds and memories of mankind.[5]
​The panegyric, delivered to promote the excellence of Florence through congratulatory rhetoric and self-aggrandisement, has at its core a desire to claim uncontested superiority. Leonardo Bruni's Panegyric to the City of Florence (c. 1401) is a fine precedent for Vasari's civic self-fashioning. In humanistic style, Bruni wrote in imitation of Aelius Aristides' Panathenicus (Panegyric to Athens, 117-181 CE). Hans Baron argues that Bruni cast his work on the classical model because it spoke directly to contemporary Florentines in the fashioning of their cultural identity. Indeed, Bruni ascribes to Florentines all the virtues associated with Aristides' Athens, well-known even in Vasari's day as the cultural capital of the Greek world, in an attempt to identify Florence as the new Athens of its time.[6]
​The path of emulation and imitation was already well-trodden by Vasari's time. From as early as the eleventh century onwards, Vasari informs us that artists began adapting and imitating classical remnants. In the Duomo of Santa Maria Assunta in Siena in 1016 the Pisan architect Buschetto relied on:
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​ ...endless quantity of spoils brought by sea from various distant parts, as the columns, bases, capitals, cornices and other stones ... of all sizes, great, medium, and small ... Buschetto displayed great judgment and skill in adapting them to their places ... the façade ... consisting of a great number of columns, adorning it with other carved columns and antique statues.[7]
​The adaptation of classical remains went hand in hand with the imitation of past precedents. By the fourteenth century Tuscan architects were imitating classical doors, windows, columns, arches and cornices '... carved by the hand of Andrea Taffi with the same Greek manner, but indeed much more beautiful in the church of San Giovanni in their city'.[8] In the Church of Santa Maria della Spina in Pisa (1323), Giovanni Pisano's works of sculpture 'brought ornaments in that oratory to that perfection that is seen today'.[9] For Vasari, Pisano demonstrated 'grace', 'style', and 'excellence' of invention, which he saw as prerequisites for distinction.[10]
​In order to surpass the greats of the antique past, the Renaissance artists' challenge required skill. For Vasari, this meant the artist had to demonstrate precision, intellect and patience. According to Vasari, Michelangelo was one such man, who 'gave his attention only to the perfection of art' to attain a higher 'degree of refinement' and this could be only realised through devotion to 'minute' and 'delicate' details.[11]
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​Vasari's definition of rinascita is multi-dimensional. First, he argues that the rebirth of art was a slow evolutionary progression clearly discernible in the greater arts of painting, sculpture and architecture. The perfection it professes entailed engaging in a number of developmental stages, and adeguazione of the past in order to reach a state of perfection in the sixteenth century. Surpassing the past, the final stage of rinascita, was tied inexorably to God's cosmic plan for the world which He, in Vasari's view, invested in the wholly Christianised Republic of Florence.
(Excerpt from The Ottoman Renaissance by Metin Mustafa, PhD, B.Ed.)
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“This book is distinctive for the directness with which it addresses its subject. While earlier of Ottoman art and architecture have gestured toward connections with the Renaissance, these connections are presented here in a lucid and systematic way that will engender considerable discussion, inviting a general re-evaluation of what we mean by ‘The Renaissance’.”
Giancarlo Casale, Professor of Early Modern History of the Mediterranean, University of Minnesota and author of The Ottoman Age of Exploration.
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