[1]. Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, London, 1903, 1, p. 18, says that Vasari ‘was an indifferent connoisseur and a poor historian; but he was a great appreciator ... and a passionate anecdote-monger. Now the Anecdote must have sharp contrasts....’
[2]. The materials for our knowledge of Vasari and his works are derived from his own Autobiography and his notes on himself in the Lives of other artists, as well as from the Ragionamenti and from the Letters, printed by Milanesi in the eighth volume of the Sansoni edition of Vasari’s writings, or previously printed by Gaye in the third volume of the Carteggio.
[3]. Before Vasari published his Lives, at least eight editions of Vitruvius had appeared. The Editio Princeps, ‘curante Jo. Sulpitio Verulano,’ is believed to have been issued at Rome about 1486, and in 1496 and 1497 reprints were published at Florence and at Venice. In 1511 appeared the important edition, with emendations and illustrations, by the famous architect Fra Giocondo of Verona, and this was reprinted in the Giunta edition at Florence in 1513. Other editions saw the light in 1522, 1523, 1543, and 1550. An Italian translation was published in 1521, a French one in 1547, and in 1548 one in German. The reverence of the architects of the Renaissance for Vitruvius was unbounded, and Michelangelo is said to have remarked that if a man could draw he would be able by the help of Vitruvius to become a good architect.
[4]. Leon Battista Alberti shares with Brunelleschi the distinction of representing in its highest form the artistic culture of the early age of Humanism. His principal work De Re Aedificatoria, or, as it is also called, De Architectura, was published after his death, in 1485. It is divided, like the work of Vitruvius, into ten books, and is an exceedingly comprehensive treatise on the architectural art both in theory and practice, and on the position of architecture in relation to civilization and to society at large. It is written in a noble and elevated style, and, as the title implies, in Latin. It was translated into Italian by Bartoli and into English by J. Leoni (three volumes, folio, 1726). Alberti also wrote shorter tracts on Sculpture and Painting, as well as other works of a less specially artistic order.
[5]. See Note on ‘Porphyry and Porphyry Quarries’ at the close of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p. 101, and A on the Frontispiece, which gives representations in colour of the stones Vasari mentions in these sections, omitting those familiarly known.
[6]. If a stone be comparatively soft when quarried and become harder after exposure to the air, this is due to the elimination in the air of moisture that it held when in the earth. In a dry climate like that of Egypt there is little or no moisture for stones to hold, and the Egyptian porphyry, Mr W. Brindley reports, is quite as hard when freshly quarried as after exposure. Vasari repeats this remark when he is dealing with granite in § 6, postea, p. 41. He has derived it from Alberti, who in De Architectura, bk. II, ch. vii, notices perfectly correctly that the question is one of the comparative amount of moisture in the stone.
[7]. ‘Temple of Bacchus’ was the name given at the Renaissance to the memorial chapel containing the tomb of Constantia, daughter of Constantine the Great, on the Via Nomentana close to S. Agnese, and now known as S. Costanza. The name was suggested by the mosaics with vintage scenes on the barrel vault of the aisle, which are of great interest and beauty. In Vasari’s time this still contained the porphyry sarcophagus where Constantia was laid, and of this he goes on to speak. In 1788 Pius VI transferred it to his new Sala a Croce Greca in the Vatican, where it now stands.
[8]. This is the second of the two vast cubical porphyry sarcophagi in the Croce Greca, and it is believed that it served once to contain the mortal remains of Helena, mother of Constantine. It is much finer in execution than the other, and exhibits a large number of figures in high relief, though incoherently composed. The subject may be the victories of Constantine. It was originally in the monument called ‘Torre Pignattara,’ the supposed mausoleum of Helena on the Via Labicana, and was transported in the twelfth century by Anastatius IV to the Lateran, whence Pius VI had it transferred to the Vatican. The restoration of these huge sarcophagi cost an immense amount in money and time. Massi (Museo Pio-Clementino, Roma, 1846, p. 157) states that the second one absorbed the labour of twenty-five artificers, who worked at it day and night for the space of nine years. Strzygowski, Orient oder Rom, 1901, notices the sarcophagi.
[9]. Urns, or, as the Italians called them, ‘conche,’ of porphyry, basalt, granite and marble existed in great abundance in the Roman Thermae where they were used for bathing purposes. From the seventh century onwards the Christians adopted these for sepulchral use and placed them in the churches, where many of them are still to be seen (Lanciani, Storia degli Scavi, Roma, 1902, I, 3, and Marangoni, Delle Cose Gentilesche, etc., Roma, 1744). Hence Vasari speaks of the porphyry urn of the Piazza della Rotonda (the Pantheon) as of sepulchral origin, and it was indeed rumoured to have held the ashes of Agrippa, and to have stood once on the apex of the pediment of the Pantheon portico. It was however an ancient bath vessel, and was found when Eugenius IV, 1431–39, first excavated and paved the piazza in front of the Pantheon. It was placed with two Egyptian lions in front of the portico, where it may be seen in the view of the Piazza della Rotonda in G. F. Falda’s Vedute delle Fabbriche, etc., of 1665. Clement XII, 1730–40, who was a Corsini, had it transported for his own sepulchre to the Corsini chapel in the Lateran, where it now stands, with a modern cover. Vasari evidently admired this urn, and he mentions it again in the life of Antonio Rossellino, where he says of the sarcophagus of the monument of the Cardinal of Portugal in S. Miniato, ‘La cassa tiene il garbo di quella di porfido che è in Roma sulla piazza della Ritonda.’ (Opere, ed. Milanesi, III, 95.) See Lanciani, Il Pantheon, etc., Prima Relazione, Roma, 1882, p. 15, where the older authorities are quoted. Of all the bath vases of this kind now visible in Rome, the finest known to the writers is the urn of green porphyry, a rare and beautiful stone, behind the high altar of S. Nicola in Carcere. It is nearly six ft. long, and on each side has two Medusa heads in relief worked in the same piece, with the usual lion’s head on one side at the bottom for egress of water. The workmanship is superb. It may be noted that the existing baptismal font in St. Peter’s, in the first chapel on the left on entering, is the cover of the porphyry sarcophagus of Hadrian turned upside down. It measures 13 ft. in length by 6 ft. in width.