Rare first edition of Vasari's Lives at auction, with notes by Federico Zuccari

It is certainly an exceptional auction that started yesterday, online, at the Pandolfini House in Florence: the auction timed Books, Manuscripts and Autographs, running until Dec. 15, in fact contains an extraordinary surprise that awaits all scholars and enthusiasts of Renaissance art history. It is a copy of the first illustrated edition of Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, printed in Florence, by Giunti, in 1568, with dense annotations attributed to Federico Zuccari by Vasari scholar Gaetano Milanesi, proposed with a valuation of 35,000/45,000 euros.

Several copies of the anciently postillated Vasarian Lives exist, both of the original 1550 edition and of this first illustrated edition. Mannerist painter Federico Zuccari postillated no less than two copies of the 1568 Giuntine Lives. The first is now at the National Library of Spain, as the copy was donated by Zuccari himself to El Greco, while the second copy is kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. To these should be added a third copy found in the second half of the nineteenth century by Vasarian scholar Gaetano Milanesi, who attributed the annotations to Zuccari and transcribed them, commenting on them. Upon initial comparison, the notes transcribed by Milanesi correspond to those found in the copy proposed by Pandolfini. The house points out in particular the correction “acquired” in the margin of paper 4Pr, a word that Zuccari substitutes for the term “lost” in the text (on which he pulls a line); this correction is also present in the Parisian copy and is “the only case of an identical postille between the two copies,” as scholar Giovanni Mazzaferro points out in his lengthy article Gli esemplari postillati delle Vite vasariane: a census. In this same article it is possible to view a photo of a fragment of the El Greco specimen, which, allowing for a calligraphic comparison (the term “instoriate” in particular should be noted), would lead to confirm Milanesi’s attribution to Zuccari of the postilles in the specimen at auction. For further proof, consider also the phrase anciently manuscripted at the beginning of the volume at auction (perhaps by Milanesi?) “the marginal postills that are found scattered from page 592 down, are by the hand of Federigo Zuccheri.” Postilled specifically are the lives of: Battista Franco, Francesco Salviati, Daniele Ricciarelli, Taddeo Zuccari and Titian.

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In his notes, Zuccari is generally critical of Vasari, whom he calls by name, as in the afterword “in what purpose does Giorgio vainly enter here?”, and in particular adds much information to the life of his brother Taddeo (1529-1566), also a painter. For example, he corrects his character, described by Vasari as “sanguine ... and very disdainful, and besides that given by venereal things” to “Anzi modesto, tenprato e benignio,” and further on he comments “if he [Taddeo] had been a Florentine, [Vasari] would have praised him in another manner, as he deserves supreme praise; but he says what he cannot keep silent, and elsewhere, where he should keep silent, he chatters apathetically, without alchuna reason.” Also postilled is the life of Ridolfo Grillandai at c. 4C1r-v, but in a very dark ink and by an ancient hand that appears different from that of the other notes, and other minor manuscript interventions appear here and there. In addition to Federico Zuccari, other distinguished signatures are identified in the volumes, likely attributable to the Genoese painter Cesare Corte (1550-1613, volume two), and the art historian Alfonso Landi (volumes one and three). The second volume also contains a small pencil portrait, in the typical style of 16th-century Emilian naturalism, applied in the originally empty tondo by Antonio Correggio.

As for provenance, the two volumes bound in flexible vellum (first and third volumes) both bear a purchase note (on the counterplate in the first, and on the verso of the front flyleaf in the third) that reads “this book bought by Sig. Domenico [non legitur] Lire 23 | L’anno 1777 il di’ 2 gennaro”; they also bear the following ancient signature of ownership on both title pages: “de Libri d’Alfonso Landi,” likely theAlfonso Landi art historian about whom Guglielmo della Valle, in his Lettere sanesi sopra le belle arti (Roma, Generoso Salomoni, 1785-1786), volume two, pp. 32-33, writes: “among Sanesi biographers who dealt with art he deserves to be the first ... had undertaken to write about it on purpose, as appears from the infrascritto title of the MS. of him that remains to us An account of paintings, statues, and other excellent works to be found in the temples, and other public places, of the City of Siena with the names, surnames and homelands of the makers of them as far as, however, it has been possible to find by me Alfonso Landi son of q: Pompilio di Lattanzio di Girolamo Landi, begun since the year 1655.” Such a manuscript would appear to be the one auctioned by Dominic Winter in 2020(Printed Books, Maps & Autographs, Wednesday, May 27, 2020, lot 363). Finally, there is in both of these volumes a signature (on the verso of the penultimate paper in the first volume and on the last paper in the third) covered by an antique flap but visible against the light that says in both cases “Marcello Ghini,” followed by another unreadable word. The second volume bears a paper tassel on the front counterfold that reads “Ex Bibliotheca Joan. Xavery Carenzi Med. Doct. Urbini Achiatri.”, on the verso of the title page the ancient ownership signature “Cesare Corte,” perhaps the painter and architect born and died in Genoa (1550-1613), and in the lower margin of the next page the cassated signature “Ioannis Battista Pinelli,” perhaps the Genoese poet active in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Pandolfini’s proposed copy (lot 19 of the auction) is thus a unique copy of great importance for the study of art history of this famous gallery of 161 biographies of leading Italian Renaissance artists and architects.

Rare first edition of Vasari's Lives at auction, with notes by Federico Zuccari

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