Giorgio Vasari and Niccolò Machiavelli’s Medicean Appetite for Peace and Glory
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v5i12.1060Keywords:
Art of War, Florence, Fortune, Mercury, VirtueAbstract
This study examines the literary and visual connections between war and peace as a cultural diplomacy made by both Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) and Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). The approach here is iconographical, focusing on three points. First, Machiavelli’s notions of condottiere, virtù, and war and peace in The Art of War (1521) are discussed in relation to Renaissance imagery, particularly in that produced as a result of Medicean patronage. Second, Vasari’s battle cycle in the Salone dei Cinquecento of the Palazzo Vecchio (1555-60) in Florence is examined within the context of peace as revealed in Renaissance art and emblems. Finally, Vasari’s assimilation of Machiavelli’s notions of the art of war are interpreted in relation to the painting cycle, which visually embodies the paradox of war and peace discussed in Machiavelli’s writing.
References
Anglo, S. (1969). Machiavelli. London: Paladin.
Black, R. (2013). Nicolaus Machiavellus: Historiar Scriptor. London: Routledge.
Boase, T. S. R. (1971). Giorgio Vasari: The Man and the Book. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bondanella, P. and M. Musa, ed., and trans. (1995). Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Art of War. Baltimore: Penguin Books.
Bull, G. trans. (1961). Machiavelli’s Prince. Baltimore: Penguin Books.
Bull. G. ed. & trans. (1965). Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, 2 vols. Baltimore, MD: Harmondsworth.
Campbell, M. (1981). “Il Ritratto del Duca Alessandro de’ Medici di Giorgio Vasari,” in Studi, 339-59.
Capponi, N. (2010). An Unlikely Prince: The Life and Times of Machiavelli. Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press, 2010.
Chabod, F. (1965). Machiavelli and the Renaissance. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers.
Cheney, Liana De Girolami. (1995). "Giorgio Vasari's Sala dei Cento Giorni: A Farnese Celebration," Exploration in Renaissance Culture, Vol. XXI, 121-51.
Cheney, Liana De Girolami. (2007). Giorgio Vasari’s Teachers: Sacred and Profane Art. London: Peter Lang Publishers.
Chevalier, J. and Gheerbrant, A., (1994). A Dictionary of Symbols. London: Basil Blackwell Ltd.
Corti, L. (1989). Vasari: Catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence: Cantini.
Cuneo, Pia, ed. (2001). Artful Armies, Beautiful Battles. Leiden: Brill.
Deiss, Joseph Jay. (1967). Captains of Fortune. New York: Thomas Crowell.
Else, Felicie M. (2011). “Vasari, the River God and the Expression of Territorial Power under Duke Cosimo I de' Medici," in Explorations in Renaissance Culture—Vasari in Cultural Context, 73-87.
Fargo, Clair J. ed. (1999). Leonardo Da Vinci: Selected Scholarship: Leonardo’s Projects, c. 1500-1519. New York: Garland Series.
Ferretti, E. (2011). “Bartolomeo Ammanati, La Fontana della Sala Grande e le transformazionidel Salone dei Cinquecento da Cosimo I a Ferdinando.” In L’acqua,la pietra, il fuoco. Bartolomeo Ammannati scultore. eds. B. Paolozzi Strozzi and D. Zikos. Florence: Giunti, 37-43.
Finchel Pitkin, Hanna. (1984). Fortune Is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Gauss, C. ed. (1952). Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince. New York: New American Library.
Giovio, P. (1557). Dialogo delle imprese militare et amorose. Lyons: Guillaume Rouille.
Godman, P. (1998). From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine Humanism in the High Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Heitman, K. (1958). Fortuna und Virtus: eine Studie zu Petracas Lebensweisheit. Köln: Boehlau.
Härb, F. (2015). The Drawings of Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). Rome: Ugo Bozzi.
Hibbert, C. (1974). The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall. New York: Morrow Quill.
Jacks, P. ed. (1998). Vasari’s Florence: Artists and Literati at the Medicean Court. London: Cambridge University Press.
Machiavelli, N. (1521). The Art of War. Florence.
Martines, L. (1980). Power and Imagination: City States in Renaissance Italy New York: Random House.
Milanesi, G. ed. (1875-95). Vasari, Giorgio. Le opere di Giorgio Vasari, 9 vols. Florence: Sansoni.
Muccini, U. (1990). Il Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio. Florence: Le Lettere.
Muccini, U. (1997). Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Palazzo Vecchio of Florence. Florence: Le Lettere.
Parel, A. J. (1992). The Machiavellian Cosmos. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Passignat, E. (2015). “I Ragionamenti di Giorgio Vasari: il manoscritto degli Uffizi e I due progetti editoriali.” In Giorgio Vasari La Casa, Le Carte, Il Teatro della Memoria, eds. Silvia Baggio, Paola Benigni, and Diana Toccafondi. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 183-202.
Patch, Howard R. (1974) The Goddess Fortuna in Medieval Literature. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Roy Strong, R. (1984). Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals, 1450-1650. London: The Boydell Press.
Van Veen, H. T. (2006). Cosimo I De’ Medici and his Self-Representation in Florentine Art and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
