This 2024, the Vasari year which celebrates the 450th anniversary of the death of the great protagonist of the Renaissance, it is useful to remind those from Arezzo, but not only, that Vasari was indeed a famous architect of his era (1511 – 1574), the writer of the Lives” (a fundamental work for the history of art in the world), he was also a talented painter, so much so that he received commissions from the most important subjects of the Renaissance (the Farnese, the Vatican and the Medici, first and foremost).
Of his many Aretine works, we like to remember the one which, if not the greatest, is certainly a great work. This is the Albergotti Altarpiece, today exhibited in the counterfaçade of the Badia di Santa Flora e Lucilla, precisely in Piazza della Badia, in the center of our hometown.
Worked by the fifty-six-year-old Vasari (1567), the altarpiece shows all the skills of the great mannerist painter, a contemporary of his friend Michelangelo. It was commissioned by a Florentine family, but was then purchased for two hundred scudi by the Albergotti family, one of the main ones in Arezzo.
The large altarpiece represents the assumption and coronation of the Madonna, and was initially placed in the Albergotti chapel of the town’s Pieve, the church where Vasari himself had been baptised. It was then moved to the Badia in 1865, when it was decided to bring the appearance of the parish church back to the medieval Romanesque one (with some questionable additions).
The altarpiece represents the “earthly” apostles, amazed by Mary’s ascent into heaven, and the Madonna herself crowned above the clouds.
Of this work by the great Arezzo, the quality of the design is striking, but also that of the palette of colors used, different from the others known. It should be noted that here there are few interventions by collaborators, unlike in other Vasari works, in which even the wonderful drawing of the great painter was often affected by the intervention of his students.
The overall color of the painting almost seems to turn pink, even though the color pink was never used.
In the representation of the holy apostles, Vasari’s full-length self-portrait makes a fine show, as in addition to being a few years old, he presents himself as beautiful and strong.
Certainly ours has reached very notable levels in the Vatican as in Naples, Florence, Bologna and Venice, but this altarpiece, it must finally be recognized, is certainly not to be considered among his minor works, especially today, which the RICERCA studio (in 2008) has he returned it cleaned of the fumes of hundreds of years.
