The Golden Lance that will go to the winning district of the 145th edition of the Giostra del Saracino on Saturday 22 June 2024 was presented in the City Council Hall.
The Lancia is dedicated to the 450th anniversary of the death of Giorgio Vasari, occurred in 1574 in Florence; the hilt part was designed by the Milanese artist Giovanni Frangi and installed as for the two shafts (lower and upper) by the master carver Francesco Conti.
Giorgio Vasari was born in Arezzo on 30 July 1511. He trained in his hometown studying with Guillaume de Marcillat, French artist active in Arezzo and specialized in the creation of glass works. In 1524 he moved to it where he studies with Andrea del Sarto. Shortly afterwards, in 1531, together with Francesco Salviati he made a trip to Rome to study the works of classical antiquity. His first known work, La., dates back to 1532 Burial of Christ preserved in Arezzo at Casa Vasari (his residence now transformed into a museum) painting commissioned by the Medici.
In 1534, at just twenty-three years old, he painted the portrait of the Duke of Florence, Alessandro de’ Medici; in October 1540, the important banker Bindo Altoviti commissions him what is perhaps his best-known pictorial work, theImmaculate Conceptionof which a small autograph replica is preserved in the Uffizi.
In 1541, Vasari moved to Venice at the invitation of his friend and fellow citizen Pietro Aretino and to Venice, as well as creating the sets for the “Talanta” by Pietro Aretino, Vasari carries out the decorations of Palazzo Corner-Spinelli.
In 1542, the artist returned to Arezzo where he began to fresco the rooms of his house: the work was finished in 1548. In 1546 he was in Rome to work for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, for whom he executed the frescoes in the hall of the Palace of the Chancellery, with celebratory scenes of the pontificate of Paul III Farnese. The hall is also known as the “hundred day hall” because Giorgio Vasari boasted of having finished it in just one hundred days (it is said that Michelangelo, upon learning that the hall had been frescoed in this period of time, replied sarcastically “you can see ”).
In 1550, with the publisher Torrentini, Vasari published his first edition of Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors and architects, one of the fundamental texts of the entire history of art. The following year he was back in Rome where, until 1554, he worked together with Bartolomeo Ammannati, a great friend of his at Villa Giulia.
In 1554 Vasari returned to Florence in the service of Cosimo I, who entrusted him with the construction of the Uffizi Palace, Giorgio Vasari’s great masterpiece in the field of architecture. The building was supposed to house administrative offices (hence the name).
The works will begin in 1560 and end in 1580 after Giorgio’s death. Meanwhile, in 1562 the artist began to execute the very famous, large cycle of frescoes in the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio, with the celebration of the exploits of Cosimo I de’ Medici, who would become Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569. The works were completed in 1565. In 1568, Vasari published the second edition of Lives expanding it with the biographies of contemporary artists and with his own autobiography.
Between 1570 and 1572, for Francesco I de’ Medici, he executed the Perseus and Andromeda, and in 1572 he received the commission to create the frescoes to decorate the interior of Brunelleschi’s dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. However, due to his death two years later, Vasari was unable to complete the work and the task was therefore assumed by Federico Zuccari.
In fact, the artist died in Florence on 27 June 1574.
Alessandro Dragoni
