Museo di Casa Vasari

Arezzo


Built and sumptuously decorated by Arezzo-born painter, architect and art historian Giorgio Vasari (1511–74), this museum is where Vasari lived and worked, and where the original manuscript of his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550) – still in print under the title The Lives of the Artists – is kept. End on the bijou, Renaissance-style roof garden with flower beds, box hedges and a fountain in its centre. To access the museum, ring the bell.

The most important room in this Mannerist residence is the Sala della Virtu (Room of Virtue), which Vasari decorated in 1548 while writing Lives. It features episodes in the lives of the most famous painters of antiquity.

Vasari's contemporaries are celebrated in the Camera della Fama con le Quatttro Arti (Room of Fame and the Four Arts), where the seven portraits include Michelangelo, Andrea del Sarto and – in a display of hubris – Vasari himself.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Arezzo attractions

1. Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra

0.17 MILES

Located inside a stunning 13th-century palazzo where the bishop of Arezzo lived from 1256, this museum exhibits 12th- to 16th-century works of sacred art…

2. Duomo di Arezzo

0.2 MILES

Construction of Arezzo's cathedral started in the 13th century, but wasn't completed until 1511. In the northeast corner, next to the vestry door left of…

3. Badia delle Sante Flora e Lucilla

0.24 MILES

This 13th-century abbey was rebuilt to a design by Vasari in the 16th century, and its austerely elegant Romanesque exterior stands in extreme contrast to…

4. Galleria Comunale D'Arte Contemporanea

0.29 MILES

Showcasing the work of contemporary visual artists – many based in the Arezzo region – this multifloor art gallery in a building next to the Basilica di…

5. Casa Museo di Ivan Bruschi

0.3 MILES

Ivan Bruschi, a wealthy antiques dealer, restored 13th-century Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo in the 1960s. After his death, the palazzo (mansion) became…

6. Cappella Bacci

0.3 MILES

This chapel, in the apse of 14th-century Basilica di San Francesco, safeguards one of Italian art's greatest works: Piero della Francesca's fresco cycle…

7. Chiesa di Santa Maria della Pieve

0.31 MILES

This 12th-century church – Arezzo's oldest – has an exotic Romanesque arcaded facade adorned with carved columns, each individually decorated. Above the…

8. Passeggio del Prato

0.32 MILES

This city park was clearly created with mellow, early evening walks in mind.