Museo di Casa Vasari

Beautiful gardens in the suburb of San Vito, in the best air of the city.

‘[…] I began by buying a house in Arezzo in the suburb of San Vito, where you can breathe the best air in this city […]”: with these words Vasari described his house, bought in 1541, which today houses the museum of the same name.
Giorgio Vasari (1511 – 1574), art historian and multifaceted artist, author of The Lives, an indispensable source of artistic historiography, was always very attached to his hometown, as can be seen from the many important works scattered throughout the Arezzo area.
Although he only stayed there for short periods, his thoughts often turned to his home in Arezzo, considered a refuge where he could restore himself when he returned from his numerous commitments.
Vasari personally carried out the decorations of the rooms on the piano nobile, which testify to his intention to initiate a precise iconographic programme celebrating the role of the artist, using mythological, biblical and allegorical references reproposed both in the panel paintings decorating the coffered ceilings and on the vaults and wall decorations of the house.
The works exhibited in the picture gallery set up in the early 1550s largely come from the collections of the Florentine Galleries, a collection of 16th-century paintings referable in particular to the ‘studiolo painters’, i.e. those artists who around 1570 collaborated with Vasari on the decoration of the Studiolo of Francesco I de’ Medici in Palazzo Vecchio. These included Alessandro Allori, Perin del Vaga, Giovanni Stradano, Santi di Tito and others from Arezzo and Florence.
Next to the house is the Italian-style roof garden, which was originally more extensive and included vegetable gardens.
Inside Casa Vasari, excluded from the museum itinerary and not open to the public, is the precious Vasari Archive containing the Arezzo artist’s correspondence and documents such as the Ricordanze and the Zibaldone.