Giovanni Mazzaferro. A sample of the Giuntina edition of the Lives (1568) owned by Marcantonio Vasari and kept in the Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation

CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

Giovanni Mazzaferro
A sample of the Giuntina edition of the Lives (1568) owned by Marcantonio Vasari and kept in the Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation

Fig. 1) The frontispiece of the second volume of Giorgio Vasari's Lives (1568) in the Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation

Other contributions on Giorgio Vasari in this blog

The Cavallini-Sgarbi Foundation (Ro Ferrarese, Ferrara) holds two copies of Giorgio Vasari's Lives: one is from the princeps, printed in 1550 (also known as the Torrentiniana edition), and the other is from the second edition (or Giuntina), published in 1568. Recently I got to scrutinize both ot them personally and I think it is particularly worth dwelling on the three volumes of the version printed in 1568, for at least two reasons [1]: first, in all the title pages of the three volumes in question it appears the signature of Marcantonio Vasari; second, in the last volume, the pages from 892 to 981 present a series of forty-six corrections carried out by hand that highlight the presence of an anonymous reviewer of the entire section dedicated to the Descrizione degli apparati per le nozze di Francesco de’ Medici e Giovanna d’Austria (Description of the arrangements for the wedding of Francesco de' Medici and Joanna of Austria). 

Marcantonio Vasari

Fig. 2) The frontispiece of the third volume of Giorgio Vasari's Lives (1568) in the Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation

In reality, the family tree of the Vasari family curated in 1930 by Alessandro Del Vita, included two family members called Marcantonio Vasari [2]. The first was Giorgio's nephew: he was the second-born son of Ser Pietro (1526-1595), brother of the artist from Arezzo. We do not know when he was born, while he certainly died on 23 August 1606. Marcantonio was the elder brother of the more famous Giorgio Vasari the Younger (1562-1625), who, in turn, gave the name Marcantonio to the penultimate of his sons (1608-1668), in memory of his brother who died two years earlier. We know very little about the latter Marcantonio, except that he was initiated into priestly life.

Also about the former (i.e. Marcantonio di Pietro) the available information is not much larger. However Vasari's nephew frequently appeared in the correspondence of the writer from Arezzo, from 1569 to 1573, and from the overall analysis of the letters concerning him, Giorgio's interest in the fate of his young nephew was clear. Almost all the missives came from the Florentine Monsignor Guglielmo Sangalletti (1524-1599), treasurer and secret servant of Pope Pius V (1504-1572), and Giorgio Vasari’s reference for the artistic commissions coming from the Pope. Factual developments are clear, even if they may be derived only from the prelate's answers. In May 1569 Vasari wrote to Sangalletti to inform him that the prior of Santa Maria Novella was on his way to Rome and that he would visit him and talk about a question related to Marcantonio; at the beginning of June the same Sangalletti confirmed the meeting and assured that it would look after of the future of Vasari's nephew. Giorgio, at the request of his brother, was trying to introduce Marcantonio to the papal court, the first step for a hopefully important ecclesiastical career. The preliminary arrangements lasted a few months, and went hand in hand with the execution of paintings commissioned by the Pope or by the same Sangalletti, until the latter, on November 25, wrote that, the night before, Pietro Vasari with his son Marcantonio had arrived at his home. The sender promised to present the next day the boy to Cardinal Alessandrino. In fact, as it is clear from the following letters, Marcantonio joined the court of Michele Bonelli, the 'Cardinal mipote' of Pius V, and was also known as Cardinal Alessandrino. In reality, many of the letters of the following years contained nothing but generic reassurances about Marcantonio's health and the regular progress of his studies. How old was Marcantonio when he entered the papal court? Unfortunately, there are no indications on it. However, some clues suggest that he was very young and did not reach the age of eighteen (and was born, therefore, shortly after 1550). In the already mentioned letter of November 25 (and in a couple of successive occasions) Sangalletti talked about Marcantonio defining him as 'putto' ("et at first sight I like it very much the putto and I think he will prove himself").

In May 1572, Pope Pius V died, and Vasari, who was in Rome, wrote to Vincenzo Borghini talking about the great loss, because he was trying to arrange ('asettare') [4] Marcantonio’s future, and things were now back on the high seas instead. Only in a letter of 29 May 1573 (more than a year later, therefore) the artist told Borghini that the new pontiff, Gregorio XIII, "gave [to Marcantonio] an entry of 100 scudi a year for the first vacant office, whether knighthood or other". This was the last information that can be deduced from Vasari’s correspondence, which proves, nevertheless, the uncle's constant commitment to ensure that a member of his family would benefit from his artistic fortunes to embark on a brilliant ecclesiastical career. About Marcantonio, however, we know little else. We could read about him together with his brothers on a couple of occasions after Giorgio's death (1574). In his own will, written on July 7, 1606, Marcantonio defined himself as «present dean to of Arezzo’s Collegiate», that is to say the parish church of the city [5]. In essence, seemingly his ecclesiastical career was conducted within the places of origin. It should not be forgotten, moreover, that Marcantonio wrote, towards the end of the sixteenth century, a biography of his uncle, left unfinished and still unpublished, which basically followed Vasari’s autobiography as found in the Vite and the Ragionamenti, with some element of novelty. The manuscript is kept in the Vasari Archives with the code number 2 (previoulsy 36 bis) [6]. I do not intend to make an evaluation here, and certainly not try to understand whether the work was intended for the celebration of the artist within an overall design that, historically, was led (and coordinated?) by Giorgio Vasari the Younger [7].

What it is important here is the comparison between the calligraphy of the biography and the signature on the front pages of the three volumes belonging to the Cavallini-Sgarbi Foundation. In this regard, I must point out that, in my opinion, the signature of tomes II and III (see photos 1 and 2) are different from that of the first volume (see photo 3). The latter is entirely compatible with the calligraphy of the biography [8] and leaves little doubt that the owner of the texts was Marcantonio di Pietro, Giorgio's nephew, and not Marcantonio di Giorgio the young man, his great-grandson. 

Fig. 3) Frontispiece of the first volume of Giorgio Vasari's Lives in the Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation

In my view, it is entirely legitimate to think that the specimen in question has never been on the market, and was part of an initial endowment left in the availability of the author (and distributed by him as he saw fit).

Notes on the history of the Giuntina edition

To better frame the series of corrections found at the end of the third volume of the sample kept in Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation, it is necessary to recall some fundamental elements on the history of the Giuntina edition. In many ways, this is an issue still to be explored. In general, it is known that the publication of the three tomes, as an undertaking, was full of difficulties and a harbinger of misunderstandings between the author and his entourage on the one hand and the printers on the other [9]. In particular, the main problems occurred during the printing of the third tome (the last one), due to time reasons. It is known that, on the one hand, Duke Cosimo solicited that the work would come out as soon as possible and, on the other hand, Jacopo Giunti complained about the confusion and the failure on the part of Vasari and his collaborators. The physical result was a work in which the third volume contained hundreds of errors and gross inconsistencies, such as, for example, the lack in the numbering of many pages and the repetition of others. Another of the most well-known aspects is the mismatching between indices and the real location in the text of the places and names that were mentioned there. These inconsistencies were a sign, according to Carlo Simonetti, of the reshuffling of entire biographies in the last months of publication [10]. New studies seem to actually explain the occurrence differently. Both Carlo Alberto Girotto and Antonio Sorella, for example, underlined the importance of the so-called casting-off, a very frequent phenomenon at the time. In the presence of missing parts, which were late in arriving at the printing press, the printers made an approximate computation of the space that these parts would occupy and left empty space. Basically, the index was printed before the completion of the last part of the volume. In the presence of material errors or incorrect computations, things got complicated dramatically [11].

In reality, Giuntina's real problem today is that it is often consulted without knowing exactly what one is looking for. It is by no means a polemic notation. It happened to me too. Suddenly, one believes to recognize an anomaly, for example, in the tenth sample that one has here under hand. The problem is that the previous nine are scattered in different locations and going to review them involves a very high cost. This is why it would be essential to have access to the largest number of copies online. Nor, be it clear, once specific aspects have been identified, they are interpreted unequivocally. On p. 39 of the introduction of his new edition of the Giuntina Lives [12], Enrico Mattioda reported a copy of the third volume kept at the Bibliothéque Nationale de France and available at www.gallica.bnf.fr where a passage from the biography of Baccio Bandinelli presents a reference to Don Vincenzio Borghini, which cannot be found elsewhere. The only way to notice this variant (which actually involved a reshuffling of the biography) is because at the beginning of the same tome there is a note, written by hand in French, which signals it, and immediately after the title page are reported the four ‘normalised' pages (449-450-455-456) intended to replace the previous ones. Is this the only case of this kind? I do not know. I believe in any case that Mattioda gave a wrong interpretation hereof: "this passage shows us a line of research that should continue in the coming years and makes necessary to give a more in-depth look at the text of the Lives, at least to understand whether the frequent leaps in pagination are hiding cuts, second thoughts, and rewrites that perhaps some copies preserve" [13]. An affirmation that we cannot agree upon, given that, in this case, the reshuffling took place in an area of ​​the tome where there is no page leap, and that, as mentioned, such jumps are the combination of material errors and casting-off practices, and not of censures or last-minute cuts. 

Editorial corrections

Then there are cases in which it is evident that the printer intervened - after the printing had been already made and (most likely) after binding - because he noticed an error deemed to be serious. In short, these were editorial corrections, a much more common phenomenon at that time than one would think [14]. One is very famous. This is the wording that appears under the portrait of Girolamo Genga. Originally, "CRISTOFANO SCVULTORE" was printed. Then, at the last moment (and, indeed, when the distribution of the work had already begun), somebody proceeded to glue a label with the correct wording "GIROLAMO GENGA PIT. / Architect ". Most of the specimens that have come down to us have the label, or they had it. In fact, over time, the glue has finished doing its job and the label has come off, but leaving clear traces of itself, given that the whole area has become yellow.

Fig. 4) The label with the name of Girolamo Genga in the Lives sample (1568) of the Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation

‘Gratioso’ / ‘gradito’: was it a real mistake?

Less famous, but of particular importance for the Cavallini Sgarbi specimen, is instead a correction found on p. 941 (folder YYyyy3r) in which in the verse 'Pel gratioso inclito et pio' the term 'gratioso' (gracious) was teared and, to the side, a hand that seems to have been always the same wrote 'gradito' (welcome).

Fig. 5) The correction 'gratioso/gradito' in the Cavallini Sgarbi sample

As far as I know, the first to realize that this was an editorial correction was Ruth Mortimer, in the second volume of her bibliographic repertoire on the Italian cinquecentine [15]. Since then, the intervention has been regularly reported, but was not given particular importance. Yet a reflection must be made; if among hundreds (or even thousands) of errors, a typographer felt the need to take an apprentice and make a correction by hand on thousands of copies of a book that was already printed and being distributed, this means that, at the time, the mistake was to be considered serious, just like writing a wrong name under an artist's portrait. Or are there other possible explanations?

Let us try to understand the context. We find ourselves, in reality, within the chapter dedicated by Vasari to the Academicians of Drawing and, even more specifically, in the second part of it, which included a "small work drafted by way of exercise by an idle person" who remains anonymous and describes the arrangements set up for Joan of Austria's entry into Florence on the occasion of her marriage to Francesco I de Medici (1565). Today we know that the 'idle person' was Giovan Battista Cini (1528-1586), a member of the Florentine Academy, protected by Cosimo and collaborator of Vasari [16]. Actually, the insertion of Cini's pages was not appreciated by the Giuntis publishers, who complained about the lack of 'novelty' of the material. In a letter dated September 20, 1567, Vasari wrote to Borghini: "... Meanwhile, Cino is fighting with the Giuntis, who do not want to have to print these masks, entrances and triumphs, because they would spoil their workshop" [17]; in the same letter he reported having spoken with Cosimo, who made it clear that it was time to publish. Only on October 11 Cini delivered the first part of his Description of the arrangements; on the second we do not have precise directions. One thing is certain: the confusion must have been enormous, and the time devoted to the revision of the text written by the Florentine academic practically nil.

This was the context, as it was said, of the story of the editorial substitution of 'gratioso' with 'gradito'. On p. 941 (folder YYyyy3r.) appear not one, but two poems, without a physical separation from each other (in short, the original spacing was skipped). This was a serious error of the printer, and it is no coincidence that even today it is wrongly believed that one would be faced with a single 'song', while Cini, by introducing them, wrote: “we play and sing the praises like in the following songs, making in the second a new and highly cheerful and very charming dance” [18]. Well, no editorial intervention signals the leap of spacing, while it proceeds to cancel 'gratioso' and to replace it with 'gradito' in the second song. I am reporting below the initial part hereof, affected by the correction (the text has been left in Italian also in the English translation by Gaston du C. De Vere in 1912):

 “Imeneo, dunque, ognun chiede,
Imeneo vago ed adorno:
Deh, che lieto e chiaro giorno,
Imeneo, teco oggi riede!
Imeneo, per l’alma e diva
Sua GIOVANNA, ognor si sente
Dal gran Ren ciascuna riva
Risonar soavemente;
E non men l’Arno lucente
Pel grazioso inclito e pio       GRADITO
Suo Francesco aver desio
D’Imeneo lodar si vede” [19]

The meaning of the sentence is the following: Just as the Rhine invokes the presence of Hymen, protector of the marriage rite, for Joanna of Austria, so does the Arno for his Francesco de Medici, ‘gracious, inclined and pious’. The substitution of ‘gracious’ with ‘welcome’ cannot be explained by metric reasons (we are always in the presence of an octosyllable).

I would propose two interpretations. Either we are not able today to perceive the gravity of the error (after all we are talking about an adjective referred to the son of Cosimo, patron of Cini and that 'gracious’ could provide a ridiculous or offensive connotation that we cannot anymore discover) or, until now, we have followed a wrong track. The replacement of 'gracious' with 'welcome' would not be the arrangement of a mistake, but a rethinking of the last minute of the author (i.e. by Cini) probably supported by Vasari. In this context, one could better understand the grievances that Jacopo Giunti addressed to Borghini in his letter of  October 9, 1567, in which he described the printing of the Lives as 'a 4-year long continuous fever', complaining about the delays of Cini in the delivery of the material and adding “because of these and similar things my printing house suffers a lot, and we alone - and neither Mr Giorgio nor any others - have the damage”. Furthermore, Giunti prayed God to make Giorgio stop, in one way or another, “misusing these chisels, set squares, and brushes, as he has now for some time chiselled us alive, and squared us as we were real persons, and painted us in fresco"[20]. It is in a context of an exasperation of this kind, which, in my opinion, one should also place the rethinking of Cini: the umpteenth battle between an author (or a group of authors), supported by the Duke, and the printer, who yielded, putting a boy to correct all the copies by hand.

The correction certainly took place after the typographic forms of the folder had been already broken up. However, it occurred at an early stage, since the clear majority of the specimens present it. I cannot provide exact numbers, also for the reasons I was talking about before: it is not always easy to immediately notice a repeated phenomenon (and I did not immediately notice it). As far as I was able to detect among the several copies that I have consulted directly or online, the only example that did not present the correction was the one marked Smith-Lesouef S-5376, which I mentioned for the replacement of a passage dedicated to Borghini [21]. On the contrary, the word ‘gracious’ was substituted in twenty other samples [22]. It seems evident that the specimens distributed before deciding to make the correction were, at most, a few dozen. It is unlikely that we have resorted to a sort of rubber stamp: basically the hand that mad the change seems to be the same, with a greater or lesser tendency to write a 'fluttering' d.

Fig. 6) The correction 'gratioso/gradito' in the Frankfurt UB 15/152 sample
Source: http://edocs.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/volltexte/2006/3477/

Fig. 7) The correction 'gratioso/gradito' in the Munich, Bayerische Staatbibliothek, Rar 1933-3,2 sample
Source id=SVpdAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=it&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Fig. 8) The correction 'gratioso/gradito' in the Biblioteca Nacional de España R/41691 sample
Source: http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000186192&page=1

Fig. 9) The correction 'gratioso/gradito' in the Sevilla Universitary Library sample (Fondo Antiguo) 

The corrections in the Cavallini Sgarbi exemplar

Also the Cavallini Sgarbi exemplar presents the substitution of 'gracious' with 'welcome', but with two particularities: the hand, as immediately evident, is absolutely different from that of the previous cases (see, for example, the initial 'g') and is instead entirely consistent with the other changes contained in the same copy of the tome.

Fig. 10) The correction 'gratioso/gradito' in the Cavallini-Sgarbi sample  (detail)

We are dealing, in particular, with forty-six corrections that only concern the pages of Cini’s Description of arrangements (to be precise: from PPppp4v (p. 882) to DDDdddr1 (p. 981). The changes are all reported here at the bottom. More often than not, they were due to correct typos, but on certain occasions they seem to reveal some second thoughts: think of the case of 'gracious' and 'welcome', but also of the correction No. 29, in which a 'ultimamente' is reported in place of an 'et' Who was the author of these revisions? Cini? Borghini (who, notoriously, performed that task)? A young man who had the original manuscript in his hand? I could not make any comparison with other originals from Cini, but the suspicion is that it was really him.

Whoever he was, one thing is clear: none of the corrections was accommodated, except, in fact, the 'gracious' substituted with 'welcome' of which so much has been said. If (as I think) these were Cini’s corrections, it is clear that the comparison of the text, a text presented by the author to the printer in serious delay, due to pressures coming from Cosimo and Vasari, came out of time. And the Giunti heirs agreed to hand-tear only the 'gracious', by writing 'welcome'. A task - it is clear - that it must have lasted days. It is not even excluded (in fact, I am inclined to believe that it is) that the Giuntis provided Cini with an already bound copy (and in this case, the sample would assume even greater value, for the purposes of the publishing history of the work [23]). Then, because paper was very expensive and throwing away a book was economically costly, the specimen was not placed on the market, as it was 'spoiled' by the postils, and ended up among those provided in homage to Vasari, who destined it to his family. And from Vasari home’s has now returned to us, within the Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation. 

Corrections in the sample of Marcantonio Vasari in the Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation

Fig. 11) 'Leggasi sempre due': correction n. 1 in the Cavallini Sgarbi sample

Fig. 12) “anch’egli sotto i pie di d’ITALUM FORTISS. DUCTOR”: correction n. 8 in the Cavallini Sgarbi sample

1. PPppp4v. line 17 (page 882): “a quasi dua sue amate compagne” A SIDE NOTE INDICATES: “leggasi sempre due” (always to be read ‘due’ (2)). In several successive occurrences 'dua' is underlined as to be corrected;
2. QQqqq1r. line 27 (page 883): “meritatamente Celebrato Antonio Giacomini” BECOMES "meritatamente celebrato Antonio Giacomini";
3. QQqqq4r. line 28 (page 891): “quell’affetione” BECOMES “quell’Affetione”;
4. RRrrr1r. line 35 (page 893): “di dua altissimi” BECOMES “di due altissimi”;
5. RRrrr3r. line 31 (page 897): “vasi d’oro e tutti pieni” BECOMES “vasi d’oro tutti pieni”;
6. SSsss1v. line 10 (page 912): “dua grandi Vittorie” BECOMES “due grandi Vittorie”;
7. SSsss2v. line 19 (page 904): “(che fu nella medesima forma che i descritti) era si come ivi gl’Imperadori” BECOMES “(che nella medesima forma che i descritti era) si come ivi gl’Imperadori”;
8. SSsss3v. line 16 (page 916): “anch’egli sotto i pie di  ITALUM FORTISS. DUCTOR” BECOMES “anch’egli sotto i pie di d’ITALUM FORTISS. DUCTOR”;
9. UUuuu1r. line 23 (page 923): “S. Piero, et Paulo” BECOMES “S. Piero, et S. Paulo”;
10. UUuuu1r. line 28 (page 923): “di questi dua archi” BECOMES “di questi due archi”;
11. UUuuu2v. line 3 (page 926): “e come a quella il Pesce, a quali 2. Cigni” BECOMES “e come a quella il Pesce, a questa 2. Cigni”;
12. UUuuu2v. line 21 (page 926): “nondimeno ne presenti il piu fresco, piu verace, et senza dubbio il piu splendido” BECOMES “nondimeno ne presenti il piu fresco, il piu verace, et senza dubbio il piu splendido”;
13. UUuuu2v. line 26 (page 926): ma ben con grato animo degl’ottimi Cittadini fatto lor fusse” BECOMES “ma ben con grato animo dagl’ottimi Cittadini fatto lor fusse”;
14. UUuuu3r. line 20 (page 927): vi furono finti di color di bronzo dua tondi” BECOMES “vi furono finti di color di bronzo due tondi”;
15. UUuuu3v. line 17 (page 928): “la quale al tutto simile alla dinanzi descritta direno esser stata” BECOMES “la quale al tutto simile alla dinanzi descritta diremo esser stata”;
16. UUuuu4v. line 16 (page 930): “et de dua ascendenti” BECOMES “et de due ascendenti”;
17. XXxxx1r. line 31 (page 929): “si volse” BECOMES “volesse”;
18. XXxxx1r. line 35 (page 929): “et che la verace porta del Palazo in mezo mettano” BECOMES “et che la verace porta del Palazo in mezo mettono”;
19. XXxxx2v. line 27 (page 932): “molto straordinario desiderio di fabbricare, et abbellire, et di procurare” BECOMES “molto straordinario desiderio di fabbricare, et d’abbellire, et di procurare”;
20. XXxxx3v. line 35 (page 934): “si vedde” BECOMES “si vide”;
21. YYyyy1r. line 34 (page 937): visto l’habbian: ma chi sia, che cel creda?” BECOMES “visto l’habbiam: ma chi sia, che cel creda?”;
22. YYyyy3r. line 23 (page 941): “gratioso” BECOMES “gradito”;
23. ZZzzz1v. line 40 (page 947): “al Relatino” BECOMES “al Re latino”;
24. ZZzzz2r. line 15 (page 948): “animali, et festoni, papaveri” BECOMES “animali, et festoni, et papaveri”;
25. ZZzzz2v. line 28 (page 949): “si vidde” BECOMES “si vide”;
26. ZZzzz2v. line 29 (page 949): “una parta” BECOMES “una parte”;
27. ZZzzz2v. line 36 (page 949): “che quei di dantro fuori si fussero con quei di fuori honoratamente accordati”  BECOMES “che quei di dentro si fussero con quei di fuori honoratamente accordati”;
28. ZZzzz4r. line 30 (page 952) “et dall’altra dall’Ethere, della predetta Notte, et dal predetto Herebo nato” BECOMES “et dall’altra dall’Ethere, dalla predetta Notte, et dal predetto Herebo nato”;
29. ZZzzz4v. (p.953): “attribuita et teneva a costoro compagnia” BECOMES “attribuita, ultimamente teneva a costoro compagnia”;
30. AAAaaa1v. line 24 (page 957): “et portar in mano un vitello, che un sol Carro non senza cagione haveva” BECOMES “et portar in mano un vitello, che un sol Corno non senza cagione haveva”;
31. BBBbbb3r. line 1 (page 968): “Carro duodecimo” BECOMES “Carro duododicesimo”;
32. BBBbbb3v. line 4 (page 968): Carro duodecimo” BECOMES “Carro duododicesimo”;
33. BBBbbb3v. line 20 (page 968): “Il quale (come altrove si disse) da Mercurio fu addormentato, et ucciso. Si vedeva nella quinta historia” BECOMES “Il quale (come altrove si disse) da Mercurio addormentato, et ucciso si vedeva nella quinta historia”;
34. BBBbbb4r. line 27 (page 969): “con sonanti Buccine” BECOMES “con le sonanti Buccine”;
35. BBBbbb4r. line 37 (page 969): “con loro con men convenienza” BECOMES “con loro con non men convenienza”;
36. BBBbbb4r. line 41 (page 969): “si vedeva gli alati” BECOMES “si vedevan gli alati”;
37. BBBbbb4v. line 13 (page 970): “sur un stravagantissimo Carro” BECOMES “sur uno stravagantissimo Carro”;
38. CCCccc1r. line 4 (page 971): “et tremula Canna dalle sorelle Naiade convertita” BECOMES “et tremula Canna dalle sorelle Naiadi convertita”;
39. CCCccc1r. line 14 (page 971): “Ma Myagro lo Dio delle Mosche” BECOMES “Ma Mylagro lo Dio delle Mosche”;
40. CCCccc 3r. line 25 (page 975): “si dice, che bere, et scorrere” BECOMES “si dice, che di bere, et scorrere”;
41. CCCccc 3v. line 14 (page 976): “figurarlo” BECOMES “figurandolo”;
42. CCCccc4r. line 23 (page 977): “poco innanzi seguita non havesse disturbato una buona quantità di Reverendissimi Cardinali, et alti signori” BECOMES “poco innanzi seguita, non havesse disturbato una buona quantità di Reverendissimi Cardinali et alti signori”;
43. CCCccc4r. line 34 (page 977): “che vi si scorge ne nostri Artefici” BECOMES “che vi si scorse ne nostri Artefici”;
44. CCCccc4r. Line 40 (page 977): “composta, distinta in dieci squadre” BECOMES “composta et distinta in dieci squadre”;
45. DDDddd1r. line 23 (page 981): “pieno di tutte Gerarchie degl’Angeli, et de santi” BECOMES “pieno di tutte le Gerarchie degl’Angeli, et de santi”;
46. DDDdddr1. line 34 (page 981): “religioso, et devoto componimento” BECOMES “religioso, et devoto compimento”. 

Fig. 13) “et portar in mano un vitello, che un sol Corno non senza cagione haveva”: correction n. 30 in the Cavallini Sgarbi sample

NOTES

[1] I would like to thank Vittorio Sgarbi for providing me access to the Foundation and Pietro Di Natale for the kindness and helpfulness he has always shown me, in order to make the consultation easier.

[2] Alessandro Del Vita, L’origine e l’albero genealogico della famiglia Vasari (The origin and genealogical tree of the Vasari family) in «Il Vasari», III, 1930, pp. 51-75.

[3] The source is, of course, the correspondence of Giorgio Vasari edited by Karl Frey and published between 1923 and 1940. I have consulted the online version, available on the Memofonte Foundation website at http://www.memofonte.it/ricerche/giorgio-vasari/#carteggio. It should be noted that, compared to the missives concerning Marcantonio, listed by Margherita Melani (see M. Melani, Padre Resta e Vasari. Postille edite e inedite a confronto - Padre Resta and Vasari, published and unpublished postils - in La Réception des Vite de Giorgio Vasari in the Europe des XVIe-XVIIIe siècles, edited by Corinne Lucas Fiorato and Pascal Dubus, Geneva, Droz, 2017, in particular page 194 No. 12), others should be added, in which the son of Pietro was not indicated by his own name, but simply as 'nephew'. These are in particular the letters sent by Monsignor Guglielmo Sangalletti to Vasari on the following dates: 22.5.1569, 3.6.1569, 11.6.1569, 6.7.1569, 29.7.1569, 24.10.1569, 4.11.1569, 21.11.1569 and 25.11.1569.

[4] The Italian term is “asettavo”, 1^st person of the past perfect of the Aretine dialect 'asettare', which means to prepare the warmer to be put in a bed or even to lay down the table. Vasari, in essence, was preparing the field for granting some benefit to his nephew. See letter of 2 May 1572.

[5] Alessandro Del Vita, L’origine e l’albero genealogico... quoted, p. 71 n. 43.

[6] See the item by Anna Maria Bracciante in Giorgio Vasari Principi, letterati e artisti nelle carte di Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (Principles, writers and artists in the papers of Giorgio Vasari), Florence, EDAM, 1981, p. 313.

[7] On this topic, I would like to mention the recent doctoral thesis (10 December 2018) by Michele Bellotti defended at the Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle-Paris 3 under the title Un livre jamais paru? Le manuscrit Riccardiano 2354 et l’héritage épistolaire de Giorgio Vasari (A never published book? The Riccardiano manuscript 2354 and the epistolary legacy of Giorgio Vasari). 

[8] I would like to thank Claudia Borgia, of the Archival and Bibliographic Superintendence of Tuscany, who kindly provided me with a copy of a page of the biography written by Marcantonio.

[9] Many have written on the inconsistencies and the variants of the Giuntina, starting from Rosanna Bettarini in her Premise to the critical edition Bettarini-Barocchi of Vasari’s Lives. See Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568 (The Lives of the most excellent painters and sculptors in the editorial versions of 1550 and 1568). Text edited by Rosanna Bettarini, secular comment by Paola Barocchi, Florence, Sansoni and S.P.E.S. 1966-1986, 8 vol. In the specific case Vol. I, p. IX-XLVIII. Recent, but not always convincing and, above all, based on the comparison between a limited number of specimens is Carlo Maria Simonetti, La vita delle «Vite» vasariane. Profilo storico di due edizioni (The Life of Vasari's «Lives». Historical profile of two editions), Florence, Leo S. Olschki, 2005. Among the recent contributions, I particularly appreciated: Antonio Sorella, Primi appunti sulla stampa delle Vite di Torrentino (1550) e dei Giunti (1568) (First notes on the printing of the Lives of Torrentino (1550) and the Giunti (1568)) in «Horti Hesperidum», 2016, 1, pp. 25-114, available online at http://www.horti-hesperidum.com/hh/rivista/horti-hesperidum-2016-vi-1-studi-su-vasari/174-2/ and especially Carlo Alberto Girotto, (Ré)écrire les vies dans l’atelier typographique. Quelques questions bibliographiques dans l’edition giuntina des Vite (1568) de Giorgio Vasari. [(Re)writing the lives in the typographic workshop. Some bibliographic questions in the edition giuntina of Vite (1568) of Giorgio Vasari] in Le livres des Giunta: de Venise and Florence à la Normandie, Apr 2016, Caen, France, 2017 at https://hal-univ-paris3.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01531221/document.

[10] Simonetti proposes a list of inconsistencies between text and indices that are a symptom of recomposition and deduces that, in the first version of the third volume, the work was to be concluded on p. 988, while it actually ended on p. 1006.

[11] I quote below n. 17 p. 39 of Sorella's writing, which seems to me to put an end to Simonetti’s hypothesis: "In the Giuntina edition, Borghini had to proceed differently, as shown by a jump of about thirty pages in the pagination of the third volume (in file 4L, from 663 to 770 , instead of 740, the error was due to a reversal of the characters, as seen from the succession of the pages of the white and the vault: 663-634-635-666-667-638-639-670). Instead, that jump does not appear in the index, evidently set up before the last part of the volume on the basis of the forecast calculation (so-called casting-off) and printed before the last part of the volume. Evidently, Vasari was slow to deliver that part of the text and the Giuntis pretended to continue printing at least with the tables provided by Borghini. Simonetti in his cited book, not having noticed this leap of thirty numbers in the pagination, dedicated many pages to show that the files of the third volume of Giuntina whose pages do not correspond to those indicated in the indexes of the same volume had been reshuffled by the author. I note that some art historians, following Simonetti, are already proposing various hypotheses regarding the composition and recomposition of some biographies of the last volume of the Giuntina".

[12] Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori. Edizione diretta da Enrico Mattioda, Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso, 2017. Mattioda identified the specimen as marked Y a⁴-9. In reality he was wrong. This is the specimen Smith-Lesouef S5376.

[13] Dicto, p. 40.

[14] See, for example, Curt F. Bühler, Manuscript Corrections in the Aldine Edition of Bembo's "De Aetna" in "The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America", vol. 45, n. 2 (Second Quarter, 1951), pp. 136-142.

[15] Harvard College Library, Department of Printing and Graphic Arts, Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts. Part II: Italian 16th Century Books Compiled by Ruth Mortimer, Cambridge (Mass.), The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1974.

[16] Antonio Lorenzoni, Carteggio artistico inedito di Don Vincenzio Borghini (1515-1580) (Unpublished artistic correspondence by Don Vincenzio Borghini (1515-1580), Florence, Seeber, 1912.

[17] For all this part see Simonetti, La vita ... quoted. pp. 113-117.

[18] See in particular the note to the text in the Bettarini-Barocchi edition, quoted ... Text vol. VI, 1987, p. 628, in which the curators pointed out that the first poem is a ballad composed of octosyllabic lines and the second is based on "another meter, a mixture of septenaries and endecasyllables with internal rhymes".

[19] Bettarini Barocchi, quoted... Text vol VI, p. 322.

[20] See Simonetti, cit., P. 115.

[21] The sample can be consulted online on gallica.fr and, therefore, I have not seen it in person. In correspondence with the term 'gratioso' I think I see a cancellation. On the side there is nothing. It is also true that “at the he interior of the copy there is a large number of handwritten notes of an Italian hand and visible, even if they have been vigorously washed "(Girotto, cit. P.28). The phenomenon of the faded posts, that is, cancelled because they were considered to diminish the value of a volume is very common. I do not exclude that, from a direct vision, it may turn out that 'gradito' was indeed there and has been 'eliminated' in this context.

[22] In particular: Bologna, Bibl. Archiginnasio 8.K.II.13 and MS BS 4224; University Library (BUB) A4 QB25; Cesena, Bibl. Malatestiana NORI C 0243; Naples, Bibl. University ROOM VARI RARI.C1 29; Austin (Texas), Bibl. Univ- UTA-HRC N6922 V2 1568; Brigham Young University, Harold B. Lee Library, Vault 094.2 G441568; Brandeis University, Rare da Vinci N6922 V2 1568, Brown University Library N6922 V2 1568; Caen University Library Pierre Sineux Rés 155601/3; Cornell University, Kroch Rare Library & Manuscripts N6922 V2 1568; Frankfurt UB 15/152; Indiana IU Lilly N6922 V2 1568, London, Victoria & Albert Museum, S.C.87.C29; Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España R / 41691 and Ri34; Madrid, Computense Library, E 67c. 15 no.5; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Rar 1933-3,2; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ya 4-9 8; Seville University Library Fondo Antiguo. 

[23] We must however be very cautious from this point of view. I deliberately talked about one of the first hardcover copies, and not one of the first printed because the printing of the files was in progress for four years, while the binding (even the first two volumes) was really the last thing to be done, because of the paratexts, including the title pages. It can really not be excluded than some folders containing corrections in the text made directly in the lead were linked with other folders chronologically printed months later and perhaps incorrect; in short, when it comes to XVI-century prints (so-called ‘cinquecentine’), it is wrong (or perhaps dangerous) to follow the idea that there is an evolution of copies from the first one (full of errors) to the last one, typographically 'perfect'. On the topic, see Rosanna Bettarini in Vasari, Vite, quoted ... Text, I, pp. XXX-XL and, lately, Girotto, quoted., Pp. 18-24.