#129 Vasari and the Sacred Image: A Conversation with Sally Cornelison

Saturday, October 10th Live on Zoom

10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence

When people think of Giorgio Vasari (1511-74), his paintings and architecture in Florence and Rome and, above all, his groundbreaking artist biographies in the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550, 1568) typically come to mind. This talk explores a lesser-known aspect of Vasari’s artistic and architectural production, his renovation of the prestigious medieval church of Santa Maria della Pieve in his hometown of Arezzo. 

In addition to renovating the Pieve to make it conform to Catholic Reformation liturgical standards, Vasari built four new altars in the church, including a monumental, freestanding high altar that also served as his family funerary chapel. Vasari intended that altar to mark his grave and commemorate himself and his family members in perpetuity, but a radical renovation of the Pieve in the 19th century resulted in the alienation of Vasari’s works from the church, thus shattering the formal, iconographical, and patronal relationships that once existed between them.

Sally J. Cornelison is a specialist in the history of Italian late medieval and Renaissance religious art and the director of Syracuse University's Florence Graduate Program in Italian Renaissance Art, of which she is an alumna. Her scholarly research concerns the history of art, devotion, ritual, iconography, and patronage as they relate to the cult of saints and relics in Renaissance Italy and the sacred paintings of artist, architect, and author Giorgio Vasari. She has published extensively, including her recent book “Vasari and the Sacred Image: Renovating Santa Maria della Pieve in Arezzo (Cambridge University Press, 2026).

To RSVP: Paola50122@gmail.com

Minimum suggested donation: $28

This talk is free for Friends of Paola's Studiolo!

Look forward to seeing you on Zoom!