Ceiling decoration

Vasari bought his house in Arezzo which had a plot of a land attached. Once the room had been built, he made a jewel of the house, personally overseeing the decoration of the ‘piano nobile’ during those periods between 1542 and 1548 when his working commitments in other cities allowed him to do so. In 1550 Vasari married Nicolosa Bacci, and they went to live in the house; or rather , she did, because in March that year Vasari moved to Rome where he was extremely busy. In 1554 the artist left Rome to settle finally in Florence, where he lived with his wife, who left the house in Arezzo, it became a second home where Giorgio gathered works of art and to which he retired for brief periods of rest. After the Vasari family died out the house became a museum and Vasari Archive. The later private owners rebuilt and redecorated the house, but eight rooms retained its original decoration by Vasari.

The picture shows the ceiling decoration of the Sala di Apollo (Apollo Room), one of the two bedrooms in the house. In the central tondo Apollo is depicted. The supporting vaults, two of which are shown here, represent the Nine Muses. Erato, the goddess of conjugal love, has the features of the artist’s wife.