Giorgio Vasari, born in Arezzo on 30 July 1511, bought the house in Via XX Settembre, adjacent to our B & B in Arezzo in 1541 and, following the mannerist lines, he frescoed it with his collaborators from the following year up to that of his marriage with the young Aretina Niccolosa Bacci, daughter of a famous merchant, occurred in 1550.
This beautiful two-storey building located a few steps from the Church of San Domenico and also has a lovely little garden named by the same artist in one of his letters, was always loved by Vasari so much that, despite his work often led him out from his hometown (especially in nearby Florence and Rome), he loved to collect in it the works of painting and sculpture most dear to him. After being enlarged in the nineteenth century it became a private home, the Pagliacci family, until the early years of the following century; later it became the Museum and the Family Archives of Giorgio Vasari. The latter include the Ricordanze, the Zibaldone and the documents collected in volumes that make up the Vasariano correspondence.
From the main staircase designed by the artist, you enter the piano nobile where wonderful rooms follow each other taking their name from the theme of the present decorations, created by Vasari himself who, among other things, appears to be looking at the reading in the Sala del Camino – (Triumph of Virtue) – surmounted by a coffered ceiling with seventeen painted panels and walls full of allegorical figures, narrations of artists or landscapes; the same type of decorated ceiling is also present in the Sala di Abramo (Nuptial Chamber) and in the Chamber of Fame and the Arts; the wife is instead represented in the Hall of Apollo and the Muses. The intimate Cappellina at times and the Corridor of Ceres or Dragons leading to the halls described above are also of great charm.
