This volume examines the emblematic, historical, and mythological themes evident in Giorgio Vasari's Hall of the Elements paintings, which functioned as the reception room of the Medici Apartments within the Florentine Palazzo Vecchio. In conjunction with the conventions of the decorative cycle, it analyzes Vasari's significant contribution to establishing the history painting genre, achieving a balance between a camera picta and a camera intellecta, thereby fostering a cosmological narrative within a mythological frame. Furthermore, the book evaluates how Vasari incorporated classical Antiquity into his symbolic context. It also explores the intricate relationship between patronage and culturespecifically, the dynamic between the ruler and the artistconsidered a humanistic endeavor during Italian Mannerism.
Liana De Girolami Cheney, PhD, is a Professor of Art History emerita from UMASS (University of Massachusetts) Lowell, USA. She received her PhD in Art History from Boston University in Massachusetts. She is the author and co-author of several books on the Italian Renaissance and Mannerism, notably Botticelli's Neoplatonic Images, Neoplatonism in the Arts, Neoplatonic Aesthetics: Music, Literature and the Visual Arts, Readings in Italian Mannerism I and II, Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Magical Paintings, Agnolo Bronzino: The Florentine Muse, Self-Portraits by Women Painters, Lavinia Fontana's Mythological Paintings: Art, Beauty and Wisdom, Barbara Longhi of Ravenna: Art, Grace and Piety, The Homes of Giorgio, Le dimore di Giorgio Vasari, Giorgio Vasari's Teachers: Sacred and Profane Art, Giorgio Vasari's Prefaces: Art and Theory, Giorgio Vasari's Artistic and Emblematic Manifestations, and Giorgio Vasari: The Quest of a Painter.
