Victims and Villains in Vasari’s Lives by Andrew Ladis (review)

REVIEWS 295 gerous reading” among early audiences. Her discussion of Piers Plowman focuses most carefully on the hints of apocatastasis and the salvation of virtuous pagans that seem to be drawn from Uthred de Boldon’s (ca. 1315–1396) condemned theories on the visio clara (a quasi-beatific vision granted to all immediately before death; the experience in turn allows the dying person a chance to believe, be baptized in the spirit at the last possible moment, and thus be saved). Her analysis of vision allows for a similarly insightful analysis of the role of bodily sight in Julian’s description of Christ’s passion—she describes Julian’s extraordinary attention to the details of the image she sees as a “forensic vision ” which gains its authority from adherence to the “visual orthodoxy” present in fourteenth-century England. This brief review can only begin to describe the riches of Books Under Suspicion . Engagingly written and persuasively argued, it provides a tremendously nuanced view of a period of religious debate and censorship that has been all too easily flattened in contemporary scholarship. She is quick to note that her work aims to provide starting points for further research; many provoking ideas are introduced, only to be acknowledged as too broad for exploration in the current book. The excitement one gains in reading Kathryn Kerby-Fulton’s work is exceeded only by the awareness of the richness of scholarship yet to come that will continue to explore the wide range of theological speculation and revelatory prophecy in late medieval England. STEVEN ROZENSKI, JR., English, Harvard University Andrew Ladis, Victims and Villains in Vasari’s Lives (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2008) x+159 pp., ill. Primary source texts are generally exalted for their reliability and singleness of purpose. Andrew Ladis’s exceptionally readable and revealing commentary, devoid of burdensome and distracting footnotes, on the multi-faceted substructure of Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects introduces an alternative interpretation in deconstructing the themes and word choices of the first revered art historian of the Renaissance. The author encourages modern historians to scrutinize Vasari’s exemplary capacity for documentation, embellishment of fact, yearning for self-propaganda, and the unabashed entertainment of fascinated readership. Such revisionary approaches to scholarship are “easier today than ever before”(ix) in the context of emerging insights about the clever writer of art in 1550 and 1568. The artist, biographer, and intellectual was clearly energized by a penchant for poetic rhetoric and illustrative confessions on the truth of artistic genius. In short, Vasari believed that visual masters could be praised as divine craftsmen but that their distinct personality traits, poor judgments, selfishness, quick-temperedness , vanity, and a myriad of other foolish pranks nurtured by creative freedoms required an equal amount of discussion. To the “sly fabricator” (ix) this complex discursiveness seemed “most natural and easy”. The 250 Lives, beginning with the “instinctively talented” Cimabue and culminating with the “divine” Michelangelo, are evocative expositions on the limits and outcomes of pride, reputation, and accomplishment of skill. Most important, these narratives are also Varari’s ethical and “evangelical” (31) admonitions regarding the frequent failures of such self-confidence in misguided REVIEWS 296 lives. Ladis observes that the dramatic totality of his popular “literary performance ” (5) captivated a wide public irrepressibly drawn to page turners about embarrassments, bad habits, rivalries, and stormy relationships of even the venerated Giotto for example. In this “great morality play” (x) Giotto’s naturalism extends into the frankness of his speech and piquant wit. The papal envoy is reduced to a “tondo” when Giotto implies that even the perfect circle he has drawn should be appreciated as high art because it was made with care and feeling “to spare.” Vasari as enthusiastic storyteller and pedagogue on the frailty and uniqueness of behavior patterns produces writing stamped with directness, humor and variety. This crucial point of departure uncovers some of the writer’s habitual associations of baptism, birthplace, misfortune, and even weather patterns to the quality, quantity, and iconography of art production. Thus, the triumphs of the impoverished, humble, but honorable artist have as much impact as those that disparage the...