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MICHELANGELO AND THE "RERUM CORPORIS" IN VASARI'S "VITE": THE LIMITS OF PHYSIOGNOMY

In an earlier article for this journal, I argued that Vasari introduced the lion/virile man motif into his vita of Leonardo, and did so with great rhetorical flair.3 In the present essay, I examine the three other clear allu sions to physiognomies in the third part of Vasari's Vite de'piii eccellentipittori scultori e circhitettori. None of these is as carefully turned as the Leonardo example; nor does any one of them suggest special depth or nuance in Vasari's understanding of physiog nomic theory. It is precisely for these reasons that they warrant exploration. In their relative simplicity and lack of rhetorical polish, they reveal a good deal not about what Vasari knew, but about how he thought. To be more specific, they shed light on the way he set about building a mental image of a bio graphical subject with whom he had small or no acquaintance. That he relied on physiog nomic theory to make up a shortfall of knowledge and to assist in sifting and organizing anecdotal data is striking. It suggests that Vasari was comfortable enough with rudimentary physiognomic principles for them to be part of his imaginative armory—that there was, for him, nothing recherche about such ideas.