VASARI'S ARCHIVES SOLD FOR 150 MILLION EUROS
VASARI'S ARCHIVES SOLD FOR 150 MILLION EUROS
(ANSA) - Arezzo, October 22 - The archives of 16th century art biographer Giorgio Vasari have been purchased by an undisclosed Russian buyer, Arezzo city officials said Thursday.
The archives, which contain correspondence with Renaissance legend Michelangelo in addition to contemporary popes, was sold for 150 million euros by its owner, Giovanni Festari, who inherited them from his aunt.
A special legal clause requires the archives to be kept in Vassari's historic home in Arezzo, but Mayor Giuseppe Fanfani said he wasn't reassured.
''It's hard to believe that anyone who would pay 150 million euros to buy the archives would be willing to leave them in Arezzo''.
Fanfani said he received notification of the archives' sale this week from Tuscany's historic archives department, which gave the city three months to beat the offer.
Fanfani called the terms ''ridiculous'' and said ''there isn't a city in Italy that has that much money to spend''.
''It's up to the government and the culture ministry to make sure that treasures like these don't end up in foreign hands,'' said the mayor.
Fanfani said he has appealed to Culture Minister Sandro Bondi and Premier Silvio Berlusconi to intervene, in addition to writing a letter to the Russian embassy in Rome asking it to block the archives' sale.
The Arezzo mayor said he hoped Berlusconi, who is currently in St Petersburg for former Russian president Vladimir Putin's birthday, would take the matter up.
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) is best known for his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, a series of biographies chronicling the lives and careers of Italy's Renaissance masters.
The work became a canon of western art history, overshadowing Vasari's work as a painter and architect.
A highly acclaimed mannerist painter in his time, Vasari also designed the famous loggia of the Palazzo degli Uffizi in Florence, one of the city's most celebrated landmarks. Photo: a sketch by Vasari
