Resumen de "'A me pare, che siano fatte con diligenza": Cosimo Bartoli, Giorgio Vasari, and an Extraordinary Venetian Drawing
An anonymous 16th-century drawing of Venetian galleys (private collection, America) was used as a source by Vasari for his Lepanto frescoes. The drawing shows painstaking attention to detail and is executed with the skill of an architectural study or a preparatory drawing for an engraving. There is no doubt that the inscriptions on the drawing referring to the various views of the vessels are in the handwriting of Cosimo Bartoli. Bartoli did not specify either the publisher or the engraver of the print he forwarded to Vasari in January 1572. Though there are slight variations in detail from one galley to the next in Vasari's Lepanto frescoes, the sottile in full profile at the left of the first fresco is modeled exactly on the warship represented at the foot of the drawing.
