Resumen de Vincenzo Borghini and Giorgio Vasari: Two Drawings for the Cappella Paolina
On 13th May 1572 Gregory XIII Buoncompagni was elected pope and, with his sights on the Holy Year of 1575, began completing the decorations of the Vatican palace left un- finished by his predecessors. Foremost was the embellishment of the Sala Regia (Fig.4), which was entrusted to Giorgio Vasari who enlisted the collaboration of his friend Don Vincenzo Borghini for the programme and a host of painters and sculptors to expedite the execution. The newly enriched audience hall was unveiled on the feast of Corpus Christi, 21st May 1573,1 when Gregory immediately turned his attention to the adjacent Cappella Paolina (Fig. l).2 Here Vasari was commissioned to devise a decorative programmefor the vault and the narrow vertical fields flanking Michelangelo's last frescoes, the Conversion of Paul and Crucfixion of Peter on the lateral walls (Figs.2 and 3).3 Our knowledge of this project stems from ten well-known letters written by Vasari, Borghini, Gregory XIII's Secretary of State Cardinal Tolomeo Galli, his Cardinal Nephew Filippo Buoncompagni, and Alessandro Musotti the Bishop of Imola,4 including an undated letter from Borghini to Vasari detailing the elaborate invenzione, or iconographic programme which formed the basis for Vasari's decorative scheme.
