"Una casa principiata in Arezzo, con un sito da fare orti bellissimi nel borgo di san Vito, nella migliore aria della città": with these words Giorgio Vasari described his house, purchased in 1541, which currently houses the museum of the same name.
The house consists of three floors, the basement, the elegant apartment on the first floor and another on the second floor probably intended for servants. Around the house extends the garden with a centralized geometric structure, common to many other houses in the historic center of Arezzo. The painter personally provided for the pictorial decorations of the noble apartment, which still testify to the artist’s intention to launch a precise programme of celebration of art, artists and himself.
In 1687, the last descendant of Vasari, Francesco Maria, bequeathed his real estate to the Fraternita dei Laici. After a subsequent change of ownership, in 1911, on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the birth of the artist from Arezzo and also thanks to the incessant work of Alessandro Del Vita, his home was purchased by the Italian State to be used as the Vasari Museum.
