Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) is one of the most eclectic artists of the sixteenth century; he was a painter and architect of great fame. His work as a writer is fundamental for the knowledge of the greatest personalities in the history of art: he collected, in fact, in his very famous Lives, the biographies of the greatest Italian painters, sculptors and architects up to his time.

The house in Via XX Settembre, near Piazza San Domenico, was purchased by Vasari in 1540 : the artist took care of the restoration that continued until 1548. Typical example of Tuscan mannerism, it develops its two floors and is decorated with a small garden, which Vasari recalls in one of his letters.

The rooms on the main floor – finely decorated by Vasari and his students – are named after the same decorations: Hall of fame and the arts , Fireplace Room, Hall of Apollo and the Muses; in the latter one can admire a beautiful fresco depicting his wife. In the Sala del camino there is the curious image of Vasari himself, painted from behind, while reading a book near a window.

The building, expanded in the nineteenth century and used as a private residence until the beginning of the twentieth century, is now home to the Giorgio Vasari House Museum and the annexed Archive, the so-called Vasari Archive, where they are preserved , inter alia, autograph letters of Michelangelo, Pius V and Cosimo I.