Note 168 — Chapter III · (X.)

The antique vessels of so-called ‘Arezzo’ ware are called Aretine vases. Messer Giorgio was in duty bound to take some note of the ancient pottery of his native city for it was from this that the Vasari derived their family name. According to the family tree given in a note to the Life of an ancestor of the historian (Opere, ed. Milanesi, II, 561), the family came from Cortona, and the first who settled in Arezzo was the historian’s great-grandfather, one Lazzaro, an artist in ornamental saddlery. He had a son, Giorgio, who practised the craft of the potter, and was especially concerned with the old Roman Aretine vases the technique of which he tried to reproduce. Hence he was called ‘Vasajo,’ ‘the vase maker,’ from which came the family appellation Vasari.

This ancient Aretine ware ‘must be regarded as the Roman pottery par excellence’ (Waters, History of Ancient Pottery, Lond., 1905, II, 480). It is practically the same ware that is known by the popular but unscientific term ‘Samian,’ and consists in cups and bowls and dishes usually of a small size of a fine red clay, ornamented with designs in low relief, produced by the aid of stamps or moulds. It is these relief ornaments that Vasari had in his mind when he wrote the words in the text. Arezzo is noticed by Pliny and other ancient writers as a great centre for the fabrication of this sort of ware, and Vasari tells us how his grandfather, Giorgio the ‘vasajo,’ discovered near the city some kilns of the ancient potters and specimens of their work. Very good specimens of Aretine ware are to be seen in the Museum at Arezzo, and the fabrique is represented in all important collections of ancient pottery.