A Forja de Vulcano

Just a year or two before he made this small painting, Vasari had founded something new in Florence, the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, the first true academy of art, set up in 1563 under Cosimo de' Medici. This little scene on copper is really about that idea. Vulcan, the smith of the gods, bends over his work while nude figures study and draw around him, watched by a statue of the Three Graces. A scholarly friend had advised Vasari to paint not just a forge but an academy of the virtues. So the god's workshop becomes a picture of disegno, of design itself, the skill of drawing that Vasari held to be the root of painting, sculpture and architecture alike. On the table Vulcan works over a shield marked with the signs of the zodiac.