Cosimo I, Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio e la censura ecclesiastica

This essay investigates, in the Florence of Cosimo I, a key moment of the Catholic reformation and of the history of Inquisition around 1959, year of the Pauline Index's publication. Since recent studies have reappraised the impact of censorship in that period considering it as the expression of the Inquisition's rising power and underlying the curiosity by the readers, there's no doubt that the Index had considerable effects on the Italian culture of the that time. Analysing the three works produced and directed by Vasari in Palazzo Vecchio around 1559 - Lo sportello della cassaforte di Cosimo I, made by Vincenzo Danti, a sculptor from Perugia; the panel with Saturno che mutila il Cielo painted by Vasari in the Apartments of the Elements and the text of Ragionamenti - intrinsically related to Cosimo I and Palazzo Vecchio, the article highlights the consequences of the ecclesiastical censorship on the court of Cosimo I and how Vasari himself was deeply touched by that context of cultural repression.