This book is an expansion of the proceedings of the conference of the same name, held in Florence and Arezzo, Italy, on 24–25 November 2011. This invaluable collection of archival records on Giorgio Vasari's art and writings was associated with exhibitions in Arezzo and Florence, where numerous documents were on view. The preface notes that there were two aims underlying these events honoring Vasari. The first aim was to sponsor of an exhibition of archival data in the Casa Vasari, in Arezzo. The second intention was to develop, using archival data, a theory of memory—a “macchina della memoria,” employing Giulio Camillo's theatrical formulation—creating an analogy with Vasari's documents, letters, writings, and imagery (Lina Bolzani, Il treatro della memoria: studi su Giulio Camillo [1984]).

The first essay, by Diana Toccafondi, draws a parallel between Camillo's theater of memory and Vasari's visualization of history in the decoration of his Venetian, Neapolitan, and Roman commissions (1541–46) and his house in Arezzo (Casa Vasari, 1542–68). The argument on personal visual memory (Vasari) and collective visual memory (Pliny the Elder) is a provocative concept but is not fully elaborated. The second essay, by Donatella Fratini, provides an important historical evaluation, with significant archival support, of the personal archive of Poggi (1880–1961), a literato and curator of the Bargello, the Opera del Duomo, and the Galleria degli Uffizi. Poggi's quest was to compose a critical edition of Vasari's Lives and its sources, and the numerous appendixes reveal Poggi's extensive etymological and philological study of the Lives.

The third essay, by Paola Benigni, focuses on Vasari's Libro delle Ricordanze (Book of records) and Zibaldone o Libro delle Invenzioni (Hotchpotch or book of inventions) and how they draw from the writings of Paolo Giovio, Annibale Caro, Vincenzio Borghini, Cosimo Bartoli, and Pierfrancesco Giambullari. The fourth essay, by Nicoletta Baldini, comments on Vasari's will and testament and his works of art, deepening cultural understanding of Vasari's paintings through archival documentation. Baldini also looks at the marriage of Niccolosa di Francesco Baci and Vasari, providing a new view on this perplexing relationship. Both Benigni's and Baldini's articles address the importance of the inventories in the Fraternita dei Laici and the Vasari family's responsibilities and cultural endeavors.

The fifth essay, by Maria Fubini Leuzzi, provides further valuable documentation concerning the amicable and professional relationship between Borghini and Vasari, Vasari's Florentine house, and his chapel and altar in La Pieve of Arezzo. The sixth article, by Antonella Moriani, uses archival documentation to explore the connections between Vasari and the Fraternita during his lifetime and after his death, as evidenced in Vasari's testament. The seventh article, by Donatella Fratini, focuses on MS 30 in the Archivio Vasari of Arezzo, already noted as MS 64 in the Archivo Rasponi Spinelli. This book of records lists Vasari's artistic profits between 24 August 1527 and 7 January 1572. Fratini carefully compares this manuscript's entries with other inventories and archival collections, linking the book of records and Vasari's incomplete autobiography and revealing this was due, in part, to the limited time he had on account of his numerous artistic responsibilities. The eighth article, by Emilie Passignat, carefully and eloquently examines the history of scholarship on the Ragionamenti (Dialogues), using the complex published edition of 1588, held at the Biblioteca Riccardiana (the codex is found in the Biblioteca of the Uffizi). Passignat focuses on the problematic editorial project of the Ragionamenti, which originated earlier in the publication of the Lives, citing in particular a letter between Vasari and Borghini, dated 14 December 1558, about the iconography of Saturn in the Sala degli Elementi. Passignat not only examines the historicity of the Ragionamenti but also compares the differences in writing style between the Lives and the Ragionamenti. Passignat's thesis is that as we compare two editions of the Lives (1550 and 1568) we also need to compare two editions of the Ragionamenti (201).

The ninth article, by Enrico Mattioda, unveils another aspect of Vasari's persona: his poetic nature. Some letters were published earlier, by Ugo Scotti-Bertinelli, in his Giorgio Vasari scrittore ([1906], 263–303), but here Mattioda corrects Bertinelli's copyist errors and analyzes the poems—which are on the subjects of love, beauty, and mourning—in the context of the Italian poetic tradition. The tenth essay, by Alessia Cecconi and Martina Nastasi, is an explicative work on the database of Vasari's writings and sources. This important contribution is a continuation of a project initiated by Vasarian scholar Paola Barocchi (1927–2016). The last essay, by Michele Loffredo, is an abbreviated version of a larger study by the author and provides a history of how the Casa Vasari, in Arezzo, mutated into an Aretine museum.