…October 5: Rob’s birthday!
After some confusion on Sunday over our rental cars (note to travelers: Rome is the opposite of Asheville. Anything that is open on Sunday’s closes at 1 pm–and likely doesn’t open again until Tuesday), we finally made it to our birthday destination in Tuscany.
San Savino was originally a Tuscan town. In 1550, Cosimo de Medici gave it as a personal gift to the brother of Pope Julius III (you can read more about its history here).
The chapel in the center of town dates to the Renaissance and boasts several 16th-century wall frescoes as well as an altarpiece of The Assumption by early Renaissance master Giorgio Vasari.
Vasari was a well-known artist in his own right, but perhaps his greatest legacy is his biographical collection, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550), which remains one of scholars’ greatest resources for historical information about Vasari’s Renaissance contemporaries.
