Conclusion

Summary

Lorenzo lotto received a very short mention in the first edition of Vasari’s Lives. The single paragraph devoted to him is a coda to the life of Jacopo Palma and mentions only four pictures; three are public altarpieces, the fourth is Andrea Odoni’s portrait. Vasari’s single sentence about the portrait, however, is not actually about Lotto’s painting, it is about the sitter: Lotto portrayed Odoni, “whose house in Venice is much adorned by painting and sculpture.” In this way – through his entanglement with visual art, both painting and sculpture – the cittadino tax collector earned a place in Vasari’s groundbreaking and enduring account of the history of art. It is perhaps Odoni’s most fitting epitaph, and the most appropriate epigraph to this book.