The "Accademia del Disegno” ("Academy …

Years: 1563 - 1563

The "Accademia del Disegno” ("Academy of Design"), the first academy of fine arts, is established in Florence in 1563 under the sponsorship of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici.

Representing an association of thirty-six artists and patrons, including Giorgio Vasari, who has helped to found the institution, the academy concept is an attempt to challenge the powerful and restrictive guild system, in which artists are identified with artisans, and to elevate the status of painters and sculptors.

Such a permanent break requires a drastic revision of the pedagogical system operated by the workshops of the guilds, who offer practical, on-the-job training.

The academy, therefore, formulates a theoretical component they term disegno—the drawing and design that underlie all artistic activity—which embraces the principles of perspective and anatomy.

As the human being is, according to Renaissance humanism, the highest expression of the divine ideal, life drawing anchors academic curricula.

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