Vasari, Giorgio (1511-1574)
I primi frutti della terra offerti a Saturno (The First Fruits of the Earth Offered to Saturn)
1555–1556
Pen, ink and chalk, 17.2 x 39.2 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The drawing, surely from the hand of Vasari himself, is a study for an Allegory of Earth painted by his assistant Cristofano Gherardi in the Sala degli Elementi, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. There are a number of differences between the preparatory drawing and the finished fresco. Vasari supplied a full description of the complex symbolism of this allegorical composition that is dominated by the figure of Saturn holding up a serpent that bites its own tail. This circular symbol is said to be an Egyptian hieroglyph, symbolic of the rotundity of the heavens among other things. (MET)