The sale of the precious Vasari archive has been strongly contested by the Rome Court of Justice, which suspects some underhand dealings, and the town of Arezzo,  where Vasari was born in 1511. The archive, which belonged to Count Giovanni Festari, from a leading Florentine aristocratic family, was sold after the Counts death to Russian millionaire Vasilij Stepanov by the administrator of the Festari estate, Enrico De Martino, for a record price of 150 million.

De Martino is suspected of having falsified the Counts signature on the sales document and also to have inflated the price out of all proportion so that the Italian State, which has first option on sales of Italian national treasures, would be unable to meet the request. It is believed, however, that the actual price paid was much lower than the one declared and, in fact, masked a manoeuvre intended to cheat the State. The archive, which is at present kept in the house where Vasari was born, contains, among other papers of great historic interest, drawings and a sonnet by Michaelangelo, letters from various Popes and documents appertaining to Amerigo Vespucci.

Giorgio Vasari died in Florence in 1574. He was a painter, architect and art historian and is best known for his biographies of many leading Renaissance artists.