The issue of the role of the Renaissance in the history of European culture is still open, and for better understanding, it is important to look at the chronological boundaries of this long period and to define their specific traits. The end of the Renaissance was closely linked, among other things, with architectural works of Giorgio Vasari, which brings to light the changes in the artist’s status, as well as the peculiarities of the artistic process in one of the major cultural centers of the late Renaissance — Florence in the times of Cosimo I Medici. Vasari’s architecture is a clear example of key tendencies in late Renaissance art. As many of his contemporaries, Vasari is more a “continuator” than a “creator” in both architectural prac- tice and theory. In his own work, he prefers to draw conclusions, promote what had already been done by others, and set norms based on his predecessors’ achievements. His manner is rather dry, graphic, detached, and cold; it lacks the lively emotional character that always comes with innovative creative impulses. It is noteworthy (and highly characteristic of all architectural practices of Cinquecento) that Vasari, as his con- temporaries, begins his artistic career not as an architect but as a painter. In his architectural work, Vasari is merely a decorator, which testifies clearly to the crisis of architectural vision. He easily slips into eclectic, as do many other architects of the time, which is also one of the symptoms of the well-developed artistic tradition. The “mechanical” nature of the late Renaissance came into being in numerous architectural works by Vasari, especially in the Uffizi Gallery. The Uffizi complex and Vasari’s Corridor not only linked together different buildings that belonged to the Medici family, but also reoriented the whole urban situation in Florence that was influenced by Grand Dukes and new semantic features. Now, it included all the “centers” of “old” and “new” Medici, as well as the sacral republican “centers” of Florence.