Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, first published in 1550 and expanded in 1568, is the foundational work of art history and one of the most important books of the Italian Renaissance. Volume 1 covers the early masters from Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi, tracing the revival of the arts in medieval and early Renaissance Italy through vivid biographical sketches, critical assessments, and lively anecdote.
Vasari himself was a painter and architect who personally knew many of the artists he wrote about. Download this free EPUB and begin the monumental work that invented the biographical writing of art history.