Giorgio Vasari : The Man and the Book

A striking account of Vasari's career, friendships, and contribution to the art of Renaissance Florence

Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors, first published in 1550, fixed for three hundred years general European views about the art of the Renaissance, and its influence still lingers today. There is a mass of literature on Vasari's writings but comparatively few full-length studies have dealt with the man himself. In this book, Boase offers a compelling account of Vasari's life and career. At the same time, Boase explores Vasari's ideas about the art and artists he described in the two editions of his Lives, relating them to their contemporary context and later developments in art history and criticism. The result is an informed and sympathetic appraisal of Vasari's achievement, one which for all its human imperfections is without parallel in the history of Western art.