Product Description

Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto in the thirteenth century, Vasari traces the development of Italian art across three centuries to the golden epoch of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Great men, and their immortal works, are brought vividly to life, as Vasari depicts the young Giotto scratching his first drawings on stone; Donatello gazing at Brunelleschi's crucifix; and, Michelangelo's painstaking work on the Sistine Chapel, harassed by the impatient Pope Julius II. The Lives also convey much about Vasari himself and his outstanding abilities as a critic inspired by his passion for art.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131279 in Books
• Published on: 1988-03-01
• Original language: Italian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780140445008
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Language Notes
Text: English, Italian (translation)

About the Author
Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) was an accomplished painter and architect, but it is for his illuminating biographies that he is best remembered. George Bull translated widely from the Italian, including for Penguin Classics including Cellini's 'Autobiography' and Machiavelli's 'The Prince'. He is also the author of a number of books on the Renaissance.

Customer Reviews

Extremely readable, contemporary account of his peers
Vasari was a life-long correspondent of Michaelangelo, a contemporary of Leonardo, etc., so the accounts are written about his friends and comnpetitors, not 100+ years later, thru the prism of time. Yet this translation is in readable, 20th Century English.

The chapters on Brunelleschi, Donato, etc. are lively, entertaining as well as instructive. MUST reading for anyone going to Italy, or to see works of the Florentine artists.

(N.B. I am an engineer who never had a fine arts class, ever!)

Giorgio Vasari - Lives of the Artists Volume One
A good introduction to Medieval, Renaissance, and Mannerist artists written by someone who lived around their time and had actual contact with some of the artists, as well as personal painting experience. He is, however, colored by his personal relationships with the artists, hyperbolic, and constrained by the Zeitgeist of the era. In exploring the relationships of artist and patron he is able to shed light on their social situation and the constant struggle of the elevation of the art of painting among the liberal arts. In English, some of the grandeur of his writing is lost, and it lacks the poetic ease of the Italian original. If you want a fuller version, I suggest (especially for bilingual speakers) a translation with the Italian original on the other side of the page.