|
|
Article: Giorgio Vasari: Art and History.
- Article from:
- Renaissance Quarterly
- Article date:
- June 22, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 The Renaissance Society of America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, was first published in an edition of 1550. In the following years it was revised and expanded - with the advice of historians and litterati in Vasari's circle at the court of the granddukes of Tuscany - for publication in 1568. It is much more than a sourcebook on the lives and works of Italian (and a few northern) artists from the time of Giotto until Vasari's contemporaries. It is the foundation of modern art history and critical theory and - on the relatively rare occasions when Vasari relaxes from his rhetorical positions to engage in practical criticism (in the sense of judging the success or deficiencies ...