"First published as Norton paperback 2018"--Title page verso. Includes bibliographical references (pages 365-397) and index.
Contents:
The lost Leonardo -- How to read Vasari's Lives -- From potters to painters: Vasari's forebears and first teachers -- From Arezzo to Florence -- Plunder and plague -- Artist versus artist: demonic beetles and morality tales -- The opportunities of war -- Back among the Medici -- Rome after the sack -- A Florentine painter -- Murder and redemption -- The wandering artist -- Florence, Venice, Rome -- Renaissance men: Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo -- Symbols and shifting tastes -- To Naples -- The birth of Lives -- Renaissance reading -- The new Vitruvius -- Sempre in moto -- Shake-up in Florence -- The Accademia del Disegno and the Lives revised -- On the road -- Second Lives -- Still wandering -- Between the cupola and the Sala Regia -- A royal hall -- The legacy of Lives -- Circling back to Giotto's O -- Conclusion: Cerca trova.
Summary:
"Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) was a man of many talents--a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, and scholar--but he is best known for Lives of the Artists, which singlehandedly established the canon of Italian Renaissance art. Before Vasari's extraordinary book, art was considered a technical skill, and artists were mere decorators and craftsmen. It was through Vasari's visionary writings that Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo came to be regarded as great masters of life as well as art, their creative genius celebrated as a divine gift. Lauded by Sarah Bakewell as "insightful, gripping, and thoroughly enjoyable," The Collector of Lives reveals how one Renaissance scholar completely redefined how we look at art."--Cover.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.