Vasari, Giorgio

Vasari, Giorgio (1511-1574), Italian writer, painter, and architect, best known for his book on the lives of major Italian Renaissance artists.

Vasari was born on July 30, 1511, in Arezzo. Trained in art as a child, he went to Florence, where he worked in the studio of Andrea del Sarto and won the patronage of the Medici family. Among Vasari's major surviving paintings are the fresco cycles in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, and the Vatican in Rome.

As an architect Vasari was a follower of his brilliant contemporary Michelangelo. Among the important buildings he designed are the Palazzo degli Uffizi in Florence, now a museum, and a number of palaces and churches in Pisa and Arezzo. It is as a writer, however, that he is most famous. His Le Vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani (1550, revised 1568; The Lives of the Most Eminent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors, 1912-1914, 10 vols.), one of the earliest works on art written by an artist of merit, is a primary source of information about the artists of the Italian Renaissance. The revised edition includes his autobiography in addition to the lives of Michelangelo and other major painters of the time. Vasari's book offers his personal evaluation of the works of these artists, as well as discussions on the state of the arts. His easy, natural writing style helped to make his book one of the most enduring of art histories. He died in Florence on June 27, 1574.