Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01

Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.5
Word count
498K words
Chapters
50

Tags

English Originals PaintingGeneral Biography Art HistoryLegendary LivesBiographical LiteratureMaster's StyleLiterary GiantsGroup BiographyHumanistic CareAcademic StudyTraditional AestheticsCultural Change

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10)Author: Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574,Language: English, Class: N: Fine Arts, Release Date: May 5, 2008

Editor's review

The English eBook edition of the first volume of Vasari's Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects is a classic text of art-historical writing. Writing as a contemporary, Vasari records artists' lives and works along with technique, patronage, and courtly settings; the book has documentary value and also shaped the basic narrative framework through which later generations have understood Renaissance art. As the opening of a ten-volume work, this volume is suited to building an overall impression of the period's artistic ecology rather than to being used as an exact modern scholarly biography. Readers should note that Vasari's judgments carry personal positions and period limitations, and that his anecdotes need to be checked against later research. The eBook makes it easy to search names and works, and is suitable for course reading, topical research, and art lovers reading progressively. Readers unfamiliar with the Renaissance background are advised to read introductory material first before entering the main text.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read a concise introduction to Renaissance art history first, then go into Vasari's main text.
  2. Read by artist, and after each piece summarize the artist's training lineage, major works, and patronage relationships.
  3. Mark evaluative judgments and compare them with later art-historical research rather than taking them directly as settled conclusions.
  4. Read alongside maps and work lists to help locate cities, churches, and commissioned projects.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50

FAQ

Is Vasari's book of biographies still worth reading today? Yes. It is a foundational text of Renaissance art-historical writing, offering extensive contemporary perspectives on artists' lives and works and shaping later accounts of art's stages of development. Its anecdotes and judgments, however, need to be used in comparison with modern and contemporary research.
What does the first volume mainly cover? The materials only indicate that this is the first of ten volumes and do not list specific contents. Usually such a volume begins with earlier artists and prepares the ground for later volumes. Before reading, check the eBook's table of contents to confirm its scope.
Can I read it directly without a background in art history? You can try, but it will be difficult. The book is dense with names, places, and works and assumes some familiarity with Italian cities and churches. It is advisable to build background knowledge first, or start with shorter entries on better-known artists.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574 Author

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) was an Italian painter and architect of the Renaissance, and is best known to posterity as a writer on art history. This library holds 11 of his works, chiefly various volumes of The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, including Volume 1 and Volumes 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10. The work presents biographies of painters, sculptors, and architects one by one, describing their lives and creations while commenting on artistic techniques and the tastes of the age. It is regarded as a founding work of Western art-historical writing and offers a precious and far-reaching source for understanding Renaissance art. Its style combines documentary detail with critical judgment; the narrative is vivid and the portraits are distinct, and despite anecdotes and personal bias it has long served as a basic text for studying the art of the period. Public information about the details of his life is limited, so no further elaboration is given here.