Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects

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The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects

Title page of the 1568 edition of Le Vite

Author Giorgio Vasari
Original title Le Vite de' pi� eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori
Translator E. L. Seeley
Country Italy
Language Italian
Subject Artist biographies
Publisher Torrentino (1550), Giunti (1568)
Publication date
1550 (enlarged 1568)
Published in English
1908
Pages 369 (1550), 686 (1568)
The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (Italian: Le
Vite de' pi� eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori), also known as The Lives
(Italian: Le Vite), is a series of artist biographies written by 16th-century
Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, which is considered "perhaps the most
famous, and even today the most-read work of the older literature of art",[1] "some
of the Italian Renaissance's most influential writing on art",[2] and "the first
important book on art history".[3] The title is often abridged to just the Vite or
the Lives.

It was first published in two editions with substantial differences between them;
the first in 1550 and the second in 1568 (which is the one usually translated and
referred to). One important change was the increased attention paid to Venetian art
in the second edition, even though Vasari has still been criticised ever since for
an excessive emphasis on the art of his native Florence.

Contents
1 Background
2 Influence
2.1 Early translations became a model for others
2.2 View of the Renaissance
2.3 Source of information
3 Contents
3.1 Part 2
3.2 Part 3
3.3 Part 4
3.4 Part 5
3.5 Part 6
4 Editions
5 Versions online
6 See also
7 References
8 Sources
9 External links
Background
As the first Italian art historian, Vasari initiated the genre of an encyclopedia
of artistic biographies that continues today. Vasari's work was first published in
1550 by Lorenzo Torrentino in Florence,[4] and dedicated to Cosimo I de' Medici,
Grand Duke of Tuscany. It included a valuable treatise on the technical methods
employed in the arts. It was partly rewritten and enlarged in 1568 and provided
with woodcut portraits of artists (some conjectural).

The work has a consistent and notorious favour of Florentines and tends to
attribute to them all the new developments in Renaissance art�for example, the
invention of engraving. Venetian art in particular, let alone other parts of
Europe, is systematically ignored.[5] Between his first and second editions, Vasari
visited Venice and the second edition gave more attention to Venetian art (finally
including Titian) without achieving a neutral point of view. John Symonds claimed
in 1899 that, "It is clear that Vasari often wrote with carelessness, confusing
dates and places, and taking no pains to verify the truth of his assertions" (in
regards to Vasari's life of Nicola Pisano), while acknowledging that, despite these
shortcomings, it is one of the basic sources for information on the Renaissance in
Italy.[6]

Vasari's biographies are interspersed with amusing gossip. Many of his anecdotes
have the ring of truth, although likely inventions. Others are generic fictions,
such as the tale of young Giotto painting a fly on the surface of a painting by
Cimabue that the older master repeatedly tried to brush away, a genre tale that
echoes anecdotes told of the Greek painter Apelles. He did not research archives
for exact dates, as modern art historians do, and naturally his biographies are
most dependable for the painters of his own generation and the immediately
preceding one. Modern criticism�with all the new materials opened up by
research�has corrected many of his traditional dates and attributions. The work is
widely considered a classic even today, though it is widely agreed that it must be
supplemented by modern scientific research.

Vasari includes a forty-two-page sketch of his own biography at the end of his
Vite, and adds further details about himself and his family in his lives of Lazzaro
Vasari and Francesco de' Rossi.

Influence
Vasari's Vite has been described as "by far the most influential single text for
the history of Renaissance art"[7] and "the most important work of Renaissance
biography of artists".[1] Its influence is situated mainly in three domains: as an
example for contemporary and later biographers and art historians, as a defining
factor in the view on the Renaissance and the role of Florence and Rome in it, and
as a major source of information on the lives and works of early Renaissance
artists from Italy.

The Vite has been translated wholly or partially into many languages, including
English, Dutch, German, Spanish, French and Russian.

Early translations became a model for others

The Vite formed a model for encyclopedias of artist biographies. Different 17th
century translators became artist biographers in their own country of origin and
were often called the Vasari of their country. Karel Van Mander was probably the
first Vasarian author with his Painting book (Het Schilderboeck, 1604), which
encompassed not only the first Dutch translation of Vasari, but also the first
Dutch translation of Ovid and was accompanied by a list of Italian painters who
appeared on the scene after Vasari, and the first comprehensive list of biographies
of painters from the Low Countries.[1] Similarly, Joachim von Sandrart, author of
Deutsche Akademie (1675), became known as the "German Vasari" and Antonio Palomino,
author of An account of the lives and works of the most eminent Spanish painters,
sculptors and architects (1724), became the "Spanish Vasari".[8] In England,
Aglionby's Painting Illustrated from 1685 was largely based on Vasari as well.[1]

View of the Renaissance

The Vite is also important as the basis for discussions about the development of
style.[9] It influenced the view art historians had of the Early Renaissance for a
long time, placing too much emphasis on the achievements of Florentine and Roman
artists while ignoring those of the rest of Italy and certainly the artists from
the rest of Europe.[10]

Source of information
For centuries, it has been the most important source of information on Early
Renaissance Italian (and especially Tuscan) painters and the attribution of their
paintings. In 1899, John Addington Symonds used the Vite as one of his basic
sources for the description of artists in his seven books on the Renaissance in
Italy,[11] and nowadays it is still, despite its obvious biases and shortcomings,
the basis for the biographies of many artists like Leonardo da Vinci.[12]

Contents
The Vite contains the biographies of many important Italian artists, and is also
adopted as a sort of classical reference guide for their names, which are sometimes
used in different ways. The following list respects the order of the book, as
divided into its three parts. The book starts with a dedication to Cosimo I de'
Medici and a preface, and then starts with technical and background texts about
architecture, sculpture, and painting.[13] A second preface follows, introducing
the actual "Vite" in parts 2 to 5. What follows is the complete list from the
second (1568) edition. In a few cases, different very short biographies were given
in one section.

Part 2
Cimabue
Arnolfo di Lapo, with Bonanno
Nicola Pisano
Giovanni Pisano
Andrea Tafi
Gaddo Gaddi
Margaritone
Giotto, with Puccio Capanna
Agostino and Agnolo
Stefano and Ugolino
Pietro Lorenzetti (Pietro Laurati)
Andrea Pisano
Buonamico Buffalmacco
Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Ambruogio Laurati)
Pietro Cavallini
Simone Martini with Lippo Memmi
Taddeo Gaddi
Andrea Orcagna (Andrea di Cione)
Tommaso Fiorentino (Giottino)
Giovanni da Ponte
Agnolo Gaddi with Cennino Cennini
Berna Sanese (Barna da Siena)
Duccio
Antonio Viniziano (Antonio Veneziano)
Jacopo di Casentino
Spinello Aretino
Gherardo Starnina
Lippo
Lorenzo Monaco
Taddeo Bartoli
Lorenzo di Bicci with Bicci di Lorenzo and Neri di Bicci
Part 3
Jacopo della Quercia
Niccolo Aretino (Niccol� di Piero Lamberti)
Dello (Dello di Niccol� Delli)
Nanni di Banco
Luca della Robbia with Andrea and Girolamo della Robbia
Paolo Uccello
Lorenzo Ghiberti with Niccol� di Piero Lamberti
Masolino da Panicale
Parri Spinelli
Masaccio
Filippo Brunelleschi
Donatello
Michelozzo Michelozzi with Pagno di Lapo Portigiani
Antonio Filarete and Simone (Simone Ghini)
Giuliano da Maiano
Piero della Francesca
Fra Angelico with Domenico di Michelino and Attavante
Leon Battista Alberti
Lazaro Vasari
Antonello da Messina
Alesso Baldovinetti
Vellano da Padova (Bartolomeo Bellano)
Fra Filippo Lippi with Fra Diamante and Jacopo del Sellaio
Paolo Romano, Mino del Reame, Chimenti Camicia, and Baccio Pontelli
Andrea del Castagno and Domenico Veneziano
Gentile da Fabriano
Vittore Pisanello
Pesello and Francesco Pesellino
Benozzo Gozzoli with Melozzo da Forl�
Francesco di Giorgio and Vecchietta (Lorenzo di Pietro)
Galasso Ferrarese with Cosm� Tura
Antonio and Bernardo Rossellino
Desiderio da Settignano
Mino da Fiesole
Lorenzo Costa with Ludovico Mazzolino
Ercole Ferrarese
Jacopo, Giovanni and Gentile Bellini with Niccol� Rondinelli and Benedetto Coda
Cosimo Rosselli
Il Cecca (Francesco d�Angelo)
Don Bartolomeo Abbate di S. Clemente (Bartolomeo della Gatta) with Matteo Lappoli
Gherardo di Giovanni del Fora
Domenico Ghirlandaio with Benedetto, David Ghirlandaio and Bastiano Mainardi
Antonio Pollaiuolo and Piero Pollaiuolo with Maso Finiguerra
Sandro Botticelli
Benedetto da Maiano
Andrea del Verrocchio with Benedetto and Santi Buglioni
Andrea Mantegna
Filippino Lippi
Bernardino Pinturicchio with Niccol� Alunno and Gerino da Pistoia
Francesco Francia with Caradosso [it]
Pietro Perugino with Rocco Zoppo, Francesco Bacchiacca, Eusebio da San Giorgio and
Andrea Aloigi (l'Ingegno)
Vittore Scarpaccia with Stefano da Verona, Jacopo Avanzi, Altichiero, Jacobello del
Fiore, Guariento di Arpo, Giusto de' Menabuoi, Vincenzo Foppa, Vincenzo Catena,
Cima da Conegliano, Marco Basaiti, Bartolomeo Vivarini, Giovanni di Niccol�
Mansueti, Vittore Belliniano, Bartolomeo Montagna, Benedetto Rusconi, Giovanni
Buonconsiglio, Simone Bianco, Tullio Lombardo, Vincenzo Civerchio, Girolamo Romani,
Alessandro Bonvicino (il Moretto), Francesco Bonsignori, Giovanni Francesco Caroto
and Francesco Torbido (il Moro)
Iacopo detto l'Indaco (Jacopo Torni)
Luca Signorelli with Tommaso Bernabei (il Papacello)
Part 4
Leonardo da Vinci
Giorgione da Castelfranco
Antonio da Correggio
Piero di Cosimo
Donato Bramante (Bramante da Urbino)
Fra Bartolomeo Di San Marco
Mariotto Albertinelli
Raffaellino del Garbo
Pietro Torrigiano (Torrigiano)
Giuliano da Sangallo
Antonio da Sangallo
Raphael
Guillaume de Marcillat
Simone del Pollaiolo (il Cronaca)
Davide Ghirlandaio and Benedetto Ghirlandaio
Domenico Puligo
Andrea da Fiesole
Vincenzo da San Gimignano and Timoteo da Urbino
Andrea Sansovino (Andrea dal Monte Sansovino)
Benedetto da Rovezzano
Baccio da Montelupo and Raffaello da Montelupo (father and son)
Lorenzo di Credi
Boccaccio Boccaccino (Boccaccino Cremonese)
Lorenzetto
Baldassare Peruzzi
Pellegrino da Modena (Pellegrino Aretusi)
Giovan Francesco, also known as il Fattore
Andrea del Sarto
Properzia de� Rossi, with suor Plautilla Nelli, Lucrezia Quistelli and Sofonisba
Anguissola
Alfonso Lombardi
Michele Agnolo (Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli)
Girolamo Santacroce
Dosso Dossi and Battista Dossi (Dossi brothers)
Giovanni Antonio Licino
Rosso Fiorentino
Giovanni Antonio Sogliani
Girolamo da Treviso (Girolamo Da Trevigi)
Polidoro da Caravaggio and Maturino da Firenze (Maturino Fiorentino)
Bartolommeo Ramenghi (Bartolomeo Da Bagnacavallo)
Marco Calabrese
Morto Da Feltro
Franciabigio
Francesco Mazzola (Il Parmigianino)
Jacopo Palma (Il Palma)
Lorenzo Lotto
Fra Giocondo
Francesco Granacci
Baccio d'Agnolo
Valerio Vicentino (Valerio Belli), Giovanni da Castel Bolognese (Giovanni Bernardi)
and Matteo dal Nasaro Veronese
Part 5
Marcantonio Bolognese
Antonio da Sangallo
Giulio Romano
Sebastiano del Piombo (Sebastiano Viniziano)
Perino Del Vaga
Domenico Beccafumi
Giovann'Antonio Lappoli
Niccol� Soggi
Niccol� detto il Tribolo
Pierino da Vinci
Baccio Bandinelli
Giuliano Bugiardini
Cristofano Gherardi
Jacopo da Pontormo
Simone Mosca
Girolamo Genga, Bartolommeo Genga and Giovanbatista San Marino (Giovanni Battista
Belluzzi)
Michele Sanmicheli with Paolo Veronese (Paulino) and Paolo Farinati
Giovannantonio detto il Soddoma da Verzelli
Bastiano detto Aristotile da San Gallo
Benedetto Garofalo and Girolamo da Carpi with Bramantino and Bernardino Gatti (il
Soiaro)
Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Davide Ghirlandaio and Benedetto Ghirlandaio
Giovanni da Udine
Battista Franco with Jacopo Tintoretto and Andrea Schiavone
Francesco Rustichi
Fra' Giovann'Agnolo Montorsoli
Francesco detto de' Salviati with Giuseppe Porta
Daniello Ricciarelli da Volterra
Taddeo Zucchero with Federico Zuccari
Part 6
Michelangelo Buonarroti (Michelangelo) with Tiberio Calcagni and Marcello Venusti
Francesco Primaticcio with Giovanni Battista Ramenghi (il Bagnacavallo Jr.),
Prospero Fontana, Niccol� dell'Abbate, Domenico del Barbieri, Lorenzo Sabatini,
Pellegrino Tibaldi, Luca Longhi, Livio Agresti, Marco Marchetti, Giovanni Boscoli
[it] and Bartolomeo Passarotti
Tiziano da Cadore (Titian) with Jacopo Bassano, Giovanni Maria Verdizotti, Jan van
Calcar (Giovanni fiammingo) and Paris Bordon
Jacopo Sansovino with Andrea Palladio, Alessandro Vittoria, Bartolomeo Ammannati
and Danese Cattaneo
Lione Aretino (Leone Leoni) with Guglielmo Della Porta and Galeazzo Alessi
Giulio Clovio, manuscript illuminator
Various Italian artists: Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, Marcello Venusti,
Iacopino del Conte, Dono Doni, Cesare Nebbia and Niccol� Circignani detto il
Pomarancio
Bronzino
Giorgio Vasari
Editions
There have been numerous editions and translations of the Lives over the years.
Many have been abridgements due to the great length of the original. The most
recent new English translation is by Peter and Julia Conaway Bondanella, published
in the Oxford World's Classics series in 1991.[14]

Parts I and II of 1568 edition (cover only)

Parts I and II of 1568 edition (full book)

Part III, volume 1 of 1568 edition (full book)

Part III, volume 2 of 1568 edition (full book)

Versions online
�Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists.� Website created by Adrienne DeAngelis.
Currently incomplete, intended to be unabridged, in English.
Le Vite. Selections of the 1550 edition (drawn from a 1768 reprint), in Italian.
1568 edition on Google Books Part III, v. 1 (from Leonardo to Perino del Vaga), in
Italian
Le Vite. 1568 edition, Part III, v. 2 (from Beccafumi to Vasari), in Italian
Stories Of The Italian Artists From Vasari. Translated by E. L. Seeley, 1908.
Abridged, in English.
Le vite Progetto Manuzio, 1550 edition in Italian
See also
Egg of Columbus (Lives contains a similar story to the Columbus' egg story)
References
Max Marmor, Kunstliteratur, translated by Ernst Gombrich, in Art Documentation Vol
11 # 1, 1992
"University of Leeds website". Webprod1.leeds.ac.uk. Retrieved 2014-02-05.
Murray, P. and L. Murray. (1963) The art of the renaissance. London: Thames &
Hudson (World of Art), p. 8. ISBN 978-0-500-20008-7
"Christopher Witcombe, Art History and Technology". Witcombe.sbc.edu. Retrieved
2014-02-05.
"Takuma Ito, Studies of Western Art No. 12, July 2007". Sangensha.co.jp. Retrieved
2014-02-05.
"John Addington Symonds, ''Renaissance in Italy,'' 1899, Vol. 3, Part 2".
Fullbooks.com. Retrieved 2014-02-05.
Professor Hope, The Warburg Institute, course synopsis, 2007 Archived 27 September
2007 at the Wayback Machine.
"Abstract from the transactions of the bibliographical society". Muse.jhu.edu.
Retrieved 2014-02-05.
Elinor Richter, reviewing Philip Sohms study of style in the art theory :"Giorgio
Vasari's Vite, the first edition of which was published in 1550, provides the
foundation for any discussion of the development of style."
Stephanie Leone, The Renaissance Society of America, 2007: "[...] the traditional
definition of Renaissance art as the humanistic innovations of Florentine and Roman
artists, to which Giorgio Vasari's Vite (1550, 1568) gave rise."
"Full text of John Symonds' "Renaissance in Italy"". Gutenberg.org. 2004-03-13.
Retrieved 2014-02-05.
"Bernard Barryte, The life of Leonardo da Vinci, University of Rochester Library
Bulletin (1984)". Lib.rochester.edu. Retrieved 2014-02-05.
Vasari, Giorgio. (1907) Vasari on technique: being the introduction to the three
arts of design, architecture, sculpture and painting, prefixed to the Lives of the
most excellent painters, sculptors and architects. G. Baldwin Brown Ed. Louisa S.
Maclehose Trans. London: Dent.
Vasari, G. The Lives of the Artists. Translated with an introduction and notes by
J.C. and Peter Bondanella. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Oxford World�s
Classics), 1991. ISBN 9780199537198
Sources
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vasari, Giorgio". Encyclop�dia Britannica. 27 (11th
ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 925�926.
External links
Media related to Le Vite at Wikimedia Commons
Original text transcribed from 1568 edition with illustrations, on Italian
Wikisource
Free English translation of the work divided into ten ebooks at Project Gutenberg
Original Italian version from 1568 on archive.org
Petri Liukkonen. "Giorgio Vasari". Books and Writers
Excerpts from the Vite combined with photos of works mentioned by Vasari.
Gli artisti principali citati dal Vasari nelle Vite (elenco)
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects public domain
audiobook at LibriVox
Categories: 1550 books1568 booksBiographies about artistsItalian booksLists of
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