Overview

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.

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9780393356366

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Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney give full measure to his [Georgia Vasari's] artistic skills (and the diplomatic adroitness he needed to exercise them) and place him again at the centre of 16th-century Italian art. -- Michael Prodger, Art Books of the Year 2017 - The Sunday Times ... absorbing... a page-turningly compelling overview of Giorgio Vasari and his age... -- Literary Review ... an insightful and gripping new book... Ms Rowland and Mr Charney draw a panoramic view of the art-world during the Renaissance, placing Vasari at the centre... This is an important book and long awaited. The authors have done a commendable job of returning to his rightful place the man who inflated the reputation of art and artists so successfully that he himself was squeezed out of the picture. -- The Economist The authors' greatest service to their subject is to reestablish him as a tireless artist and a central witness to an epic period of Italian history... -- The Sunday Times

The authors' greatest service to their subject is to reestablish him as a tireless artist and a central witness to an epic period of Italian history. -- Michael Prodger - The Sunday Times ... an insightful and gripping new book... Ms Rowland and Mr Charney draw a panoramic view of the art-world during the Renaissance, placing Vasari at the centre... This is an important book and long awaited. The authors have done a commendable job of returning to his rightful place the man who inflated the reputation of art and artists so successfully that he himself was squeezed out of the picture. -- The Economist ... absorbing... a page-turningly compelling overview of Giorgio Vasari and his age... -- Literary Review Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney give full measure to his [Georgio Vasari's] artistic skills (and the diplomatic adroitness he needed to exercise them) and place him again at the centre of 16th-century Italian art. -- Michael Prodger, Art Books of the Year 2017 - The Sunday Times Ingrid Rowland, a prominent scholar of Renaissance art and history, and her fellow writer and historian Noah Charney, wear their erudition lightly in their gracefully written biography. -- Deborah Solomon - New York Times Book Review Readers curious about the making of Renaissance art, its cast of characters and political intrigue, will find much to relish in these pages. This is a lively, highly readable point of entry into an important and fascinating text. -- Cammy Brothers - The Wall Street Journal [Rowland and Charney's] account of Vasari's Tuscany, and of the facts (and fictions) that went into his Lives, is a fitting tribute to their subject's biographical achievements. -- The New Yorker

Author Information

Noah Charney is an internationally best-selling author and professor of art history living in Slovenia. Ingrid Rowland is an award-winning author, a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, and a professor of history, classics, art, and architecture at the University of Notre Dame, based in Rome.

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