Leonardo, Michelangelo & Raphael. Lives of the Renaissance Artists

A new translation of Giorgio Vasari's Life of Raphael, fully illustrated, that presents Vasari's appealing narrative with new precision. Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, written in 1550 and 1568, is a classic text of cultural history. This monumental assembly of artists' lives from Giotto to Michelangelo paints a vivid picture of the progression of art in the hands of individual masters. This illustrated stand-alone edition...

'In this painting of Leonardo's there was a smile so pleasing that it seemed divine rather than human.' Often called "the first art historian", Vasari writes with delight on the lives of Leonardo and other celebrated Renaissance artists .

Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto in the thirteenth century, Vasari traces the development of Italian art across three centuries to the golden epoch of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Great men, and their immortal works, are brought vividly to life, as Vasari depicts the young Giotto scratching his first drawings on stone; Donatello gazing at Brunelleschi's crucifix; and Michelangelo's painstaking work on the Sistine Chapel, harassed by the impatient Pope Julius II. The Lives also convey...