born July 30, 1511, Arezzo
died June 27, 1574, Florence
Italian painter, architect, and writer.
Though he was a prolific painter in the Uffizi Gallery ), but even his architecture is overshadowed by his writings. His Lives of the Most Eminent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors (1550) offers biographies of early to late Renaissance artists. His style is eminently readable and his material is well researched, though when facts were scarce he did not hesitate to fill in the gaps. In his view, Giotto had revived the art of true representation after its decline in the early Middle Ages, and succeeding artists had brought that art progressively closer to the perfection achieved by {{link=Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti">Michelangelo . The work's second edition (1568) has proved an invaluable resource for art historians.
Vasari, self-portrait, oil painting; in the Uffizi, Florence
Scala/Art Resource, New York