These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term `Renaissance,`

Often called "the first art historian", Vasari writes with delight on the lives of Leonardo and other celebrated Renaissance artists . Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80t

Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Most Famous Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550 and 1568) is a classic of cultural history. A monumental assembly of artists’ lives from Giotto to Michelangelo,