This book explores the rich literary character and rhetorical strategies of Giorgio Vasari's "Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects," which tells the story of Italian art as it unfolded from its beginnings in the Trecento to its pinnacle in Michelangelo and the art of the Academy in the mid-sixteenth century. The contributors propose ways to read Vasari's text in the light of recent disputes over what is fact, fiction, or biography, and who may have read Vasari's editions when they were first published. The essays isolate and analyze select threads from Vasari's luxurious textual tapestry: these range from architecture, cosmology and philosophy to biography, comedy, elegy and travelogue. In doing so, the authors have built upon ideas proposed in recent studies of the "Lives," including important works by Paul Barolsky and Patricia Rubin.

In this collection of nine essays some of the preeminent art historians in the United States consider the relationship between art and craft, between the creative idea and its realization, in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. The essays, all previously unpublished, are devoted to the pictorial arts and are accompanied by nearly 150 illustrations. Examining works by such artists as Michelangelo, Titian, Volterrano, Giovanni di Paolo, and Annibale Carracci (along with aspects of the artists' creative processes, work habits, and aesthetic convictions), the essayists explore the ways in which art was conceived and produced at a time when collaboration with pupils, assistants, or independent masters was an accepted part of the artistic process. The consensus of the contributors amounts to a revision, or at least a qualification, of Bernard Berenson's interpretation of the emergent Renaissance ideal of individual ""genius"" as a measure of original artistic achievement: we must accord greater influence to the collaborative, appropriative conventions and practices of the craft workshop, which persisted into and beyond the Renaissance from its origins in the Middle Ages. Consequently, we must acknowledge the sometimes rather ordinary beginnings of some of the world's great works of art--an admission, say the contributors, that will open new avenues of study and enhance our understanding of the complex connections between invention and execution. With one exception, these essays were delivered as lectures in conjunction with the exhibition The Artists and Artisans of Florence: Works from the Horne Museum hosted by the Georgia Museum of Art in the fall of 1992.