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.

The 4th century BC Greek painter Parrhasius murdered his model--an old man who was his slave--to achieve, so the story goes, a more lifelike depiction of nature. The tale has inspired similar, more elaborate stories about both well known and obscure artists--including da Vinci, Michelangelo and Rubens. Elements of it have appeared in theater, literature and film, as well as in comments by painters, historians, critics and anatomists. Challenging the archetype of the artist as a sympathetic lover of nature, this book examines the artist as cruel and murderous in service of art and ambition, and indirectly addresses a different understanding of the relationship between art and life.