#161: The Father of Art History
Giorgio Vasari has been variously called the father of art history, the inventor of artistic biography, and the author of \u201cthe Bible of the Italian Renaissance\u201d\u2014a little book called The Lives of the Artists. It\u2019s a touchstone for scholars looking to get a peek at life in Michelangelo\u2019s day, and quite fun, too, depending on whose wildly embellished life you\u2019re reading. Ingrid Rowland joins us on the podcast to tell the story of the man behind the men of the Renaissance that we know so well\u2014and, of course, to gossip a bit about Florentine egos, and even a few naughty monkeys. Visit the episode page for a slideshow of Vasari\u2019s work.
Go beyond the episode:
- Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney\u2019s The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art
- Page through a scanned 1568 copy of The Lives of the Artists on Archive.org (beautiful even if you don\u2019t read Italian)
- Explore the Palazzo Vecchio, which includes dozens of Vasari\u2019s works, on the Google Art Project
- Or take a hilarious video tour of the Palazzo Vecchio\u2014which Vasari renovated and lined with his own paintings\u2014with \u201cGiorgio Vasari\u201d (played by an actor far more attractive than Vasari was in real life)
- Can\u2019t book a ticket to Florence? The Uffizi offers a virtual tour of its halls, also designed by Vasari
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