Lives of Three Renaissance Artists

by Giorgio Vasari, George Bull (translator)

One of 60 low-priced classic texts published to celebrate Penguin's 60th anniversary. All the titles are extracts from "Penguin Classics" titles.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Art

58 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1550

About the author

Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter and architect, known for his famous biographies of Italian artists.

Reviews

[Alana · Rating 3 out of 5]

basically Vasari gives a brief portrait of the lives of 3 out of the 4 ninja turtles: Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo. I'm left wondering why he skipped out and cancelled on Donatello like that?? Didn't bother to mention pizza ONCE even tho the whole time they in Italy???

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting little book that covers the artists da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo. Each essay was written after their deaths by someone who was a contemporary so they all have an interesting perspective instead of what you read from someone that did not know them. All have details about their deaths I had never known and about the politics some of them had to deal with. When your biggest patron is the de Medici family you have to tread carefully. Well worth the read and it is a slim little volume.

[aaron trowbridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Penguin 60 takes three excerpts from Lives of the Artists Volume I: Da Vinci, Raphael, and Michaelangelo. A peer of Michaelangelo, Vasari, seeing himself as a scholar in addition to an artist, an exemplary uomo rinascimentale, provides us with an amazing account of, indeed, the lives of the artists of the Renaissance, when to be such a person was to be the true celebrity of the time.

Da Vinci spent so much time pondering every detail that he barely completed any work. Raphael's was so precocious that he surpassed everyone around him until... Michaelangelo, whose genius was so lofty -- his neck was bent and his vision altered from his neck craning up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for months on end -- that he, when confronted by the Pope about the incomplete status of the ceiling fresco, that it would be finished "when it satisfies me as an artist".

[Gordon Clark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Three biographies covering Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo . Amazing that Vasari died in 1574, just 10 years after the youngest of these three - Michelangelo. Not that many redeeming features as biographies… a lot of Leonardos tale seems based on a premise that he was so perfect that he made many mistakes! What’s fascinating is the detail in these. I presume art historians have been all over these stories: lots of intricate details in these tales, such as who Mona Lisa was, and the chisel marks on Michelangelo’s head and base from the sculptor who messed up the block first!

[Ivan Monckton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been waiting to be read since I bought it (for 60p!) in 1995, and I must say, I’m glad it wasn’t weaned out, because it is a fascinating account of the lives and work of three artists whose I’ve always admired, but knew nothing about them. The author, Giorgio Vasari, an artist himself wrote “Lives of the Artists”in the 1500s, and this mini Penguin Classic dealt with Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo, all three of whom were painting during Vasari’s lifetime. Although they only get about 20 pages each, lots of detail is crammed in.

[gaverne Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, great book!

[Bertalan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could rate it 10 stars

[Sevval · Rating 4 out of 5]

the big 3