Despite what stated by his biographer Giorgio Vasari, the Vannucci were one of the richest in the town.

Giorgio Vasari, who argued that historical progress in art reached its peak in Michelangelo, emphasized Alberti's scholarly achievements, not his artistic talents: " He spent his time finding out about the world and studying the proportions of antiquities ; but above all, following his natural genius, he concentrated on writing rather than on applied work.

Salai executed a number of paintings under the name of Andrea Salai, but although Vasari claims that Leonardo " taught him a great deal about painting ", his work is generally considered to be of less artistic merit than others among Leonardo's pupils, such as Marco d ' Oggione and Boltraffio.

Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari exemplify this strain of Maniera that lasted from about 1530 to 1580.

The contemporary opinion about this work – " a revelation of all the potentialities and force of the art of sculpture " – was summarized by Vasari: " It is certainly a miracle that a formless block of stone could ever have been reduced to a perfection that nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh.

Art historian Giorgio Vasari wrote about Anguissola that she " has shown greater application and better grace than any other woman of our age in her endeavors at drawing ; she has thus succeeded not only in drawing, coloring and painting from nature, and copying excellently from others, but by herself has created rare and very beautiful paintings.

The great early art historian Giorgio Vasari wrote this about Anguissola: " Anguissola has shown greater application and better grace than any other woman of our age in her endeavors at drawing ; she has thus succeeded not only in drawing, coloring and painting from nature, and copying excellently from others, but by herself has created rare and very beautiful paintings.

His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years ( from 1504 – 1508 ) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates.

Frescos in Perugia of about 1505 show a new monumental quality in the figures which may represent the influence of Fra Bartolomeo, who Vasari says was a friend of Raphael.

According to Giorgio Vasari, shortly after the installation of his Pietà Michelangelo overheard ( or asked visitors about the sculptor ) someone remark that it was the work of another sculptor, Cristoforo Solari, whereupon Michelangelo signed the sculpture.

Little is known about the early life of Brunelleschi, the only sources being Antonio Manetti and Giorgio Vasari.

Vasari includes a sketch of his own biography at the end of his Lives, and adds further details about himself and his family in his lives of Lazzaro Vasari and Francesco Salviati.

In 1500, when he was only twenty-three ( that is, if Vasari is correct about his age when he died ), he was chosen to paint portraits of the Doge Agostino Barbarigo and the condottiere Consalvo Ferrante.

Giorgio Vasari includes a biography of Buonamico in his Lives, in which he tells several anecdotes about his comic escapades.

He is described by some as the Vasari of Seville: voluble and didactic about his theories of painting and thoughts about painters, conventional and uninspired in his executions

The painting's title Mona Lisa stems from a description by Giorgio Vasari: " Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife ...."

Though traditionally spelled " Mona " ( as used by Vasari ), in modern Italian, this short form of madonna is now usually spelled Monna.

Some scholars have argued that Lisa del Giocondo was the subject of a different portrait, identifying at least four other paintings as the Mona Lisa referred to by Vasari.

He was also named Console of the prestigious Accademia delle Arti del Disegno of Florence, founded by the Duke Cosimo I, at 13 January 1563, under the influence of Vasari.

Fra Angelico ( born Guido di Pietro ; c. 1395 – February 18, 1455 ) was an Early Italian Renaissance painter described by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having " a rare and perfect talent ".

Writers such as Giorgio Vasari followed public opinion in judging the best painters above all on their production of large canvases of history painting, and artists continued for centuries to strive to make their reputation by producing such works, often neglecting genres to which their talents were better suited.

Vasari, who is generally thought to have known the painting only by repute, said that " the smile was so pleasing that it seemed divine rather than human ; and those who saw it were amazed to find that it was as alive as the original ".

During the time that Melzi was ordering the material into chapters for publication, they were examined by a number of anatomists and artists, including Vasari, Cellini and Albrecht Dürer who made a number of drawings from them.

Two biographies were published of him during his lifetime ; one of them, by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint that continued to have currency in art history for centuries.

The word " Gothic " was applied as a pejorative term to all things Northern European and, hence, barbarian, probably first by Giorgio Vasari.

Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his study trying to grasp the exact vanishing point.

His depiction of a fierce lion fighting with a venom-spouting snake was especially appreciated by Vasari.

On the other hand, others bemoaned the austere Roman culture during his papacy ; Giorgio Vasari in 1567 spoke of a time when " the grandeurs of this place reduced by stinginess of living, dullness of dress, and simplicity in so many things ; Rome is fallen into much misery, and if it is true that Christ loved poverty and the City wishes to follow in his steps she will quickly become beggarly ...".

Three frescoes in the Sala Regia Palace of the Vatican depicting the events were painted by Giorgio Vasari, and a commemorative medal was issued with Gregory's portrait and on the obverse a chastising angel, sword in hand and the legend (" Massacre of the Huguenots ").

The term was first used retrospectively by the Italian artist and critic Giorgio Vasari ( 1511 – 1574 ) in his book The Lives of the Artists ( published 1550 ).

Growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari.

Vasari wrote that it was impossible to distinguish their hands at this period, but many modern art historians claim to do better and detect his hand in specific areas of works by Perugino or his workshop.

Baviero Carocci, called " Il Baviera " by Vasari, an assistant who Raphael evidently trusted with his money, ended up in control of most of the copper plates after Raphael's death, and had a successful career in the new occupation of a publisher of prints.

According to Vasari, Raphael's premature death on Good Friday ( April 6, 1520 ), which was possibly his 37th birthday, was caused by a night of excessive sex with Luti, after which he fell into a fever and, not telling his doctors that this was its cause, was given the wrong cure, which killed him.

Building of the palace was begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 for Cosimo I de ' Medici as the offices for the Florentine magistrates — hence the name " uffizi " (" offices ").

Vasari, a painter as well as architect, emphasized the perspective length by the matching facades ' continuous roof cornices, and unbroken cornices between storeys and the three continuous steps on which the palace-fronts stand.

His revolutionary approach to oil was such that a myth, perpetuated by Giorgio Vasari, arose that he had invented oil painting.

According to Vasari, the church was designed by Giovanni Pisano.

Vasari describes how Leonardo, troubled over his ability to adequately depict the faces of Christ and the traitor Judas, told the Duke that he might be obliged to use the prior as his model.

Vasari relates that if Leonardo saw a person with an interesting face he would follow them around all day observing them.

Giorgio Vasari, in the enlarged edition of Lives of the Artists, 1568, introduced his chapter on Leonardo da Vinci with the following words:

According to Vasari, who was not only the architect of the Uffizi but also the author of Lives of the Artists, published in 1550 and 1568, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo gathered at the Uffizi " for beauty, for work and for recreation.

According to Leonardo's contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, "... after he had lingered over it four years, left it unfinished ...." Leonardo, later in his life, is said to have regretted " never having completed a single work ".

Vasari mentions an important event in Giorgione's life, and one which had influence on his work, his meeting with Leonardo da Vinci on the occasion of the Tuscan master's visit to Venice in 1500.

According to Vasari, Andrea resolved never to touch the brush again because Leonardo, his pupil, had far surpassed him, but later critics consider this story apocryphal.

These matters were considered of great importance by artist-theorists such as Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Giorgio Vasari.

According to Vasari, he apprenticed in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio alongside Leonardo da Vinci, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Lorenzo di Credi, Filippino Lippi and others.

The promotion of the fine arts over the decorative in European thought can largely be traced to the Renaissance, when Italian theorists such as Vasari promoted artistic values, exemplified by the artists of the High Renaissance, that placed little value on the cost of materials or the amount of skilled work required to produce a work, but instead valued artistic imagination and the individual touch of the hand of a supremely gifted master such as Michelangelo, Raphael or Leonardo da Vinci, reviving to some extent the approach of antiquity.

The earliest reference to it is by the biographer Giorgio Vasari who, writing in the mid 16th century, says that the work was created while Leonardo was in Florence, as a guest of the Servite Monastery.