Summary: In the tradition of The Swerve and How to Live, this vivid biography reveals how a Renaissance scholar reshaped the visual world. A narrative of intrigue and gossip, deceit and genius, and colorful artistic rivalry, The Collector of Lives presents a lively and inviting introduction to a seminal figure in the very human story of art itself. An accomplished painter, architect, and diplomat, Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) is best known for Lives of the Artists, his classic account of the great masters—an extraordinary book that invented the genre of artistic biography, singlehandedly established the canon of Italian Renaissance art, and founded the cults of Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo that persist to this day. Vasari positioned art as an intellectual pursuit instead of just a technical skill, teaching us to view artists as geniuses and visionaries rather than as simple craftsmen. Immersing readers in the world of the Medici of Florence and the popes of Rome, Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney show the great works of Western culture taking shape under Vasari’s eye amid the thrilling culture of Renaissance Italy.

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