"The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8)" by Giorgio Vasari is a series of artist biographies first published in 1550. Written by a Renaissance painter and architect, this groundbreaking work is considered the first important book on art history. Vasari chronicles the lives and works of Italian Renaissance masters, interspersing factual accounts with entertaining gossip and memorable anecdotes. Though criticized for favoring Florentine artists, it remains an influential and widely-read classic that established the genre of artistic biography. (This is an automatically generated summary.)