Antonio Billi was a Florentine merchant who lived from the end of the fifteenth century into the first half of the sixteenth century. He was an educated man, with an interest in books, and had contact with Florentine literary circles. Although the manuscript bears his name, it was probably not written by him. Nonetheless, it…Continue reading Il libro di Antonio Billi (c. 1520-1530)

When Giorgio Vasari undertook the revision of his Vite, his aim was not simply to update and augment the first version with new and additional material – information that was provided and processed by a network of numerous correspondents and collaborators. He also reconceptualized his master narrative and reassessed the role played therein by certain…Continue reading Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori (1568)

A founding stone of modern art history, the Vite written by the Tuscan painter and architect Giorgio Vasari appeared in first edition in 1550. As has been emphasized in recent scholarship, Vasari’s collection of artists’ biographies followed a clear historiographic structure that interpreted the process of art’s rebirth since the late thirteenth century as a…Continue reading Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani (1550)

At the end of his long career as a sculptor and protagonist of the early Renaissance, Ghiberti wrote the Commentaries which he left unfinished at his death. The work is divided in three parts: the first book deals with antique artists, the second with Tuscan artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, and the third,…Continue reading Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), Commentari (1452-1455)