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Lives of the Artists, Volume 1 By Giorgio Vasari / Penguin Putnam Inc. Vasari was himself a painter, but he is really remembered for these biographies which begin with Cimabue and Giotto in the late thirteenth century and trace the developments in Italian art down to the golden epoch of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Titian. Included are Vasari's reflections on the state of contemporary Florentine art - its philosopohy and its aims - which lend considerable historical and critical value to a work which has been tremendously popular since its first edition in 1550.