Why Mona Lisa Smiles discusses Vasari's shrewd, witty, intimate awareness of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio and relates the Lives to the works of Castiglione, Aretino, Cellini, and Rabelais.

Giorgio Vasari, the "Father of Art History," first published his Vite in 1550. An instant sensation, the Vite was more than just a chronological sequence of biographies: it was the first critical history of artistic style. This fully illustrated Grove Art Essentials title delves into Giorgio Vasari's career as a painter, draughtsman, architect, and scholar from early life and training through his years of maturity. Accompanied by a complete catalogue of his writings and extensive bibliography, this volume also contains an in-depth exploration of his writings and their impact on the art historical discipline.

Beyond the Concept of Sport challenges tired assumptions about athletics to unveil sports’ underestimated yet far-reaching social impact and philosophical significance. While governments downplay its influence, author Robert Griffiths recognizes that sports – especially cricket – deeply channels the human spirit for participants and fans alike. He eschews cliches to deliver fresh insight into sports’ resonance. This is no dry academic tome, but rather a lively examination blending scholarship with accessibility. Griffiths brings iconoclastic yet sage opinions to unpacking how athletic pursuits shape culture and consciousness. He illuminates the under-appreciated role sports play in forging identity, purpose, inspiration, escapism and more for millions globally. Grappling with issues often overlooked when discussing athletics, Griffiths’ unconventional analysis explores fandom, nationalism, arts, business, and the very meaning woven through sports’ rituals. Written with passionate intellect, wry wit, and a distaste for the dull, Beyond the Concept of Sport cries out to be read by both die-hard fans and curious sceptics. After all, few human realms spark such fervour and unity across the world’s divides like that of sports. This book captures that emotional impact while elevating sports as a subject worthy of serious yet spirited consideration.

In this book, Douglas Biow analyzes Vasari's Lives of the Artists - often considered the first great work of art history in the modern era - from a new perspective. He focuses on key words and shows how they address a variety of compelling, culturally determined ideas circulating in late Renaissance Italy. The keywords chosen for this study investigate five seemingly divergent, yet still interconnected, ideas. What does it mean to have a 'profession', professione, and possess 'genius', ingegno, in the visual arts? How is 'speed', prestezza, valued among visual artists of the period and how is 'time', tempo, conceptualized in Vasari's narrative and descriptions of visual art? Finally, how is the 'night', notte, conceived and visually represented as a distinct span of time in The Lives? Written in an engaging manner for specialists and non-specialists alike, Vasari's Words places the Lives - a truly foundational and innovative book of Western culture - within the context of the modern discipline of intellectual history.

Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of the Artists (1550, 1568) has been a key subject of study for students of the Italian Renaissance over the hundreds of years since its publication. It has maintained a powerful grip on the historical imagination and continues to influence the way scholars treat the Renaissance, its artists, and the entire intellectual enterprise of Western art. Focusing on Vasari's literary and narrative achievements, Andrew Ladis turns to Vasari's villains, rather than his heroes, to demonstrate the biographer's foremost interest in glorifying Michelangelo. Approaching Lives on Vasari's terms--as the grand story of the rebirth and triumph of art in Italy--Ladis argues that Vasari was not a mere compiler of facts, but a shrewd, self-confident author aware of the power of metaphor. With a literary reading of the text, Ladis analyzes Vasari's motives and methods as an attempt to portray the great Michelangelo as a Christlike exemplum of ultimate light and goodness. Through biographic details both real and invented, Vasari presents all other artists as various players with varying degrees of heroic and villainous value. Antiheroic characters such as Buffalmacco, Lippi, and Castagno, Ladis argues, serve to accentuate the contrasting greatness of Michelangelo.