“Readers curious about the making of Renaissance art, its cast of characters and political intrigue, will find much to relish in these pages.” —*Wall Street Journal*

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) was a man of many talents—a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, and scholar—but he is best known for Lives of the Artists, which singlehandedly established the canon of Italian Renaissance art. Before Vasari’s extraordinary book, art was considered a technical skill, and artists were mere decorators and craftsmen. It was through Vasari’s visionary writings that Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo came to be regarded as great masters of life as well as art, their creative genius celebrated as a divine gift.

Lauded by Sarah Bakewell as “insightful, gripping, and thoroughly enjoyable,” The Collector of Lives reveals how one Renaissance scholar completely redefined how we look at art.

**

“Gracefully written.”
- Deborah Solomon, *New York Times Book Review*

“[An] intricate and mesmerizing gem of a book for those who enjoy reading about the lives of artists and placing the Renaissance within a greater context.”
- Richard Rivera, *New York Journal of Books*

“Lively… [an] engaging study.”
- Stephen Greenblatt, *New York Review of Books*

“Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney give full measure to [Giorgio Vasari’s] artistic skills (and the diplomatic adroitness he needed to exercise them) and place him again at the centre of 16th-century Italian art.”
- Sunday Times

“An insightful and gripping new book.… Ms Rowland and Mr Charney draw a panoramic view of the art-world during the Renaissance, placing Vasari at the centre.… This is an important book and long awaited. The authors have done a commendable job of returning to his rightful place the man who inflated the reputation of art and artists so successfully that he himself was squeezed out of the picture.”
- Economist

“Insightful, gripping, and thoroughly enjoyable.”
- Sarah Bakewell

“An immersive tour of Vasari’s kaleidoscopic world, rich with court intrigue, iconographic riddles, artistic rivalries, Renaissance wordplay, naughty monkeys, and, possibly, even a lost Leonardo. Rowland and Charney have done the epic biographer proud with this affectionate, original life of the artist.”
- Stacy Schiff

“The Collector of Lives is a fitting tribute to Giorgio Vasari―a book as entertainingly readable as Vasari’s own gossipy tales. Rowland and Charney put this vital figure in Western culture into new contexts and perspectives, offering compelling insights that will entice and satisfy art amateurs and scholars alike.”
- Ross King