440 years ago, the pioneer of art history Giorgio Vasari died

Florence - One of the pioneers of art history was the Italian painter, architect, and art historian Giorgio Vasari, who died on June 27, 1574, in Florence at the age of 62. He became famous as the author of biographies of Italian artists from the early Renaissance to Mannerism, and he also introduced terms like "gothic" and was the first to suggest that the famous da Vinci Mona Lisa is a representation of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Gioconda.
    Architecturally, Vasari, a native of the Tuscan Arezzo (July 30, 1511), was mainly active in Florence, where his main work - the Uffizi Palace - houses one of the largest collections of Italian and European painting. He also contributed to the roofing of the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge and is the author of the fresco decoration in the interiors of the Florentine town hall, Palazzo Vecchio, and the frescoes in the Vatican. His buildings can also be found in Pisa and Arezzo.
    His most famous art historical work, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, was first published in 1550 and remains an important source for understanding Renaissance artistic creation even centuries later, as well as a distinctive and readable literary piece. It is thanks to him that a number of details about the personal lives of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Sandro Botticelli, and Donatello are known today.