Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists was written in 1550, with a much enlarged edition in 1568. It was the first recognisable "art history" book and still influences the way art history (particularly Italian Renaissance art history) is understood and taught today. These three videos will firstly give you a brief background introduction to Renaissance Italy, then get you to think like Vasari, showing you how he divided the Renaissance into three. You'll need a pen and paper to jot down impressions of some of the paintings for the second video. Finally, we'll consider the implications of Vasari's categorisations and how they relate to wider shifts towards absolutist rule and in sixteenth-century Europe.