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.
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