The Collector of LivesGiorgio Vasari (15111574) 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