title: The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art
author: Ingrid Rowland
description: Ingrid Rowland, a prominent scholar of Renaissance art and history, and her fellow writer and historian Noah Charney, wear their erudition lightly in their gracefully written biography.<br /> - <strong>Deborah Solomon, <em>New York Times Book Review</em></strong><br /><br />Readers curious about the making of Renaissance art, its cast of characters and political intrigue, will find much to relish in these pages. This is a lively, highly readable point of entry into an important and fascinating text.<br /> - <strong>Cammy Brothers, <em>Wall Street Journal</em></strong><br /><br />[Rowland and Charney's] account of Vasaris Tuscany, and of the facts (and fictions) that went into his Lives, is a fitting tribute to their subjects biographical achievements.<br /> - <strong><em>The New Yorker</em></strong><br /><br />"[A]n engaging, 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."<br /> - <strong><em>New York Journal of Books</em></strong><br /><br />Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney give full measure to [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.<br /> - <strong><em>The Sunday Times</em></strong><br /><br />We are hugely indebted to Vasari for our sense of the personalities behind Renaissance art, and indeed our sense of the link between art and personality. Here we have a vibrant, engrossing account of this often underrated insider, with generous and scrupulous new translations of key passages from Vasaris <em>Lives</em>. The authors recover the Vasari who is infinitely more than a mere source; the devoted, gregarious, witty, and expansive guardian of a volatile pack of cultural immortals.<br /> - <strong>John Stubbs</strong><br /><br />Insightful, gripping, and thoroughly enjoyable.<br /> - <strong>Sarah Bakewell</strong><br /><br />An immersive tour of Vasaris 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.<br /> - <strong>Stacy Schiff</strong><br /><br /><em>The Collector of Lives</em> is a fitting tribute to Giorgio Vasaria book as entertainingly readable as Vasaris 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.<br /> - <strong>Ross King</strong><br /><br />Ingrid Rowland writes about artists of the past with an easy intimacy grounded in the deepest erudition. Her project is one of reclaiming classical art and artists from cant, and bringing them, up close, into our own time. Together with coauthor Noah Charney, Rowland gives us a view of the sixteenth-century art world that is uncannily familiar to a student of modern and contemporary art. Reading this book, we feel we <em>know</em> Vasarithat he is one of us.<br /> - <strong>David Salle</strong>
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  Join the Lady Travelers Society in their latest romantic misadventure, from #1
  New York Times bestselling author Victoria Alexander
  
  She must secure her future
  
  A lady should never be obliged to think of matters financial! But when Lady
  Wilhelmina Bascombe’s carefree, extravagant lifestyle vanishes with the demise
  of her husband, her only hope lies in retrieving a family treasure—a
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  He must reclaim his heritage
  
  Dante Augustus Montague’s one passion has long been his family’s art
  collection. He’s finally tracked a long-lost painting to the enchanting Lady
  Bascombe. Convinced that the canvas had been stolen, he will use any means to
  reclaim his birthright—including deception. But how lo