if the Venetians are clearly slighted in terms of their numerical
representation. We hope it is one of the present edition's
merits that it offers an ample selection of lives from these
artistic traditions.

We have also translated the most important sections of
Vasari's complete work. Although the long introductory
sections treating the three major divisions of the arts--
painting, sculpture, and architecture-have been omitted, the
prefaces to the three main divisions of the Lives are included.
These introductions provide the philosophical and historical
underpinning of the work and present Vasari's vision of a
'rebirth' of the arts in its most persuasive form. Thirty-four of
Vasari's biographical chapters deal primarily with the life of a
single artist. None the less, in a few cases--such as the chapter
devoted to Andrea del Castagno and Domenico Veneziano, or
that treating Properzia de' Rossi--several artists are treated
together. It was also Vasari's common practice to provide
some minimal information about an artist's pupils at the end
of his biography, a practice resulting in his discussion of more
than 34 individual artists. For the most part, our editorial
selection was governed by obvious criteria--artists considered
by both Vasari and posterity as the most seminal influences
upon Renaissance art had, of necessity, to be included. But it is
also sometimes the case that Vasari's crucial remarks on certain
subjects may be placed in the biography of an artist of not
quite the first rank, as in his life of Luca della Robbia, where
he discusses originality, or in the chapter devoted to Properzia
de' Rossi, where he treats the vexing problem of female
artists. Finally, this edition also includes the conclusion Vasari
directed to his fellow artists.

The various problems involved in translating Vasari's tech-
nical vocabulary have already been discussed in the introduc-
tion to the volume. The reader should bear in mind that in this
translation, we have attempted to render these words by their
meaning in a particular context. Thus, disegno can be translated
into English as the more abstract 'design' or 'art of design',
while in other contexts, it may mean 'draughtsmanship' or the
more concrete 'drawing'. The term 'artist' is rarely employed
by Vasari, who most frequently uses the term artefice or

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