Giorgio Vasari

Sycophant, artist, architect, and author of the Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) was the source for much of the information we have on the history and personalities of the Italian Renaissance. He was also in many ways the first professional philistine.

Born in Arezzo, Vasari's cousin the great Umbrian painter Luca Signorelli encouraged him to take up art. He was brought to Florence at age 16, where his idol, Michelangelo, eventually befriended him and introduced him into the circle of a painter whose technique Michelangelo admired, Andrea del Sarto, although the relationship seems to have been rocky; Vasari wasn't kind to him in his gossipy biography.