Lives of the Artists
by Giorgio Vasari
Recommended by Paul Graham and Ryan Holiday
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Should I read this?
Recommended by 2 sources and appears in Art History, Books Recommended by Paul Graham, and Books Recommended by Ryan Holiday.
Packed with facts, attributions, and entertaining anecdotes about his contemporaries, Vasari's collection of biographical accounts also presents a highly influential theory of the development of Renaissance art.Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto, who represent the infancy of art, Vasari considers the period of youthful vigour, shaped by Donatello, B...
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Recommended by 2 sources and appears in Art History, Books Recommended by Paul Graham, and Books Recommended by Ryan Holiday.
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Ryan Holiday
Author and media strategist
“A friend and peer of Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael Titian and all the other great minds of the Renaissance sat down in 1550 and wrote biographical sketches of the people he knew or had influenced him. | Q: What should I read to learn more about history PG: The way to do it is piecemeal. You could just sit down and try reading Roberts's History of the World cover to cover, but you'd probably lose interest. I think it's a better plan to read books about specific topics, even if you don't understand everything the first time through. Here are the most exciting ones I can think of:”
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“Accidental Presidents offers eight narrative portraits of men who succeeded to the U.S. presidency without election, using anecdote-rich scenes and readable context to show how personality and circumstance interact with office power. It’s strongest as a set of self-contained stories that make succession stakes concrete for non-specialist readers; it does not prioritize dense archival argument or exhaustive methodology, so expect some interpretive generalizations and repeated themes across cases. Use it for fast historical orientation rather than scholarly deep-dives.”
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Lives of the Artists
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