Many of the images are drawn from other archives; my aim has been in some way to reproduce Vasari's own Libro di Disegni. My thanks goes to those tireless scholars who have collected complete archives of the works of these artists, and particularly Emil Kren and David Marx of the Web Gallery of Art. I have attempted to acknowledge every source at the foot of the image page.

My copy of the Penguin Classics version of Vasari's book is guiding me through this project; anyone interested in the period will be familiar with the translations of George Bull, and is as grateful as I am for his flowing prose. The late Peter Murray's Notes provide an excellent survey of what is to be found where.

As invaluable are the twin volumes of the complete Lives, translated by Gaston de Vere and published by Everyman. David Ekserdjian's introduction provides an acute insight into the man, his life and times, and his notes are indispensable.

For those who wish to learn more about Vasari himself and how his book came to be written, the main study of Vasari in English is Patricia Lee Rubin's Giorgio Vasari - Art and History. It is an essential and illuminating companion to the Lives.

And, of course, the man himself, who, in Bull's words "lifted the story of Tuscan art - a series of explosive discoveries by men chosen by God - to the plane of the heroic."