Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), Italian painter and biographer. Vasari was born at Arezzo in Tuscany. He was trained form an early age as an artist and at sixteen was sent to Florence. He was commissioned by the Medici and their friends as well as patrons in Naples. He was also excelled in architecture, being the creator of the Vasari Corridor in Florence linking the Ufizzi and Pitti palaces. He is best known today as an art historian and biographer. His 'Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects' was published in 1550 and is seen as the first significant work of art history. This work of biography is filled with pieces of gossip, but has an excellent neutral aesthetic appreciation of the art he discusses. He was the first to use the term Renaissance in print. This woodcut comes from van Opmeer's Opus chronographicum orbis universi published at Antwerp in 1611.