Giorgio Vasari - artist, architect and writer - was a younger contemporary of such outstanding masters of the Italian Renaissance as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian. Vasari the artist can be described as a prolific and diligent, albeit rather mediocre mannerist - his painting fades against the bright background of Italian culture of the 16th century with its galaxy of great masters and masterpieces of fine art. In the person of the writer, Vasari appears before us as a powerful and original figure, as the creator of Europe's first history of art, a master of Italian prose, a classic of the science of art and art criticism. “Biographies of the most famous painters, sculptors and architects” served, serve and will always serve as a reference book for every lover and researcher of Italian art of the Renaissance as a wonderful historical document, which is not only a rich treasury of factual material, but also a full-fledged work of art that recreates the bright and a living picture of the cultural life of Italy over two centuries. The collection of 178 biographies of artists was completed in 1550 and published in expanded form in 1568. This publication includes biographies of the most famous artists of the Renaissance, selected from all three parts of the Lives. The text is preceded by an article by Alexander Gabrichevsky, a Soviet historian and art critic who worked on the first translation of Vasari’s work into Russian, which was published in 1933.