Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, architect, writer, and historian, most famous today for his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing. Wikipedia Born : July 30, 1511, Arezzo, Italy Died : June 27, 1574, Florence, Italy Artworks : The Temptation of Saint Jerome , Vulcan's Forge , MORE On view : Palazzo Vecchio , J. Paul Getty Museum , MORE Periods : Mannerism , Renaissance , Italian Renaissance Known for : Painting, architecture Structures : Uffizi Gallery , Palazzo Pitti , Vasari Corridor , MORE Painter, architect and historian Giorgio Vasari was born in Arezzo, Republic of Florence on this day in 1511. "In our time it has been seen, as I hope to show quite shortly, that simple children, roughly brought up in the wilderness, have begun to draw by themselves, impelled by their own natural genius, instruct