James F's Reviews > Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects: Volume 4

This fourth volume (in the five volume translation of Mrs. Jonathan Foster) is mainly devoted to artists who were recently deceased at the time Vasari was writing. It contains eighteen lives from Antonio da San Gallo and Giulio Romano to Razzi and Aristotile and a nineteenth chapter with many painters from Lombardy. The lives in this volume tend to be somewhat longer than in the previous volumes, and there are many more interesting anecdotes about these artists, many of whom were friends, coworkers or rivals of Vasari himself and about whom he has more information. There also seems to be a much greater diversity in the subjects of the paintings and sculptures in this volume; although there are still many Madonnas and saints, crucifixions and resurrections, there are also many works depicting Greek and Roman mythology, ancient and modern history, and allegorical representations, and even in the religious art there seem to be more diverse subjects from the Old Testament. In the final chapter, which contains many artists still living when it was written, the section on Cremona is particularly notable for a number of women artists.