Most students of Renaissance art encounter Giorgio Vasari through a book. His Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, first published in 1550 and expanded in a second edition in 1568, is often considered the first major work of art history, shaping how generations have understood artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. For centuries, Vasari's reputation has rested largely on his role as the artistic biographer of the Renaissance.