Giorgio Vasari's "The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects" was first published in Florence in 1550. Vasari, a painter and architect, had traveled throughout Italy sketching the buildings and art works he encountered when he contemplated compiling a record of great Italian artists and their work. The "Lives" was revised and expanded in 1568, and remains perhaps the most reliable and complete source of biographical information on the Italian artists of the late 13th century to the Renaissance.