Giorgio Vasari (July 30, 1511-June 27, 1574) was an Italian painter, architect, writer, and historian. His biographies of Italian Renaissance artists are considered the ideological foundation of art-history writing. Though some of the information about artists is questionable, and Vasari's bias towards Tuscany art is obvious, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects is the standard for the history of Western painting.