Five hundred years after they were written, Vasari’s ‘Lives of the Artists’ remains the principal source book on the remarkable flowering of Italian painting in the 15th century. Here are Giotto, Cimabue, Ucello, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo, Botticelli, Mantegna, Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo, Titian and even Vasari himself. In all there are biographies from over 35 Artists.

This set offers a carefully chosen selection of the most interesting and relevant sections – how and why the artists painted and sculpted, how they lived and the pressures they were under.

Music: From the Italian Renaissance