Vasari's Literary Artifice and the Triumph of Michelangelo's David

Before we plunge into a discussion of the way in which Vasari wrote about Michelangelo’s David, I wish to consider in more general terms a few of the various ways in which we write about Vasari’s Lives of the artists today. How we read Vasari depends on our sensibility and taste. We all ride our own hobbyhorses.