ABSTRACT
One of the publication’s primary intentions was to commemorate significant individuals and their achievements as a source of inspiration and edification for the reader. Thus, various rhetorical techniques are employed by the biographer in his portrayals of artists’ deeds and character traits to better engage the reader’s attention and memory. The Florentine historian has been taken to task by some scholars for his pernicious marginalization of women and his use of “demeaning terms to explain their art and its oddity.” Properzia de’ Rossi was truly exceptional for her time, being one of the first securely documented women artists to work in sculpture, a medium that due to its physicality was considered inimical to the female gender. Her rarity was recognized and reinforced by her contemporaries, as she is the only woman artist to be given a separate vita in Giorgio Vasari’s 1550 edition of Le vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori italiani.
