Well known for his paintings and his book The Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari also served as court architect to Grand Duke Cosimo I de Medici, contributing to Medicean legitimacy through such politically symbolic buildings as the Uffizi in Florence. Leon Satkowski presents the first book in any language to survey the architecture of Vasari.

By focusing on the architect's service to his distinguished patrons and his collaboration with other architects, Satkowski reveals how Vasari combined imaginative design, political meaning, and a clear sense of history to create buildings so appealing to modern students of architecture.

Incorporating Vasari's own writings and a close study of his buildings, this book places the architect squarely in the world of Palladio, Vignola, and Ammanati, and shows Vasari as their equal. In addition to the Uffizi, chapters are devoted to Vasari's Del Monte projects in Monte San Savino and Rome, the Corridoio and the renovation of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, religious architecture throughout Tuscany, and urban projects in Pisa and Arezzo that created the physical identity of Cosimo's new state.

As a court architect, Vasari had few peers in the proper sense of the term.