Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
The history of early Netherlandish painting was first described by the Italian Lodovico Guicciardini in his "Descrittione di Lodovico Guicciardini patritio fiorentino di tutti i Paesi Bassi altrimenti detti Germania inferiore "(1567; The Description of the Low Countries). This book formed a source for Giorgio Vasari's famous biographical accounts of painters in his book "Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects", often referred to as the "Vite".