The Lives of the Artists (Bellori)

The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors, and Architects or Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni is a series of artist biographies written by Gian Pietro Bellori (1613–1696), whom Julius von Schlosser called "the most important historiographer of art not only of Rome, but all Italy, even of Europe, in the seventeenth century". It is one of the foundational texts of the history and criticism of European art.

The first edition (1672) was published in Rome. It contained biographies of nine painters (Annibale and Agostino Carracci, Barocci, Caravaggio, Rubens, Van Dyck, Domenichino, Lanfranco, and Poussin), two sculptors (François Duquesnoy and Alessandro Algardi), and one architect (Domenico Fontana). The book was dedicated to Jean-Baptiste Colbert and published with French financial support.