Dezailler D’Argenville et les sources italiennes de l' "Abregé de la vie des plus fameux peintres"

This article discusses the way Dézailler D’Argenville deals with Italian schools of painting in his famous work Abrégé de la vie des peintres (1745-1752; 1762). In fact, he uses Italian sources in an original way, removing or reducing anecdotes relevant to the artists’ biographies and focusing on technical and stylistic remarks, especially with regard to drawings. Moreover, for the first time Dézailler classifies artists into six schools, which is an absolute novelty in both Italian and French historiography.