Short answers, pulled from the story.
Giorgio Vasari published the first edition of his artist biographies in 1550 through Lorenzo Torrentino in Florence. This initial work consisted of two volumes and was dedicated to Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.
A second edition appeared eighteen years later in 1568 as three separate volumes with substantial revisions. Vasari added woodcut portraits of artists to this expanded version though some images were conjectural rather than accurate likenesses and increased attention paid to Venetian art during the revision process.
The work displays a consistent and notorious favor toward Florentines throughout its pages. Vasari tends to attribute all new developments in Renaissance art to these local figures including the invention of engraving while Venetian art receives systematic neglect despite his visit to Venice before publishing the revised edition.
John Symonds claimed in 1899 that Vasari often wrote carelessly while confusing dates and places without verifying truth. Modern scholarship now supplements these traditional accounts with scientific research to correct attributions and timelines although his biographies remain most dependable for painters from his own generation or those immediately preceding him.
Online versions now exist including complete texts from 1550 and 1568 editions available via Internet Archive. Free English translations divide into ten ebooks at Project Gutenberg for public access allowing global audiences to engage directly with Vasari's original words without physical constraints.