Book Review: The Bookseller of Florence

The Bookseller of Florence

The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance

by Ross King

Pub Date 13 Apr 2021

Grove Atlantic, Atlantic Monthly Press

History

I am reviewing a copy of The Bookseller of Florence through Grove Atlantic, Atlantic Monthly Press and Netgalley:

When we think of the Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings the dazzling handiwork of the city’s skilled artists and architects. But just as important or the centuries to follow were geniuses of a different sort: Florence’s manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers, who blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, through the discovery and diffusion of ancient knowledge, imagined a new and enlightened world.

At the heart of this activity, which bestselling author Ross King relates in his exhilarating new book, was a remarkable man: Vespasiano da Bisticci. Born in 1422, he became what a friend called “the king of the world’s booksellers.” At a time when books were all made by hand

Vespasiano reached the summit of his powers as Europe’s most prolific merchant of knowledge when a new invention appeared: the printed book. By 1480 the…