Bookseller of Florence

'If you want to celebrate the place that bookmaking and bookselling still have in our lives . . . immerse yourself in Ross King's rich history of Vespasiano da Bisticci, "the king of the world's booksellers," in 15th-century Florence . . . wonderful' SIMON SCHAMA, NEW YORK TIMES'A spectacular life of the book trade's Renaissance man . . . King's supreme ability is to imagine himself into the past . . . The scope of his knowledge is staggering' JOHN CAREY, SUNDAY TIMESAn exhilarating and untold account of a Florentine bookseller working at the frontiers of human knowledge, and the epochal shift from script to print that defined the Renaissance The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings - the dazzling handiwork of the city's artists and architects. But equally important were geniuses of another kind: 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 was a remarkable bookseller: Vespasiano da Bisticci. Besides repositories of ancient wisdom by the likes of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, his books were works of art in their own right, copied by talented scribes and illuminated by the finest miniaturists. His clients included popes, kings, and princes across Europe who wished to burnish their reputations by founding magnificent libraries. 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 'king of the world's booksellers' was swept away by this epic technological disruption.A thrilling chronicle of intellectual ferment set against the dramatic political and religious turmoil of the era, The Bookseller of Florence is also an ode to books and bookmaking that charts the world-changing shift from script to print through the life of an extraordinary man long lost to history - one of the true titans of the Renaissance.'A brilliant narrative that seamlessly weaves together intellectual debate, technological exploration and the excitement of new ways of thinking about ethics, politics and human capability' ROWAN WILLIAMS

If you want to celebrate the place that bookmaking and bookselling still have in our lives . . . immerse yourself in Ross King's rich history of Vespasiano da Bisticci, "the king of the world's booksellers," in 15th-century Florence . . . wonderful , Excellent . . . a fascinating read . . . Though ostensibly a biography of Vespasiano, he is less the book's subject than its method: a window on to the intellectual, political and technological developments of a time in radical ferment . . . entertaining, witty and expert, A brilliant narrative that seamlessly weaves together intellectual debate, technological exploration and the excitement of new ways of thinking about ethics, politics and human capability, A terrific and utterly absorbing read, full of narrative pace and remarkable breadth and depth of scholarship. It deserves to make the bestseller lists . . . I haven't enjoyed a history book as much for years, The Bookseller of Florence is a way of entering the world of Renaissance humanism and its fascination with the writings of the past at a time when these were still - but not for much longer - handwritten

Ross King is a renowned expert in the Italian Renaissance. He is the author of numerous bestselling and acclaimed books include Brunelleschi’s Dome, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, Leonardo and the Last Supper and Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies. His love of Renaissance Florence, which he has been studying, writing and lecturing about for over twenty years, made Vespasiano’s long-forgotten story – never written about before – an irresistible next subject. He lives just outside Oxford.