JSB Books
Log in
Alliance Rising — C. J. Cherryh Alliance Space — C. J. Cherryh Alliance Unbound — C. J. Cherryh Alternate Realities — C. J. Cherryh Anackire — Tanith Lee Angelmass — Timothy Zahn Arrow's Fall — Mercedes Lackey Arrow's Flight — Mercedes Lackey
Arrows of the Queen — Mercedes Lackey The Art of War and Other Stories — Timothy Zahn At Winter’s End — Robert Silverberg The Backlash Mission — Timothy Zahn Bastion: Book Five of the Collegium Chronicles (A Valdemar Novel) — Mercedes Lackey The Battle of Space Fort Jefferson and Other Stories — Unknown Betrayer — C. J. Cherryh The Birthgrave — Tanith Lee
The Black Gryphon — Mercedes Lackey Blackcollar — Timothy Zahn The Breakfast Bible — Author Brightly Burning — Mercedes Lackey By the Sword — Mercedes Lackey The Chalice of Death — Robert Silverberg Changes: Volume Three of the Collegium Chronicles (A Valdemar Novel) — Mercedes Lackey Chanur's Homecoming — C. J. Cherryh
Chanur's Legacy — C. J. Cherryh Chanur's Venture — C. J. Cherryh Closer to Home — Mercedes Lackey Closer to the Chest — Mercedes Lackey Closer to the Heart — Mercedes Lackey Cocktails — Williams Sonoma The Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh — C. J. Cherryh Companions on the Road — Tanith Lee
The Complete Junior Chef Cookbook — Williams Sonoma The Complete Morgaine — C. J. Cherryh Conspirator — C. J. Cherryh Convergence — C. J. Cherryh Cyrion — Tanith Lee Dark Castle, White Horse — Tanith Lee Day by Night — Tanith Lee Days of Grass — Tanith Lee
Deadman Switch — Timothy Zahn Death's Master — Tanith Lee Deceiver — C. J. Cherryh The Deep Beyond — C. J. Cherryh Defender — C. J. Cherryh Defiance — C. J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher Delirium's Mistress — Tanith Lee Deliverer — C. J. Cherryh
Delusion's Master — Tanith Lee Dessert of the Day — Author

1–50 of 6,153 Next 50 → All

The bookseller of Florence

the story of the manuscripts that illuminated the Renaissance

King Ross

Hardcover · Atlantic Monthly Press · 496 pp

GoodreadsAmazon

First edition · ISBN 9780802158529 · English · Dewey 381/.45002092 · LC Z340.V48 .K56 2021

Hardcover

"A marvel of storytelling and a master class in the history of the book"--Ernest Hilbert, Wall Street Journal The bestselling author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling captures the excitement and spirit of the Renaissance in this chronicle of the life and work of "the king of the world's booksellers" and the technological disruption that forever changed the ways knowledge spread. The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings--the dazzling handiwork of the city's skilled artists and architects. But equally important for 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 all books were made by hand, over four decades Vespasiano produced and sold many hundreds of volumes from his bookshop, which also became a gathering spot for debate and discussion. Besides repositories of ancient wisdom by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and Quintilian, his books were works of art in their own right, copied by talented scribes and illuminated by the finest miniaturists. His clients included a roll-call of 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, whereby cheaply produced books reached readers who never could have afforded one of Vespasiano's elegant manuscripts. A thrilling chronicle of intellectual ferment set against the dramatic political and religious turmoil of the era, Ross King's brilliant 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.