Vespasian became a bookmaker in Florence, Italy at a tender age and grew up to become the greatest bookseller and bookmaker at just the moment scribes and illuminators were being replaced by the printing press, a technology Vespasian refused to accept. He could find just about any book that existed in the known world for a discriminating buyer, or he could hire the best scribes and illuminators to transcribe (& translate) if need be for kings & the wealthy across the western world. His work was superior. A marvelous book describing the history of writing on papyrus to parchment to paper made of linen, of making the ink and colors, of the printing press and typesetting, and the creation of fonts. We learn about the work of scribes & talented illuminators to typesetters & printers. Extraordinarily interesting on the one hand, and boring on the other as the book covers the rise and fall of the kings and rulers and the battles they fought—important because they were Vespasian’s customers. He often found himself supplying manuscripts to people on both sides of conflicts. Sadly, that part of the book was tedious. Overall, a brilliant read! ( )

Supposedly the story of Vespasiano the Bookseller of Florence. He provides a threa for the book bur remains an empty shell of a character in what is a history of 15th century Florence and Italy. The manuscripts and the arrival of printing provide useful bookends but they are vehicles rather than passengers. Too much detail, too many digressions, too many fleeting characters. ( )

Ross King is an author who has often written about Renaissance subjects. In this book, he returns to that era to illuminate the life of Vespasiano da Bisticci, the most prominent producer and seller of manuscripts in Renaissance Florence.

Although filled with details of Florentine intellectual life, for me the best parts of the book consisted of descriptions of manuscript production and decoration. Vespasiano himself did not write out the material, rather he served as a producer, finding the scribes and illuminators, buying the parchment of paper, and arranging the binding. His list of customers included popes, Medici, kings and scholars from as far away as England.

For someone interested in the transition from manuscript to printing, this book will prove illuminating. Ross also crams in details of many important intellects from the period. ( )

No, this isn't a review of an historical novel.

The Bookseller of Florence is a marvellous art history book about a hero of the Renaissance called Vespasiano da Bisticci (1421 – 1498) who was the preeminent book merchant of his era. He contributed to the store of knowledge from which we still benefit today by hunting out manuscripts from the ancient world that were decaying in dusty monasteries all over Europe, and then he hired the most talented of scribes to copy the manuscripts and had them illuminated by the finest miniaturists so that the books were glorious works of art. His clients were popes, kings and princes who proclaimed their status by founding magnificent libraries to outdo each other.

My favourite chapter explains the technicalities of making a book before the advent of the printed book. As King says, in the chapter called 'Antique Letters':

The word 'manuscript' comes from the Latin manu scriptus, 'written by hand', but any manuscript was the product of much more work than simply the writing of a single hand. It was a months- or even years-long, multistep process calling for the expertise of a series of tradesmen and specialist craftsmen from parchment makers to scribes, miniaturists, goldbeaters, and even apothecaries, carpenters, and blacksmiths. (p.99)

It began with finding the manuscript, the search for which is detailed in a previous chapter, where it is shown how important it was to get hold of a quality exemplar. In Chapter 6, King tells us that Petrarch complained that, so sloppy were the scribes of his day, and so full of errors were the manuscripts they produced, 'an author would not recognise his own work.' Vespasiano had a good eye for the best of texts, but he was also highly skilled in acquiring the best of materials. Occasionally he used paper, but the most beautiful and expensive material on which to write was calfskin, or vellum. Readers who are fond of animals are best advised not to read the details of the finest and whitest vellum available. Suffice to say that the supply of hides for parchment was always dependent on the dietary preferences of the local population, and in Italy the appetite was for goats, and that supply was impacted by Lent when people did not eat meat.

For hundreds of years, the transmission of knowledge had depended on carnivorous appetites and good animal husbandry. Large volumes with hundreds of pages required the skins of many animals. One goat was often needed for each page of parchment in a large liturgical book such as an antiphonary, while a Bible might take the skins of more than two hundred animals — and entire herd of goats or flock of sheep. (p.100)

And why were the butchers of Florence required to move their operations into the shops on the Ponte Vecchio? So that they, like the tanners, fish sellers and beltmakers, for reasons of hygiene, could turf their blood and slops into the Arno instead of fouling the streets.

Clearly, from the description given of the processing (which I will spare you), parchment makers needed to have strong stomachs. But they also needed to have considerable finesse in scraping the skins to 0.1mm (1/250 of an inch), because if they were careless it would be uneven, or tear.

For Vespasiano, his work was a labour of love.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/12/22/the-bookseller-of-florence-by-ross-king/ ( )

I'm torn about this book.

It's an interesting idea, tracing how certain books were influential in the Renaissance through the lens of a Florentine bookseller*, and how the coming of the printing press affected him.

The book is long, just over 400 pages, and it could and should have been shorter. The author (Ross King) did a tremendous amount of research, and it almost seems as though he could not bear to leave anything out. The book is full of digressions, as he wanders about the highways and byways of conspiracies, crusades, feuds, and Papal politics. He feels the need to give us the back story of everyone mentioned, however peripheral, and all the details of how things are made.

The book would have been better and more enjoyable if it had had a strong editorial hand.

* slightly inaccurate term, but we have today nothing equivalent to the person who not only sold books, but arranged for them to be made, hiring the scribes, binders, etc.