![]() Known as the king of the world’s booksellers in his time, Vespasiano surrounded himself with scribes, scholars, other booksellers, and in a more general sense, hunters after enlightenment. ![]() He opened his own bookshop, and at a time when books were still reproduced entirely by hand, he sold hundreds upon hundreds of volumes of all kinds over the course of four decades, prompting not only a certain rise in literacy, but the development of a collective thirst for knowledge. However, in 1422 an event took place bound to change the course of Italian history: the birth of Vespasiano da Bisticci. ![]() Nevertheless, such times did exist, and in his non-fiction book titled The Bookseller of Florence, Ross King takes us back to 15th century Italy when the crucial jump towards the pursuit of knowledge took place.Īt the start of the century, knowledge was a rare and precious commodity, with books being reserved only for the wealthy and educated, and being so few one could actually absorb the sum of human knowledge in a single lifetime. The modern printing industry has come such a long way since the printing of the Gutenberg Bible it has become difficult to imagine a world where books are difficult to access, especially since the advent of electronic publishing. ![]() Ross King Brings Vespasiano da Bisticci to Life ![]()
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