The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance by Ross KingMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Although a little too detailed at times, this was a great insight into the Renaissance. The looking for and discovery of ancient texts, and the details of copying them into books that were more like works of art. As this search for wisdom continued, the printing press was also starting to spring up in Europe, making the distribution of everything from Bibles to political pamphlets more prolific. Printing presses came with their own set of skills and investments, however, and this book explores that as well. In the center of it all, King focuses on an uneducated Italian youth, Vespasiano, who became a procurer of books for the renown names in Florence. Also interwoven is the history and politics of Florence and Italy and the prominent players of that era from Medici to Leonardo da Vinci. It can be a lot, but taken in chunks, it showed how valuable books are to a civilization.
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how the rediscovery of ancient books refreshed and "rebirth" a disoriented and moribund civilization.
"Now the most stupid ideas can, in a moment, be transferred into a thousand volumes and spread abroad."
From this abundance, he believed, comes pride, then divine displeasure, and consequently "so much war, pestilence and adversity; and yet we do not know, nor do we wish to understand, that it proceeds form our iniquities. And therefore we refuse to change or to show a single sign of pentience. Instead, benighted and blinded, we turn to luxuries and every kind of foolishness."
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