Vespasiano da Bisticci: The Bookseller of Florence
Guest Lectures
•
1h 15m
Mention of Renaissance Florence tends to make us think of beautiful frescoes and altarpieces, of snow-white marble statues and Brunelleschi’s dome rising above the city’s cathedral. But Renaissance Florence had other heroes, too: manuscript hunters, teachers, scribes, scholars, librarians, and book collectors. What all of these bookworms had in common was “the king of the world’s booksellers,” Vespasiano da Bisticci. In this illustrated lecture, based on his latest book, The Bookseller of Florence, Ross King will introduce Vespasiano. For fifty years, from the 1430s to the 1480s, he ran a bookstore beside the Bargello, producing hundreds of beautiful illuminated manuscripts for clients such as the Medici and the popes, and penning a gossipy memoir that offers unparalleled insights into Florence’s “golden age.”
Ross King is the award-winning author of numerous books on Italian and French art and history, including Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling. His biography Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power has been called a “convincing portrait of one of the most misunderstood thinkers of all time.” His most recent book, published in April 2021, is The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance.
Up Next in Guest Lectures
-
What the HELL?: Dante’s Divine Comedy...
For over 700 years, Dante's poetic and moral imagination has inspired generations of readers, artists, writers, and more. This webinar will introduce participants to Dante’s life and will help you to discover what about the Divine Comedy, in particular, makes it a perennially relevant masterpiece...
-
Michelangelo, God's Architect
At age 71, Michelangelo Buonarroti, carver of the Pietà, David, Moses, and painter of the Sistine Chapel -- was suddenly busier than ever. In 1546, Pope Paul III handed Michelangelo control of the beleaguered St. Peter’s project -- a study in architectural mismanagement, plagued by flawed design ...
-
Boccaccio's Storytelling Art of Livin...
The late great Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez explained how we can live our lives to tell our tales, but the first great Italian prose author, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), still shows us how telling tales can keep us alive. How? Thanks to his collection of 100 (actually 10...
