The Florentine Renaissance conjures images of beautiful frescoes and altarpieces, of snow-white marble statues in sinewy poses and the soaring dome of Santa Maria del Fiore—the handiwork of the city’s brilliant artists and architects. But equally if not more important for the centuries to follow were Florence’s humanists: a group of writers, philosophers, manuscript hunters, teachers, scribes, librarians, notaries, priests and booksellers. These bookworms blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, in the face of historical crises and political turbulence, tried to forge a new world of patriotic public service, friendship, loyalty, wisdom, justice and refined pleasure.

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.