The Bookseller of Florence

Ross King’s ‘The Bookseller of Florence’, reviewed here as work begins on a new edition of Blue Guide Florence.

Four hundred and eighty pages might seem a lot to fill, when one chooses as one’s subject a man about whom next to nothing is known. But Ross King, in this ambitious book, has managed to fill them nonetheless, fleshing out the life and times of the eponymous Bookseller of Florence. And the result is eminently readable. 

who was the bookseller of florence?

Vespasiano da Bisticci (to give the Bookseller of Florence a name) was born c. 1422 into a poor family. His feckless father died early, leaving a widow and numerous children–children whom it was tough for her to clothe, feed and educate, when all she was left with were debts. But somehow she managed it. It would be interesting to know more about her, but apparently there is no more to say. Florence in the early 15^th century was a city where girls were largely encouraged never to leave the house, certainly not to go ‘leaping about the piazza’ in gaudy gowns. 

the bookseller’s early milieu

Vespasiano grows up and is apprenticed to Michele Guarducci, a bookbinder and stationer. Florence at the time is enjoying its golden age and in Guarducci’s shop, Vespasiano meets a number of illustrious men. He seems to have had a natural instinct for endearing himself to them. He was obviously a good networker, and though not a scholar himself, he was skilful at understanding his product, at knowing how to talk knowledgeably about it and how to source exactly what his customers might want. By dint of quite a lot of overt fawning, he goes on to obtain important patrons such as Cosimo de’ Medici. He also had patrons further afield: Federico da Montefeltro in Urbino and King Ferrante of Naples. Vespasiano acted as their agent, procuring manuscripts for their libraries. But as far as Vespasiano the man goes, that is just about it.

books and bookmen in vespasiano’s florence

The rest of ‘The Bookseller of Florence’ consists of digressions, and the persona of Vespasiano forms the link between each one. For instance, there is the story of the texts of the books themselves (notably Greek and Roman classics). Then there is the means by which they were retrieved from oblivion, together with the part that Florence played in this fascinating saga. There are also entertaining vignettes of misogynist scholars, cultivated thugs and dilettante noblemen, all of whom wanted books. And there is a lot to say about contemporary books themselves. King deals with the questions of vellum versus parchment and of ‘modern’ Roman versus Gothic script. There are different styles of illumination.

the wider historical background

The activities of the Bookseller of Florence are presented against the wider history of 15^th-century Italy. There was a lot of infighting in the city states (King gives us a lengthy account of the Pazzi Conspiracy in Florence). Tussles break out with a warrior pope. There is the conquest of Otranto, in Puglia, by the Ottomans in 1480. Badly shaken by this, Italy begins a gradual descent from enlightened humanism to something more inward-looking and defensive. The austere friar Savonarola makes bonfires out of half a century of learning before ending up on a pyre himself.

technological and existential challenges

As for Vespasiano, having been personally reponsible for the production of around a thousand manuscripts, he abandons his belief in Aristotle as a guiding force and reverts to a depressing form of apocalyptic Christianity. And of course, behind all this, there is the elephant in the Florence Bookseller’s bookroom. Namely: the printing press. Ross King takes us to Germany for its invention. Then we travel to Subiaco, near Rome, for the story its arrival in Italy. And Florence proves a late adopter of the new technology. Why? Perhaps it was because her high literacy rate meant that she was ahead of other cities in terms of manuscripts and thus was slower to feel the need of printed books. When someone sets up a printing press a few blocks away from Vespasiano’s shop, he does not seem to mind. At any rate, he does not feel threatened by it. He behaves like the kind of person who never saw the point of smartphones, convinced that no one will ever want to do anything else with their handset than make phone calls. Vespasiano was not alone. The printing press, many believed, would spread fake news. It would turn out books that were riddled with errors. Books would get into the hands of people who wouldn’t be able to understand them properly.

so does it end badly?

In fact, there is no climactic finale. The Bookseller of Florence sees that business is no longer what it was and chooses to retire. He decides that to become a writer and sits down to compose biographies of 103 of the ‘illustrious men’ he had known during the course of his career. Vespasiano could name-drop like mad and the men of his acquaintance included popes and princes, scholars and sculptors. Many of them are still household names today. 

103 illustrious men and…

Yes, there was a single woman: Alessandra de’ Bardi. This is not exciting for tokenistic reasons. It is interesting because we know so little about the lives that medieval Florentine women led. What prospects were open to them beyond the hearth and the dowry chest? Unfortunately, it seems that the Bookseller of Florence didn’t think any other prospects were appropriate. He turned Alessandra’s life into a disquisition on virtuous female behaviour, channelling his inner Cato the Elder. And interestingly, this is not information that comes from Ross King’s book. King stays completely silent about the single female Life. Perhaps from feelings of disappointment that his Bookseller of Florence was not more ahead of his time. Because what does emerge is a strong impression that life in a Renaissance Florentine convent offered more scope to a lively-minded woman than marriage did. Ross King treats us to delightful details about a nun called Sister Marietta, who worked in the San Jacopo printing works. 

the fate of the bookseller’s great work

But what became of the text of Vespasiano’s Lives? The fact is, it almost sank without trace. Ironically, the text that the Bookseller of Florence wrote is known to us not through the offices of its own author but because in 1839, a stray manuscript from the Vatican Library was rediscovered and printed. In its printed form, it came to the attention of Jacob Burckhardt, who used it as the basis of his The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (first English ed. 1878). This book was hugely influential and is still in print. So it is through Burckhardt, via the printing press, that the existence of such a man as Vespasiano da Bisticci, and the concept of such a thing as the Renaissance, is known to us at all.

the bookseller’s relevance today

This story must make us wonder about the technology shift that is taking place today. We are abandoning printing on paper and, in a bizarre about-turn, we are going back to scrolling. But the electronic medium is much more ephemeral and fragile than any physical book. And just like those earlier people who were sceptical about the benefits of printing, we worry today about the risk of unedited, inaccurate, misleading information finding its way onto the internet and corrupting people’s minds. The rows over social media, and online publishing and online censorship are huge. But sadly, we have no idea what the Bookseller of Florence would have made of this.

Vespasiano da bisticci’s legacy

Did the Bookseller of Florence have such a thing as a legacy? After all, we do not really know what he thought about anything. We know that he was ethically prudish. He was also a good businessman, so long as established markets remained strong. When faced with a disruptive technology, he lacked vision. He died in 1498 and his tomb is in Santa Croce, a worn and faded slab carved with his brother’s name but not with his own. One thing very tangibly remains, though. Walk down Via del Proconsolo, and on the corner of Via dei Pandolfini, you will see a handsome stone doorway. The retail premises behind it now sells clothes, but once upon a time, it sold something quite different. Look above the lintel and you will see an open book, carved in indelible stone. This was where the Bookseller of Florence once plied his lucrative trade.

Annabel Barber