Author Talk: Ross King, The Bookseller of Florence

Award-winning author Ross King joins us from Great Britain to discuss his new work The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated The Renaissance.

The Renaissance in Florence, Italy conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings―the dazzling handiwork of the city’s skilled artists and architects. But equally important for the centuries to follow were  the manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers who blew the dust off a thousand years of history and imagined a new and enlightened world.

At the heart of this was a remarkable man: Vespasiano da Bisticci. Born in 1422, he became what a friend called 'the king of the world’s booksellers.”  Ross King’s brilliant The Bookseller of Florence is an ode to books, the history of bookmaking and the life of an extraordinary man long lost to history―one of the true titans of the Renaissance.

Ross King is the author of Brunelleschi’s Dome, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, The Judgment of Paris, Mad Enchantment, Leonardo and the Last Supper, and Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power. He and his wife live in Woodstock, Great Britain.

The program is free admission, but registration is required. Please sign up online.