Vespasiano da Bisticci

Born near Rignano sull'Arno, not far from Florence, he was chiefly a book merchant, or cartolaio, and had a share in the formation of many great libraries of the time.

When Cosimo de' Medici wished to assemble the Laurentian Library of Florence, Vespasiano advised him, and sent him by Tommaso Parentucelli (later Pope Nicholas V) a systematic catalogue, which became the plan of the new collection.

Untrained as a writer, but with a discernment and intelligence in the appraisal of important figures, he left a collection of 300 biographies that is a major source of shrewd observation and reliable facts for the history of 15th-century humanism: Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV.

His accounts plunge the reader into the social world of Florence; they contain delicate pictures of manners, charming portraits, noble female figures, of which last point it is possible to judge by reading the biography of Alessandro Bardi (ed.

His manuscripts, which he thought of as rough notes for a more polished series of Latin biographies, remained unknown until they were discovered by Cardinal Angelo Mai, who first published them in 1839.