Vespasiano da Bisticci

Vespasiano da Bisticci (1421–1498) was an Italian humanist and librarian of the early Renaissance period.

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. In twenty-two months Vespasiano had 200 volumes made for Cosimo by twenty-five copyists. Most of them were, as typical of the era, books of theology and liturgical chant.

He had performed important services for the diffusion of classical authors when Nicholas V, the true founder of the Vatican Library, became pope. He devoted fourteen years to collecting the library of Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, organizing it in a more modern manner; it contained the catalogues of the Vatican, of San Marco, Florence, of the Visconti Library at Pavia, and Oxford.

Vespasiano had a limited knowledge of Latin, and he is one of the few writers of the time who acknowledged it. 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. He retired in 1480, disheartened by the advance of the printing press that was displacing the beautifully illuminated manuscripts that were his stock in trade and his love.

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