Tag Archives: Vespasiano da Bisticci

Vespasiano da Bisticci – ‘cartolaio’ of Florence

Vespasiano_da_Bisticci_portraitIt must have been a very exciting time in Florence in the fifteenth century. The Humanists favoured Greek and Roman texts, rather than religious ones, and wanted them written out in luxury books. But who could procure the fine vellum needed, or the scribes to write the books in the new/old style of Humanistic Minuscule, artists to decorate them with white vine-scroll ornament, and skilled craftspeople to bind them in velvet or supple leather? Enter one Vespasiano da Bisticci (1421–1498) as shown here. He started working at a libreria along a street of similar shops when he was only 11 years of age but he learnt quickly and, when still a young man, became a member of the stationers’ guild and thus a fully fledged ‘cartolaio’.

Bartolomeo_Sanvito_-_Portrait_of_Petrarch_in_the_Incipit_Letter_“N”_-_Google_Art_ProjectThe Humanists wanted their ancient texts written in an ancient script. They thought Gothic scripts were too modern (though they look very old-fashioned to us!), and called them lettera/littera antica/antiqua. Looking back in history at various writing styles they were keen to get as close to the scripts of Rome and Greece, but they didn’t go back quite far enough. They settled instead on the clear and precise style developed during the reign of Charlemagne, another lover of all things classical. Charlemagne wanted a clear, easily readable script, that could be used throughout his empire, and this was it.

 

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The Humanists adapted it – they made the script more upright, they added feet to the  minims (sometimes emphasised too much!) and used classical Roman Capitals to complete the impressive look. The appearance on the page is almost of printed text when it is written as clearly and precisely as this. It is extremely difficult to justify text when it is hand-written – it is certainly not as simple and easy as highlighting a paragraph and clicking on a button to align left and right margins! Yet in this manuscript now in the British Library, written by Rodolpho Brancalupo, it is precisely what he has achieved.

Screenshot 2023-12-13 at 17.00.14Many of the pages of books at this time also reflected Classical influences. Those associated with the great Paduan scribe Bartolomeo San Vito and others often had decorations of swags and foliage, cherubs and acanthus leaves, vases and jewels, sea creatures and pearls – as can be seen in the manuscript page in the second paragraph. Others were decorated with bianchi girari (white twists), which worked well with the lighter and more delicate script. This is shown in this manuscript from the Fitzwilliam Museum which was supervised by Vespasiano da Bisticci and produced in about two months – an amazing feat!

IMG_3778Vespasiano’s shop can still be seen in Florence. It was on the corner of the Via del Proconsolo and Via de’ Pandolfini. Close by is another shop as here. This is a magnificent building with a most impressive doorway.

 

IMG_3780Above the rounded and decorated arch, between two horizontal swags of leaves and foliage, is a small carved open book. Those a little carried away by the romance of the bookshop of the famous bookseller thought that a book carved above the entrance indicated that this is the very shop.

 

IMG_3783This ‘book’ shop, though, is on the wrong corner, and in some ways sadly, although amazing that it’s still there, Vespasiano’s old shop is much more mundane now – at the time of writing it was a pizzeria. This is on here the correct corner and it was from where the bookseller traded.

There is much more about the Humanists, their manuscripts, and Vespasiano and his clients in ‘The Art of the Scribe’, published by the British Library, summer 2024.

‘The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club’

IMG_2191Christopher de Hamel is a wonderful and inspiring writer, wearing his scholarship lightly and introducing his readers to manuscripts, libraries, manuscript makers, and authors with the lightest of touches such that they hardly realise that they are absorbing so much knowledge. This is evident in all his books, but particularly his previous best seller and award winner – ‘Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts’. Could his newest book live up to that?

It certainly does!

 

 

IMG_2193In this latest one – ‘The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club’ – a play on the title of Dickens’ first novel, Christopher de Hamel takes as his theme not the makers of manuscripts (apart from Simon Bening), or the manuscripts, but those who collected and commissioned them, whether for themselves, other people or for religious foundations or libraries. It is an interesting conceit and one which could easily become rather dull and monotonous, but Christopher has such deftness of style, and introduces contemporary sources so well into the narrative, that it becomes such a good read and a difficult-to-put-down book. He starts with St Anselm as here, abbot of Bec Abbey, and then Archbishop of Canterbury. As with his previous book, Christopher takes us on a journey to Bec and describes what it must have been like at the time, bringing in Anselm’s correspondence and the ‘prickly’ script of Canterbury along the way.

IMG_2194The range of Christopher’s collectors include a monk (above), bookseller, illuminator, librarian, and, bringing us into the twentieth century, a curator. There are twelve chapters, all focusing on these different approaches of manuscript collection. The bookseller in chapter 3 is Vespasiano da Bisticci, the bookseller of Florence, and Christopher again sets out and visits the city to trace not only Vespasiano’s original shop but also the house where the bookseller retired; it is situated about five miles outside Florence. He left the city once the printing press signalled the decrease in demand for hand-written books, and Christopher quotes a letter from Vespiano to Pandolfini trying to persuade him to come and stay at; ‘…this pleasant and charming place, where the woods, fine hillsides, springs and clear streams and cascades invite you …’ – who could resist? Before his retirement, Vespasiano commissioned many manuscripts for his prestigious clients including this for the Duke of Urbino, illuminated by Francesco Roselli.

IMG_2192Constantine Simonides was a nineteenth-century forger, specialising in Greek manuscripts and particularly those of the early Christian era and ancient Greek authors. The photograph of him in the book (as here) certainly shows someone who lived up to that of an itinerant scribe and dealer, looking slightly dishevelled and about to pull out unknown manuscript treasures no doubt from a carpet bag! This is an intriguing chapter of deception and veracity, and brings in doubt about the authenticity of the Codex Siniaticus in the British Library (soon dispelled!).

 

 

IMG_2203Sir Sydney Cockerell will be familiar to calligraphers as the person who advised the great scribe Edward Johnston to study the manuscripts of the late tenth century so that he could improve his writing style, and from which Johnston devised his Foundational Hand. Cockerell had been William Morris’s secretary and together they bought the manuscript shown here, when, as this book describes they were in Beauvais together and at just after 7 in the morning Morris demanded that Cockerell ‘come out and buy a manuscript’! Despite his later advancement to be Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, manuscripts were in Cockerell’s heart throughout his life, and the excitement with which such works could be bought for relatively small sums during the latter part of the nineteenth-century, and the delight of such collectors Cockerell advised and worked for such as John Ruskin, Henry Yates Thompson and Charles Perrins (of Lea and Perrins sauce fame) when they owned them is almost palpable in this book.

This is such a good book, a romping read through the ages of book collecting and dispersal that any thought of it being boring is dispelled in the first sentence. Should you buy it? YES, you should – it is very highly recommended!