A fascinating look at the history of manuscripts and printing, managing to intertwine it with Florentine history without making the links too tenuous or the text overly dense. It is surprising how little this book feels as though it is about Vespasiano; really, it feels like a social history of reading in Florence and the forms it took, and its impact on politics and vice-versa - Vespasiano is hardly even our way in, and is no more important than many of the other players. But as a social history of the written word in a particular period, it is more interesting than a biography of a man we know relatively little about.