Book Chapter

Poggio and Other Book Hunters

  • Julia Haig Gaisser

Seeking out rare and precious texts, or book hunting, was a favorite pursuit of the Renaissance humanists, but the activity had been practiced with enthusiasm (and often guile) since antiquity. This paper discusses the phenomenon over time, looking at representative book hunters from Aulus Gellius (second century CE) to Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), who was probably the most famous book hunter of them all. I will consider the discoveries of Catullus, Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, and Apuleius as well as several of the most famous finds of Poggio himself, emhasizing in each case the circumstances and method of discovery, the importance of the find, and the fate of the discovered book. The paper will close with a brief epilogue on some modern book hunters.

  • Keywords:
  • book hunting,
  • libraries,
  • Phyllis Gordan,
  • Dante,
  • Boccaccio,
  • Niccoló Niccoli,
  • Cicero,
  • Catullus,
  • Apuleius,
  • Quintilian,
  • Lucretius,
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Julia Haig Gaisser

Bryn Mawr College, United States

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  • Publication Year: 2020
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  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Poggio and Other Book Hunters

Authors

Julia Haig Gaisser

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-6453-968-3.13

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2020

Copyright Information

© 2020 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Poggio Bracciolini and the Re(dis)covery of Antiquity: Textual and Material Traditions

Book Subtitle

Proceedings of the Symposium Held at Bryn Mawr College on April 8-9, 2016

Editors

Roberta Ricci

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

220

Publication Year

2020

Copyright Information

© 2020 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-6453-968-3

ISBN Print

978-88-6453-967-6

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978-88-6453-968-3

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Atti

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2239-3307

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2704-6230

743

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