CHAPTER IV.

LIBRARIES AND THE BOOK TRADE. VESPASIANO DA BISTICCI. WHILE such a busy life was developed under the influence and continual encouragement of Cosimo de’ Medici, the two great collections had originated through him which at that time supplied a centre for literary work, and now have combined their most important contents in the same locality and form the most considerable part of the celebrated library to which (as to a sanctuary of the literature of antiquity and the Renaissance) learned men of all countries contin…