Niccolò de' Niccoli

• 1. Introduction

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  Niccolò de' Niccoli was born in Florence in 1364 and died there on the 22nd of January 1437. He was an Italian Renaissance humanist, and he sat near the center of the scholars whom Cosimo de' Medici supported.

  He left almost no writing of his own. Yet in his day, a Florentine author might hand him a finished manuscript and wait nervously for his verdict.

  How did a man with so little to his name as a writer earn that kind of authority? What did he leave behind, and who ended up with it? And how did the shape of his handwriting travel into printed books?

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• 2. Copyist and Collator

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  Collating means laying one copy of a text beside another and weighing every difference, and that was Niccoli's daily craft. He copied ancient manuscripts by hand and corrected the text as he went. He also divided works into chapters and drew up tables of contents.

  Many of the most valuable manuscripts in the Laurentian Library are in his handwriting. Among them are a copy of Lucretius and twelve comedies of Plautus.

  His judgment had limits. Niccoli lacked a strong critical faculty, but an excellent sense of taste made up for it. Greek was a particular weak spot, since he knew very little of it. Ambrogio Traversari helped him with the language.

  The texts he copied had to come from somewhere, and finding them was a risky business.

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• 3. Hunting Old Books

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  Searching for ancient manuscripts was dangerous and expensive work, so Niccoli relied on agents in the field. One of them was Poggio Bracciolini.

  Thanks to the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici, Niccoli built a personal library of 800 manuscripts. He lent them out freely, helped by the fact that he owned several copies of certain classical texts. That collection became the basis for the library Cosimo built in San Marco.

  Cosimo was the pioneer of the first public library in Florence, which was the largest in Europe at the time. Only Cosimo's own private library was better than Niccoli's.

  Niccoli's books were open to borrowers, but his opinions were not open to argument.

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• 4. Censor of Latin

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  Leonardo Bruni gave Niccoli a title that was half compliment and half warning. He called him the "censor of the Latin tongue". Niccoli's fame as a Latin stylist was wide, and many authors submitted their manuscripts to him for correction before publication.

  Strangely, Niccoli neither wrote nor spoke Latin. The usual explanation was a hypercritical temperament. His enemies said the real reason was that he did not know the language well enough.

  His only literary work was a short tract in Italian on Latin orthography. He withdrew it from circulation after Guarino attacked it violently.

  Niccoli regarded himself as an infallible critic and could not bear the slightest contradiction. His quarrels with Francesco Filelfo, Guarino da Verona and, above all, Ambrogio Traversari created a great sensation in the learned world.

  One habit of his hand would outlast every one of those quarrels.

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• 5. The Slanted Hand

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  Italic, also known as Cancelleresca, is a cursive script, and Niccoli is regarded as its inventor. It grew out of his long study of ancient manuscripts and the many copies he made.

  He decided to vary his copies by tilting the lettering. When Italian printers first made Italic type, they chose his lettering style as their model.

  His handwriting outlived him, and so did his debts, which were heavy when he died.

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• 6. Debts and Legacy

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  Niccoli was buried in the Basilica of Santo Spirito in Florence, and he died deeply in debt. Cosimo de' Medici offered to pay everything owed to his creditors. In return, Cosimo wanted control of the manuscript collection, which was valued at around 6,000 florins.

  Alongside the books, Niccoli had kept a small but valuable collection of ancient works of art, coins and medals.

  He never married. His houses were filled instead with manuscripts, coins, statuary, vases and gems.

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