Joh. Arretinus was busied in Florence between the years 1375 and 1417 in the sale of manuscripts, but he appears to have secured these mainly not by production in Florence, but by sending scribes to the libraries in the monasteries and elsewhere to produce the copies required.
A reference in a letter of Leonardo Bruni, written in 1416, gives indication of an organised book-trade in Florence at that time:
Priscianum quem postulas omnes tabernas librarias perscrutatus reperire nondum potui.[331] (I have hunted through all the book-shops, but have not been able to find the Priscian for which you asked.)
Bruni writes again concerning a certain Italian translation of the Bible that he had been trying to get hold of:
Jam Bibliothecas omnes et bibliopolas requisivi ut si qua veniant ad manus eligam quæque optima mihi significent. (I have already searched all the libraries and book-shops in order to select from the material at hand the manuscripts which are for me the most important.)
Ambrogio Traversari wrote in 1418 in Florence:
Oro ut convenias bibliopolas civitatis et inquiri facias diligenter, an inveniamus decretales in parvo volumine.[332] (I beg you to make search among the booksellers of the city and ascertain whether it is possible to secure in a small volume a copy of the Decretals.)
The use for book-dealers of the old classic term bibliopola in place of the more usual stationarius is to be noted.
From these references, we have a right to conclude that there were during the first quarter of the fifteenth century in Florence a number of dealers in books who handled various classes of literature.
The great publisher of the fifteenth century, Philippi Vespasianus, or Vespasiano, who was not only a producer and dealer in manuscripts, but a man possessed of a wide range of scholarship, called himself librarius florentinus. He held the post for a time of bidellus of the University of Florence. His work will be referred to more fully in a later division of this chapter.