“And as I surveyed the clutter of his study I was pleased to see that he was a man after my own heart. All of his money appeared to have been spent on either books or shelves to hold them.” — Ross King Copy Share Image
“A stylus was a metal-tipped drawing instrument widely used by artists before the invention of the pencil (graphite was not discovered until in 1504, and the wooden-cased graphite pencil appeared only in the second half of the seventeenth century). For drawing with a stylus, artists used paper specially coated with a ground made from, among other things, powdered bone. One… — Ross King Copy Share
“Quite amazing how determined kings and emperors have been to destroy books. But civilization is built on such desecrations, is it not? Justinian the Great burned all of the Greek scrolls in Constantinople after he codified the Roman law and drove the Ostrogoths from Italy. And Shih Huang Ti, the first Emperor of China, the man who unified the five… — Ross King Copy Share
“In fact, the figure in The Last Supper is not a woman: only the most partisan reading can place Mary Magdalene in the scene.… — Ross King Copy Share Image
“…Because every ruler celebrated his conquests by setting torch to the nearest library. Did not Julius Caesar incinerate the scrolls in the great library… — Ross King Copy Share Image
“It’s amazing — and poignant — to think that Leonardo (da Vinci)did consider himself as something of a failure. He didn’t believe that he… — Ross King Copy Share Image
“And as I surveyed the clutter of his study I was pleased to see that he was a man after my own heart. All… — Ross King Copy Share Image
“That one of history’s greatest brains struggled with amo, amas, amat should be consolation to anyone who has ever tried to learn a second… — Ross King Copy Share Image
“Buttresses were one of the prime structural features of Gothic architecture: by accommodating the thrust of the vaults transferred to them from strategic points,… — Ross King Copy Share Image
“There was nothing so dangerous to a king or an emperor as a book. Yes, a great library—a library as magnificent as this one—was… — Ross King Copy Share Image
“Yes, a great library — a library as magnificent as this one — was a dangerous arsenal, one that kings and emperors feared more… — Ross King Copy Share Image
“While running simple errands I often became hopelessly confused in the maze of crowded, filthy streets that began twenty paces beyond the north gate… — Ross King Copy Share Image
“The Black Death was a faithful visitor to Florence. It arrived, on average, once every ten years, always in the summer.” — Ross King Copy Share Image
