“A highly popular pastime for Florentines during the 14th–16th centuries was copying manuscripts. Men and women of all social backgrounds collected diverse texts—poems, jokes, stories of saints’ lives, medical treatises, chronicles, sermons, recipes—into commonplace books known as zibaldoni. These innumerable volumes are a testament to the widespread literacy and curiosity of Renaissance Florentines and also provide an unparalleled insight into the worldview of everyday people.”
Where: The British Insitute of Florence, Lungarno Guicciardini, 9