Niccoli, Niccolò

Niccolò Niccoli, (born c. 1364, Florence—died Feb. 3, 1437, Florence), wealthy Renaissance Humanist from Florence whose collections of ancient art objects and library of manuscripts of classical works helped to shape a taste for the antique in 15th-century Italy.

Niccoli was one of the chief figures in the company of learned men who gathered around Cosimo de’ Medici, and his intellectual quarrels with other noted Humanists created a sensation in the learned world at the time. Niccoli’s chief services to classical literature consisted in his copying and collating ancient manuscripts, correcting the texts, introducing divisions into chapters, and making tables of contents. Many of the most valuable manuscripts in the Laurentian Library in Florence are by his hand, among them those of Lucretius and of 12 comedies of Plautus. Niccoli’s private library was the largest and best in Florence, and he also possessed a small but significant collection of ancient works of art, coins and medals. He was also an accomplished calligrapher whose slightly inclined antica corsiva script influenced the development of italic type.