The Serene Republic and the Dawn of the Book A highly readable but erudite book in the style of Alberto Angela’s A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, this is the compelling story of fifteenth-century Venice, at that time the mercantile and cultural capital of the world. There, the first genuine publishing houses open for business leading to an explosion of the written word and an unprecedented diffusion of human knowledge. Among the innovators who are driving these new cultural enterprises, one remarkable visionary, Aldo Manuzio, a man credited with inventing the figure of the modern publisher, stands head and shoulders above the rest. Manuzio will publish the first printed editions of the Talmud, the Koran, the works of Erasmus of Rotterdam, and classics of Greek and Latin poetry and theater, bringing about a true revolution and the birth of the modern.