Coluccio Salutati
Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), born near Pistoia, studied in Bologna and worked as a notary in papal and city service before becoming chancellor of Florence in 1375.
For thirty years his Ciceronian official letters carried the republic through its war with Pope Gregory XI and the two wars against Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who said one Salutati letter did more damage than a thousand horsemen.
As a humanist he found Cicero's lost Letters to Friends, amassed some eight hundred books, and in 1397 brought Manuel Chrysoloras to Florence to teach Greek.