Niccolò de' Niccoli

Niccolò Niccoli (1365–1437) was a Florentine humanist, bibliophile and copyist. He studied Greek with Manuel Chrysoloras from 1397 in Coluccio Salutati's circle.

Financed by Cosimo de' Medici and guided by Poggio Bracciolini, he built one of the age's greatest libraries, collating classical manuscripts and copying them in a refined Carolingian minuscule; his cursive hand became the model for italic type.

He published nothing himself, quarrelled with Bruni and Guarino, and openly scorned vernacular writers such as Dante. At his death in 1437 he left eight hundred manuscripts, which Cosimo gave to the library of San Marco.