How did the book market work in the sixteenth century? How were books produced and distributed? And who was the “Dan Brown” of Renaissance Europe? On April 11, Prof. Valentina Lepri (Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento) gave a lecture at Palazzo Rucellai “Bestsellers of the Renaissance (those remembered and those forgotten): Machiavelli, Giraldi Cinzio and the Bible” (“Bestsellers del Rinascimento (dimenticati e non): Machiavelli, Giraldi Cinzio e la Bibbia”). As the title suggests, she focused on the most important editions of the Bible, on the circulation of Machiavelli’s works (above all, The Prince), and on the major texts by Ferrara humanist Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinzio. Though little known today, Cinzio’s most celebrated book was the Hecatommithi (1565), a collection of a hundred short stories that influenced, among others, Shakespeare: Measure for Measure and Othello.