“Work such as the present one help us gain a more accurate historical sense of the relative importance of authors in their own time. To take an egregious example: no Italian humanist has been more studied in modern times than Lorenzo Valla, and he is often presented in modern studies as a gigantic figure on the stage of Renaissance letters … Yet Valla's writings, apart from the Elegantiae, which enjoyed moderate popularity, survive in fewer than a hundred manuscripts and a handful of printed editions. It is clear that his audience was confined to a small circle of professional humanists, and that he had been largely forgotten until rescued from oblivion by Erasmus in the early sixteenth century. Bruni, by contrast, emerges from this study of his textual tradition as a figure of extraordinary celebrity, known in every corner of Europe from Hungary to England. He was beyond doubt the most famous figure in the high literary tradition of the Renaissance between Petrarch and Erasmus. His works were to be found in the library of every prince and every gentleman in Europe.”
     —From the Introduction