Imagine a world where we knew the name of Homer, but the poetry of “The Odyssey” was lost to us. That was the world of the early Italian Renaissance during the second half of the 15th century. Many people knew the names of some early poets of Italian literature—those who were active during the 13th century. But they could not read their poems because they had not been printed and were not circulating in manuscripts. Then, in around 1477, the de facto sovereign of Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici—“the Magnificent”—commissioned the creation of an anthology of rare early Italian poetry to be sent to Federico d’Aragona, son of the king of Naples. The luxurious manuscript became one of Federico’s most prized possessions. It was exhibited to and coveted by patricians and intellectuals for half a century, until its disappearance in the early 16th century. But it did not disappear completely. The …