Where was the first Qur'an printed in Arabic? And the first Talmud? And the first books in Greek or Cyrillic? Where were the first paperback books and the first bestsellers sold? The answer is always the same: in Venice. There coincided the first modern editors, who printed and marketed both the first illustrated treatise on architecture and the first pornographic book, as well as the first treatises on cooking, medicine, military art, cosmetics and map books that allowed the world to know the discoveries of the Spaniards on the other side of the Atlantic. The book lists all those events and puts them in their historical context. Thanks to its powerful publishing industry, Venice edited half of the continent's books. Many British or German booksellers ordered the titles there, from where they were distributed quickly thanks to the enviable sea connections of the Serenissima. At the center of this interesting panorama, which will captivate both those interested in the history of culture and travelers in love with the Italian city, the author places the first modern editor, Aldo Manuzio, who published classic authors in Greek and in Latin, but he also realized that the language of the future in that peninsula was going to be Italian, and he bet on it as an instrument of culture. Manuzio is the great star of The first editors, but like all geniuses it is not understood without their context, that Alessandro Marzo Magno draws with great erudition and amenity.