at names, the exclusiveness of schools. Neither rhetoric nor
poetry could deprive Aristotle and Peter Lombard, St. Augustine and
St. Thomas, of their supremacy, give them their position in the
incessant stream of thought, or reduce them beneath the law of
progress in the realm of knowledge.

The movement which Petrarca initiated implied the revival of a buried
world, the enrichment of society by the mass of things which the
western nations had allowed to drop, and of which medieval
civilisation was deprived. It meant the preference for Grecian
models, the supremacy of the schools of Athens, the inclusion of
science in literature, the elevation of Hippocrates and Archimedes to
a level with Terence and Quintilian, the reproduction of that Hellenic
culture which fought the giant fight of the fourth and fifth century
with the Councils and Fathers of the Church. That is why the Latin
restoration, which was the direct result of Petrarca's example, was
overwhelmed by the mightier change that followed, when a more perfect
instrument reached the hands of men passionately curious and yearning
for new things.

At first there was no way of acquiring the unknown tongue. But the
second generation of Humanists sat at the feet of Byzantine masters.
The first was Chrysoloras, who was sent to Italy on a political
mission and settled in 1397 as a teacher of his own language at
Florence. When he died, at the council of Constance, there were
Italian scholars who could read Greek MSS. As teachers were scarce,
adventurous men, such as Scarparia, Guarino, Aurispa, pursued their
studies at Constantinople. Filelfo remained there for seven years,
working in great libraries not yet profaned by the Turk. Before the
middle of the fifteenth century Italy was peopled with migratory
scholars, generally poor, and without fixed appointments, but able to
rouse enthusiasm when they offered Plato for Henry of Ghent, and
Thucydides for Vincent of Beauvais. By that time the superiority of
the new learning, even in its very fragmentary condition, was
irresistible.

Just then three events occurred which determined the triumph of the
Renaissance. The Emperor came over to the Council of Florence with a
number of bishops and divines. In the discussions that followed,
Greek scholars were in demand; and one Eastern prelate, Bessarion,
remained in Italy, became a cardinal, and did much for the study of
Plato and the termination of the long Aristotelian