t itself the heiress of Rome, and
thus patriotism coloured its enthusiasm for the past. To the rest of
Western Europe this source of inspiration was not open. They were
compelled to examine more closely the aims before them; and thus
attained to a calmer and truer estimate of what they might hope to
gain from the study of the classics. It was not the revival of lost
glories, thoughts of a world held in the bonds of peace: in those
dreams the Transalpines had only the part of the conquered. Rather the
classics led them back to an age before Christianity; and pious souls
though they were, the scholar's instinct told them that they would
find there something to learn. Christianity had fixed men's eyes on
the future, on their own salvation in the life to come; and had
trained all knowledge, even Aristotle, to serve that end. In the great
days of Greece and Rome the world was free from this absorbing
preoccupation; and inquiring spirits were at liberty to find such
truth as they could, not merely the truth that they wished or must.

Another point of difference between Italy and the Transalpines is in
the resistance offered to the Renaissance in the two regions. The
scholastic philosophy and theology was a creation of the North. The
greatest of the Schoolmen found their birth or training in France or
Germany, at the schools of Paris and Cologne; and with the names of
Duns, Hales, Holcot, Occam, Burley and Bradwardine our own islands
stand well to the fore. The situation is thus described by Aldus in a
letter written to the young prince of Carpi in October 1499, to
rejoice over some translations from the Greek just arrived from
Linacre in England: 'Of old it was barbarous learning that came to us
from Britain; it conquered Italy and still holds our castles. But now
they send us learned eloquence; with British aid we shall chase away
barbarity and come by our own again.' The teaching of the Schoolmen
made its way into Italy, but had little vogue; and with the Church,
through such Popes as Nicholas V, on the side of the Renaissance,
resistance almost disappeared. The humanists charging headlong
dissipated their foes in a moment, but were soon carried beyond the
field of battle, to fall into the hands of the forces of reaction.
Across the Alps, on the other hand, the Church and the universities
stood together and looked askance at the new movement, dreading what
it might bring forth. In consequence the ground was only won by slow