All these
things were made by the people of the greatest empire that ever existed.
They ruled all the world for a thousand years. They were strong and
rich and handsome (just look at that bust of the Emperor Augustus!). Of
course, they were not Christians and they would never be able to enter
Heaven. At best they would spend their days in purgatory, where Dante
had just paid them a visit.

But who cared? To have lived in a world like that of ancient Rome was
heaven enough for any mortal being. And anyway, we live but once. Let us
be happy and cheerful for the mere joy of existence.

Such, in short, was the spirit that had begun to fill the narrow and
crooked streets of the many little Italian cities.

You know what we mean by the "bicycle craze" or the "automobile craze."
Some one invents a bicycle. People who for hundreds of thousands of
years have moved slowly and painfully from one place to another go
"crazy" over the prospect of rolling rapidly and easily over hill and
dale. Then a clever mechanic makes the first automobile. No longer is
it necessary to pedal and pedal and pedal. You just sit and let
little drops of gasoline do the work for you. Then everybody wants
an automobile. Everybody talks about Rolls-Royces and Flivvers and
carburetors and mileage and oil. Explorers penetrate into the hearts of
unknown countries that they may find new supplies of gas. Forests arise
in Sumatra and in the Congo to supply us with rubber. Rubber and oil
become so valuable that people fight wars for their possession. The
whole world is "automobile mad" and little children can say "car" before
they learn to whisper "papa" and "mamma."

In the fourteenth century, the Italian people went crazy about the newly
discovered beauties of the buried world of Rome. Soon their enthusiasm
was shared by all the people of western Europe. The finding of an
unknown manuscript became the excuse for a civic holiday. The man who
wrote a grammar became as popular as the fellow who nowadays invents a
new spark-plug. The humanist, the scholar who devoted his time and his
energies to a study of "homo" or mankind (instead of wasting his hours
upon fruitless theological investigations), that man was regarded with
greater honour and a deeper respect than was ever bestowed upon a hero
who had just conquered all the Cannibal Islands.

In the midst of this intellectual upheaval, an event occurred which
greatly favoured the study of the ancient philosophe