Modern Europe a school history To 1859 Author:John Lord Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS. 7 tendom, and filled with all that was most precious in Italy, Ch. 1. still one of the wonders of the world, remains, and will A D rem... more »ain for centuries, the proudest monument of the age under 1400 review. to Not oaly was this period marked by a grand impulse given 1500. to art, material wealth, and commercial enterprise, but the intellectual horizon was illuminated by stars of extraordinary brilliancy and magnitude. Italy led the way in poetry and philosophy, as well as in the arts and liberty. The discovery Dis- of the Pandects of Justinian, at Amaln (1416), led to the most JjfTJ celebrated school in Europe for teaching civil law, the pro- Pan- fessors of which, at Bologna, drew enthusiastic students from ec every country in Christendom. Dante had already given to the world his " Divine Comedy," a masterpiece of poetic genius. Petrarch f (who also gave a great impulse to literature by his labours in collating and collecting manuscripts) had followed in his steps—unequalled as an " enthusiastic songster of ideal love." And Boccaccio, delighting the age by his witty, though immoral stories, had created a class of literature which has found, in modern times, more admirers than it has been the fortune of any other kind to obtain. But though Italy was in advance of the rest of Europe in civilization, she had no monopoly of learning. Great men Poets began to appear in Germany, France, Spain, Holland, and England, all of whom, in different ways, gave an impulse to thought. Chaucer § had written his " Canterbury Tales," and Froissart|| his "Chronicles." Reuchlin uud Erasmus,1f by their classical labours, were preparing the way for the study of the original Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. "Wickliffe had long before instituted doubts among his countrymen as to...« less