548 LEOPOLD VON RANKE. 



of Altenstein, the Prussian Minister, Ranke was called to the Univer- 

 sity of Berlin in 1825, although he was not made full Professor until 

 1836. Ranke had borrowed the literary materials for his first book 

 from the Berlin collections. Indeed, it was jocosely said, before his 

 call, that it would be necessary either to invite Ranke to Berlin or to 

 remove the royal library to Frankfurt. It may be confidently asserted 

 that the literary environment of the University made Ranke's histori- 

 cal work a possibility. In Frankfurt he had used only printed books. 

 In Berlin, following the track of Johannes von Miiller, he came upon 

 the manuscript relations of the Venetian ambassadors, in forty folio 

 volumes. They were not originals, but transcripts. It was once the 

 fashion with princes and nobles to secure copies of state papers and 

 diplomatic correspondence for their private libraries. Venetian de- 

 spatches were always prized, because they were the best and fullest. 

 Venice had the best diplomatic system in Europe. She sent her am- 

 bassadors in rotation to Rome, Madrid, Paris, Vienna, and Constanti- 

 nople ; she had representatives in the chief courts and centres of trade. 

 She required diplomatic reports every fortnight, and these were read 

 to the Senate, which contained many diplomats who had retired from 

 foreign service after years of experience. Consequently Venetian 

 ambassadors took great pains to be accurate in their observations and 

 sound in their judgments ; otherwise they would have fallen into dis- 

 repute with the home government. 



Respecting this new source of modern European history which 

 Ranke rediscovered in the royal library at Berlin he said, " Whatever 

 be the event upon which one may wish information in this great period 

 of history, here he will usually find carefully prepared reports, with 

 exact details, almost always suited to help solve the problem." Ranke 

 went through the entire Berlin collection of forty folio volumes, and 

 afterwards found a dozen volumes more at Gotha. One he acquired 

 for himself. In this connection, it may be worthy of note that eight 

 folio volumes of copied Venetian manuscripts from the Greystoke 

 Library, England, were not long ago offered by special letter to the 

 American Historical Association for something over $1500. Like 

 those manuscripts found by Ranke, they are transcripts from the 

 original despatches of Venetian ambassadors at the various European 

 courts, and were executed for a private library under the superin- 

 tendence of an English diplomatist accredited to Venice. 



Upon the basis of such novel materials Ranke entered upon his 

 great career as the historian of modern Eui'opean states. In 1827 

 was published his " Princes and Peoples of Southern Europe in the 



