CHAPTER VIII. 



THE revival of literature throughout Europe was every- 

 where manifest as the I4th century drew to its end. Gi- 

 otto, Dante, Petrarch, Boccacio, Chaucer, Froissart, Wicliffe 

 such were the men whose great works both mark this 

 period and serve as indices of the directions which the 

 newly-aroused intellectual forces were taking. Yet the 

 rise of positive science was none the less steadily continu- 

 ing; before it the dogmas of authority, and especially those 

 of Aristotle, were as steadily weakening. Meanwhile the 

 commercial rivalry between Venice and Genoa, the great 

 centers of Mediterranean trade, had brought the spirit of 

 maritime adventure to the highest pitch. In the war be- 

 tween the republics, Genoa had been worsted ; and the 

 Venetians, by advantageous treaties with the oriental 

 rulers, had established trading stations in the East, which 

 gave them advantages unattainable to their competitors. 

 The narrative of Marco Polo of the prodigious wealth of 

 the far distant India, had inflamed the cupidity of his 

 countrymen. . However much the fathers of the church 

 might assert the flatness of the earth, the sailors of Genoa 

 and of Amalfi knew to the contrary, for they had learned 

 that the ship which vanished beneath the brink of the 

 horizon was neither sunk nor lost, and that, in all the 

 seas wherein they had adventured, the quivering needle 

 was a safe guide. So began, in Italy, the desire to sail, 

 under the safeguard of the compass to the westward, and 

 thus to reach the golden realm of Cathay. 



In 1450, the invention of printing from movable types 

 was made, and with this means of communicating and in- 

 fluencing opinion, the extension of knowledge was vast 

 and sudden. Books fell four-fifths in price. The fruits of 

 '3 (193) 



