220 Phtlosophy of Botany. 



of his own, and could not or would not influence the western or 

 northern powers to take up the defense of a sinking empire. 



At last the inevitable asserted itself. On May 29, 1453, the 

 assault was delivered. Constantine Palaeologus, the last of 

 the Roman emperors, fell, as it became a Roman emperor, in 

 the ditch. With his death resistance ceased, and the victori- 

 ous Turk rushed into the city, whose citizens to the last mo- 

 ment expected that an angel of the Lord, with a sword in his 

 hand, would descend from heaven and save the city of the 

 Lord. 



There was ho longer any need for reconciliation between 

 Latin and Greek Christianity — the sword of Mohammed had 

 settled their dispute. 



Soliman the Magnificent was ruler over all Macedonia, 

 took P)elgerad in 1520, and beleaguered Vienna in 1529, but 

 the German valor stayed his advance. 



These events' may be considered as the tragic end of an age 

 bound in its conception on false logic, and ill conceived faith 

 in wonders and ecclesiastic infallibility. 



Encouraged by the success of three commercial enterprises, 

 the revival of art and letters in Italy, a spirit of critical thought 

 emerges. 



Within a short space of time the true configuration of the 

 earth was definitely demonstrated by the three great voyages, 

 the discovery of America by Columbus, the doubling of the 

 cape by Vasco de Gamma, and the Magellan circumnaviga- 

 tion of the earth. Progress came again, gradual, but assured 

 of continuance, when the spirit of a new era first dawned in 

 Italy in the fourteenth century. To Dante, Petrarca, and 

 Bocaccio, Europe not only owes the creation of a new modern 

 national literature, but also the revival of classical studies, of 

 Greek and Roman letters. 



During the fifteenth century arise again from their lethargy 

 arts and sciences in Italy, one by one. arjd toward the end of it 

 botany top attains a resurrection. John Argyropolus, a noble 

 Byzantine, who arrived in Italy a refugee, after the destruc- 

 tion of his home by the Turks, and having lost all but his lib- 

 erty and learning, by papal order translated the writings of 

 Theophrastus from the Greek into Latin. The works of 



