Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 136.djvu/816

 the wealthy overlords resulted only in redoubling the efforts of the artist master-printers to match the beauty of the written volumes with the products from their presses.

These Arabian Nights experiences occupied me from 1895, when Morris demonstrated the unlimited possibilities of printing as an art, until 1901, when I first visited Italy and gave myself an opportunity to become personally acquainted with the historical landmarks of printing, which previously I had known only from study. In Florence it was my great good fortune to become intimately acquainted with the late Dr. Guido Biagi, at that time librarian of the Laurenziana and the Riccardi libraries, and the custodian of the Medici, the Michelangelo, and the da Vinci archives. I like to think of him as I first saw him then, sitting on a bench in front of one of the carved plutei designed by Michelangelo, in the wonderful Hall of the Medicis in the Laurenziana library, studying a beautifully illuminated volume resting before him, which was fastened to the desk by one of the famous old chains. When I was introduced he greeted me with an old-school courtesy. When he discovered my genuine interest in the books he loved, and realized that I came as a student eager to listen to the master’s word, his face lighted up and we were at once friends.

In the quarter of a century which passed from this meeting until his death we were fellow students, and during that period I never succeeded in exhausting the vast store of knowledge he possessed, even though he gave of it with the freest generosity. From him I learned for the first time of the far-reaching influence of the humanistic movement upon everything that had to do with the litter&aelig; humaniores, and this new knowledge enabled me to crystallize much that previously had been fugitive. ‘The humanist,’ Dr. Biagi explained to me, ‘whether ancient or modern, is one who holds himself open to receive Truth, unprejudiced as to its source, and—what is more important—after having received Truth realizes his obligation to the world to give it out again, made richer by his personal interpretation.’

This humanistic movement was the forerunner and the essence of the Renaissance, being in reality a revolt against the barrenness of medi&aelig;valism. Until then ignorance, superstition, and tradition had confined intellectual life on all sides, but the little band of humanists, headed by Petrarch, put forth a claim for the mental freedom of man and for the full development of his being.

As a part of this claim they demanded the recognition of the rich humanity of Greece and Rome, which was proscribed by the Church. If this claim had been postponed another fifty years the actual manuscripts of many of the present standard classics would have been lost to the world.

The significance of the humanistic movement in its bearing upon the Quest of the Perfect Book is that the invention of printing fitted exactly into the Petrarchian scheme by making it possible for the people to secure books that previously, in their manuscript form, could be owned only by the wealthy patrons. This was the point at which Dr. Biagi’s revelation and my previous study met. The Laurenziana library contains more copies of the so-called humanistic manuscripts, produced in response to the final efforts on the part of patrons to thwart the increasing popularity of the new art of printing, than any other single library. Dr. Biagi proudly showed me some of