of every one, all thought; while paper has made the work of printing
cheap. Such reflections as these, however, are trite, and must occur to
every mind. It is far more to the purpose to repeat that not the
inventions, but the intelligence that used them, the conscious
calculating spirit of the modern world, should rivet our attention when
we direct it to the phenomena of the Renaissance.

In the work of the Renaissance all the great nations of Europe shared.
But it must never be forgotten that as a matter of history the true
Renaissance began in Italy. It was there that the essential qualities
which distinguish the modern from the ancient and the mediæval world
were developed. Italy created that new spiritual atmosphere of culture
and of intellectual freedom which has been the life-breath of the
European races. As the Jews are called the chosen and peculiar people of
divine revelation, so may the Italians be called the chosen and peculiar
vessels of the prophecy of the Renaissance. In art, in scholarship, in
science, in the mediation between antique culture and the modern
intellect, they took the lead, handing to Germany and France and
England the restored humanities complete. Spain and England have since
done more for the exploration and colonization of the world. Germany
achieved the labor of the Reformation almost single-handed. France has
collected, centralized, and diffused intelligence with irresistible
energy. But if we return to the first origins of the Renaissance, we
find that, at a time when the rest of Europe was inert, Italy had
already begun to organize the various elements of the modern spirit, and
to set the fashion whereby the other great nations should learn and
live.