members usually Latinized their names, and celebrated the ancient
festivals. In Venice a Greek Academy was formed in which all the
proceedings were in Greek, and the members were known by Greek names. The
_Academia of Aldus_, at Venice, of which his celebrated press was a
department, became a veritable university for classical learning, and to
participate in its proceedings scholars came from many lands. It was the
curious and enthusiastic Italians who, more than the Greek scholars who
taught them the language, opened up the literature and history of Athens
to the comprehension of the western world.

The financial support of the movement came from the wealthy merchant
princes, reigning dukes, and a few church authorities, who assisted
scholars and spent money most liberally in collecting manuscripts and
accumulating books. Says Symonds:

Never was there a time in the world's history when money was spent
more freely upon the collection and preservation of MSS., and when a
more complete machinery was put in motion for the sake of securing
literary treasures. Prince vied with prince, and eminent burgher with
burgher, in buying books. The commercial correspondents of the Medici
and other great Florentine houses, whose banks and discount offices
extended over Europe and the Levant, were instructed to purchase
relics of antiquity without regard for cost, and to forward them to
Florence. The most acceptable present that could be sent to a king was
a copy of a Roman historian. The best credentials which a young Greek
arriving from Byzantium could use to gain the patronage of men like
Palla degli Strozzi was a fragment of some ancient; the merchandise
insuring the largest profit to a speculator who had special knowledge
in such matters was old parchment covered with crabbed characters.
[15]