He was bent on exposing the prejudices of his time and uttering new doctrine, and he created great scandal in Italy by his attacks on Petrarch, as well as on Homer and Aristotle.

The earliest comparison of the merits of the ancients and the moderns will be found in a volume of Miscellaneous Thoughts which he published in 1620.

[Footnote: Dieci libri di pensieri diversi (Carpi, 1620).

The first nine books had appeared in 1612.

The tenth contains the comparison.