Before the fifteenth century, Italians seem to have been indifferent to the monuments around them of ancient civilization.

Suddenly they were fired with a passion for antiquity.

They learnt Greek and began to take a keen interest in the doings of the Greeks and Romans, who in many ways had lived a life so far superior to their own.

Artists studied the old statues, which taught them the beauty of the human figure.
The reacquired wisdom of the ancients by degrees broke down the medieval barriers.

There was born a spirit of enterprise into the world of thought as well as into the world of fact, which revolutionized life and art.