All through the centuries Europe remained sea-locked, until the bold Portuguese mariners venturing ever further and further south along the coast of Africa, finally doubled the Cape of Good Hope--a feat first performed by Bartholomew Diaz in 1486, though it was not until 1498 that Vasco da Gama reached India by this method.
Still unconquered lay the stormy and terrible Atlantic, "Where, beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote sea-gates, Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits." But the ark of Europe found her dove--as the name Columbus signifies--to fly over the wild, western {11} waves, and bring her news of strange countries.

The effect of these discoveries, enormously and increasingly important from the material standpoint, was first felt in the widening of the imagination.

Camoens wrote the epic of Da Gama, More placed his Utopia in America, and Montaigne speculated on the curious customs of the redskins.

Ariosto wrote of the wonders of the new world in his poem, and Luther occasionally alluded to them in his sermons.
[Sidenote: Universities] If printing opened the broad road to popular education, other and more formal means to the same end were not neglected.

One of the great innovations of the Middle Ages was the university.