ITALY

Gutenberg's invention had no immediate effect upon his world.[1] Indeed,
so little enthusiasm did it arouse that while the inventor's plans were
probably evolved as early as 1438, it was not until 1454 or thereabouts
that the first completed book was issued from his press. His business
partner, Faust, sold his wares in wealthy Paris without explaining that
these were different from earlier hand-written books; and when their
cheapness, as well as their exact similarity, was discovered, the
merchant was suspected of having sold himself to the devil. Hence
probably originated the Faust legend. Superstition, it is evident, had
still an extended course to run.

It is worth noting that to sell his books Faust left Germany for Paris,
and that while printing-presses multiplied but slowly in the land of
their origin, the new art was instantly seized upon in Italy, was there
made widest use of and pushed to its perfection. In fact, through all the
Middle Ages the Romance or semi-Teutonic peoples of Italy, France, and
Spain were intellectually in advance of the more wholly Teutonic races of
the North. Many of their descendants believe half contemptuously that the
difference has not even yet been overcome.

Italy at this time held clearly the intellectual supremacy of the western
world, and Florence under the Medici, Cosmo and then Lorenzo, held the
supremacy of Italy.[2] Not only in thought, but in art, was there an
outburst brilliant beyond all earlier times. A friend and pupil of Cosmo
de' Medici was made pope at Rome, and under the name of Nicholas V
originated vast schemes for the rebuilding and beautifying of his city of
ruins.[3] Modern Rome with all its beautiful churches and wonders of art
rose from the hands of Nicholas and his immediate successors. It was
their idea that the city should no longer be remembered by its heathen
greatness, but by its Christian splendor; that the sight of it should
impress upon pilgrims not the decay of the world, but the glory and
majesty of the Church. Nicholas also continued the work of Petrarch,
gathering vast stores of ancient manuscripts, refounding and practically
beginning the enormous Vatican Library. He established that alliance of
the Church with the new culture of the age which for a century continued
to be an honor and distinguishment to both.

In his pontificate occurred the fall of Constantinople, bringing with
it the definite establishment of the Turks in Europe and