The influence of the literary awakening and of the newly discovered masterpieces would of necessity have been restricted to a comparatively limited scholarly circle, if it had not been for the invention of Gutenberg and for the scholarly enterprise and devotion of such followers of Gutenberg as Aldus, Estienne, and Froben. It is, of course, equally true that if the intellectual world had not been quickened and inspired by the teachers of the Renaissance, the presses of Aldus would have worked to little purpose, and their productions would have found few buyers. Aldus may, in fact, himself be considered as one of the most characteristic and valuable of the products of the movement. The Renaissance has been described by various historians, and analysed by many commentators. The work which has, however, been accepted as the most comprehensive account of the movement and the best critical analysis of its nature and influence, and which presents also a vivid and artistic series of pictures of Italy and the Italians during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, is Symonds’ _Renaissance in Italy_. These volumes are so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the period, and the author’s characterisations are so full and so sympathetic, that it is difficult not to think of Symonds as having been himself a Florentine, rather than a native of the “barbarian realm of Britain.” I take the liberty of quoting the description given by Symonds of the peculiar conditions under which Italy of the fifteenth century, in abandoning the hope of securing a place among the nations of the world, absorbed itself in philosophic, literary, and artistic ideals. Freshly imbued with Greek thought and Greek inspiration, Italy took upon itself the rôle played centuries earlier by classic Greece, and, without political power or national influence, it assumed the leadership of the intellect and of the imagination of Europe.