The typical feature of the revival of learning in Italy was, of course, the rediscovery of the literature of Greece. In the poetic simile of Symonds, “Florence borrowed her light from Athens, as the moon shines with rays reflected from the sun. The revival was the silver age of that old golden age of Greece.”[415] The comparison of Florence with Athens has repeatedly been made. The golden ages of the two cities were separated by nearly two thousand years; but history and human nature repeat themselves, and historians have found in the Tuscan capital of the fifteenth century a population which, with its keen intellectual nature, subtle and delicate wit, and restless political spirit, recalls closely the Athens of Pericles. The leadership which belonged to Italy in literature, art, scholarship, and philosophy, was, within Italy, conceded to Florence. The first name in the list of Florentine scholars whose influence was important in this revival is that of Petrarch. He never himself mastered the Greek language, but he arrived at a realisation of the importance of Greek thought for the world, and he preached to others the value of the studies which were beyond his own grasp. It was at Petrarch’s instance that Boccaccio undertook the translation into Latin of the _Iliad_. Among Latin authors, Petrarch’s devotion was given particularly to Cicero and Virgil. The fact that during the first century of printing more editions of Cicero were produced than of any other classic author must have been largely due to the emphasis given by the followers of Petrarch to the beauty of Cicero’s latinity and the permanent value of his writings. Petrarch was a devoted collector of manuscripts, and spared neither labour nor expense to secure for his library codices of texts recommended as authoritative. Notwithstanding his lack of knowledge of Greek, he purchased for his collection all the Greek manuscripts which came within his reach and within his means. Fortunately for these expensive literary tastes, he appears to have possessed what we should call a satisfactory independence. Some of his manuscripts went to Boccaccio, while the rest were, at his death, given to the city of Florence and found place later in the Medicean Library. Petrarch laid great stress on the importance, for the higher education of the people, of efficient public libraries, and his influence with wealthy nobles served largely to increase the resources of several of the existing libraries. In his scholarly appreciation of the value of such collections, he was helping to educate the community to support the booksellers, while in the collecting of manuscripts he was unwittingly doing valuable service for the coming printer. He died in 1374, ninety years before the first printing-press began its work in Italy. A century later his beautiful script served as a model for the italic or cursive type which was first made by Aldus.