As in the preceding ages, so in this, the East was the source of all subsequent worth. Italy, in the northern deluge, was the predestined Mount Ararat; the last reached by the flood, and the first left. The history of modern Europe must necessarily be referred to Florence, as the history of all-conquering force has ever been ascribed to Rome. The great ascendancy of the Medici, and the influence of Italian genius at that epoch on literature, art, science, philosophy, and religion of the world, made that fair city the centre of light, the sovereign of thought, the beautifier of life, and the metropolis of civilization. The fall of old Rome and the rise of new Italy, were events as desirable as they were inevitable. The mission of the former had ceased before any foreign nation ventured across the Alps. With an animal instinct the superannuated body summoned all the remnants of vital energy to the heart, only to witness the fatal prostration of its members, and realize its final doom. Says Mariotti, "The barbarian invasion had then the effect of an inundation of the Nile. It found a land exhausted with its own efforts, burning and withering under the rays of the same tropical sun which had called into action its productive virtues, and languishing into a slow decay, from which no reaction could ever redeem it. Then, from the bosom of unexplored mountains, prepared in the silence of untrodden regions, the flood roared from above: the overwhelming element washed away the last pale remnants of a faded vegetation; but the seasons had their own course. Gardens and fields smiled again on those desolate marshes. Palms and cedars again waved their crests to the skies in all the pride of youth, as if singing the praises of the Creator, and attesting that man alone perishes, and his works--but Nature is immortal."