It was he
who, in the war with Naples, granted an amnesty to the men of Arpinum,
as countrymen of Cicero and Marius, after whom many of them were named.
It was to him alone, as both judge and patron, that Blondus could
dedicate his 'Roma Triumphans,' the first great attempt at a complete
exposition of Roman antiquity.
Nor was the enthusiasm for the classical past of Italy confined at this
period to the capital. Boccaccio had already called the vast ruins of
Baia 'old walls, yet new for modern spirits'; and since his time they
were held to be the most interesting sight near Naples. Collections of
antiquities of all sorts now became common. Ciriaco of Ancona (d. 1457)
travelled not only through Italy, but through other countries of the
old Orbis terrarum, and brought back countless inscriptions and
sketches. When asked why he took all this trouble, he replied, 'To wake
the dead.' The histories of the various cities of Italy had from the
earliest times laid claim to some true or imagined connection with
Rome, had alleged some settlement or colonization which started from
the capital; and the obliging manufacturers of pedigrees seem
constantly to have derived various families from the oldest and most
famous blood of Rome. So highly was the distinction valued, that men
clung to it even in the light of the dawning criticism of the fifteenth
century.
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