Besides the
recitation of verses, the new institutions inherited from their
predecessors the regular banquets and the representation of plays,
sometimes acted by the members themselves, sometimes under their
direction by young amateurs, and sometimes by paid players. The fate of
the Italian stage, and afterwards of the opera, was long in the hands
of these associations.
PART FOUR
THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN
Journeys of the Italians
Freed from the countless bonds which elsewhere in Europe checked
progress, having reached a high degree of individual development and
been schooled by the teachings of antiquity, the Italian mind now
turned to the discovery of the outward universe, and to the
representation of it in speech and form.
On the journeys of the Italians to distant parts of the world, we can
here make but a few general observations. The Crusades had opened
unknown distances to the European mind, and awakened in all the passion
for travel and adventure. It may be hard to indicate precisely the
point where this passion allied itself with, or became the servant of,
the thirst for knowledge; but it was in Italy that this was first and
most completely the case. Even in the Crusades the interest of the
Italians was wider than that of other nations, since they already were
a naval power and had commercial relations with the East.
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