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408 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE learning, a wide reputation and came to be regarded as the most universal scholar of the age. On his visit to Naples, in 1453, he was treated as an equal by princes. 1 Many other distinguished teachers also during the same period visited Constantinople in pursuit of learning or manuscripts. But while I have mentioned some of the leading Greeks who contributed before the Moslem conquest to the revival of the study of Greek literature in Italy, it should be noted that there were a host of others less known to fame who sought refuge from the disorders of the empire and found profitable employment in their new homes. Between the death of Petrarch, in 1374, and the conquest of Constantinople, in 1453, Italy had recovered the Greek classics. The intellectual movement caused a great increase in the reproduction of manuscripts. Among the professional copyists, those who could write Greek were specially esteemed and received very large pay. 2 They did their work so admirably that the new invention of printing with moveable types which came in just about the time of the Moslem conquest of Constanti- nople was regarded as unsuitable for, or unworthy of, important books. The envoys of Cardinal Bessarion when they saw for the first time a printed book in the house of Constantine Lascaris laughed at the discovery ' made among the barbarians in some German city,' and Ferdinand of Urbino declared that he would have been ashamed to own a printed book. 3 Notwithstanding this prejudice, Greek books were soon printed in Italy — though, for several years, only in Italy. increased The impulse given to the study of Greek by exiles during fugitives 0 * ^e ^ a lf -century, preceding the conquest of Constantinople after 1453. an( j by the enthusiasm of a series of scholars from Petrarch and Boccaccio down to 1453, was greatly stimulated by the increase of fugitives consequent on the capture of the city. Among the scholars who made their way westward the best 1 Filelfo died in 1481. Dethier gives the letter which he wrote to Mahomet praying for the release of his mother-in-law, a prayer which was granted. 2 Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1875), pp. 392 etc. 3 Burckhardt's Renaissance in Italy, p. 192.