The concept of “the Dark Ages” is central to several key elements in much anti-religious polemic. One of the primary myths most beloved by many anti-theists is the one whereby Christianity violently suppressed ancient Greco-Roman learning, destroyed an ancient intellectual culture based on pure reason and retarded a nascent scientific and technological revolution, thus plunging Europe into a one thousand year “dark age” which was only relieved by the glorious dawn of “the Renaissa...| History for Atheists
the only way to get reading matter was to find manuscripts to buy, beg, borrow, or transcribe| Winnie Lim
For Petrarch, books are sociable| Winnie Lim
circulate them to anyone who cared to read them| Winnie Lim
I'm currently reading Humanely Possible by Sarah Blakewell – I liked her previous two books so it wasn't too difficult to pick this one up as well. She devoted quite a few pages about Petrarch. He liked collecting books, except that back then the printing press didn't exist, so he has to manually copy every...| Winnie Lim