“History is studded with oddly salubrious side-effects to truly awful happenings. For instance, The Renaissance (worthy of a cap on the article surely), seems to have entirely ironic parentage. The fall of Constantinople in 1453? Terrible. But… to escape the Ottomans, classical scholars scurried off to Italy carrying armloads of ancient Greek and Latin texts. And suddenly Italy is rereading its past. . . and producing the present. Our present.” – 3 Quarks Daily