After Quote by Cathleen Schine

It was in the Papal States that I studied the Roman Question. I traveled over every part of the country; I conversed with men…

— Anonymous

The pope being informed of the great increase of Protestantism, in the year 1542 sent inquisitors to Venice to make an inquiry into the…

— John Foxe

“In my early youth - he would later write to his friend, the philosopher Constantin Noica- seduced me solely the libraries and the brothels.”

— Emil Cioran

“A precious mouldering pleasure 't is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable…

— Emily Dickinson

I realised that today we are very much interested in reading about subjects that would have also interested people in the 1500s: ghosts, demons…

— Deborah Harkness

“Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve,…

— G.K. Chesterton

“On sober reflection, I find few reasons for publishing my Italian version of the obscure, neo-Gothic French version of a seventeenth-century Latin edition of…

— Umberto Eco

I didn't want to go into the papal bureaucracy, so I thought of doing a postdoctoral thesis, which they call a 'Habilitation' in German…

— Ivan Illich

An illuminating read for every classical scholar engaged with the current quest for the subject's roots, and the excavation of the way that it…

— Edith Hall

After finishing 'The Book of Life,' I needed a bit of a break from the Bishops and de Clermonts. Honestly, I wasn't sure when…

— Deborah Harkness

“The only writer of the Middle Ages to describe cryptography instead of just using it was Roger Bacon, the English monk of startlingly modern…

— David Kahn

I was brought up Catholic, and I felt the power of art from a very young age - seeing the brutality of all those…

— Damien Hirst