“Two things, I feel, are very necessary:  one that I go to Italy, to gain for my poor learning some authority from the celebrity of the place; the other, that I take the degree of Doctor; both senseless, to be sure.  For people do not straightway change their minds because they cross the sea, as Horace says, nor will the shadow of an impressive name make me a whit more learned ... but we must put on the lion’s skin to prove our ability to those who judge a man by his title and not by his books, which in truth they do not understand."[11]

Although Erasmus despised degree-hunting, it is well known that he felt the power of Italy.  He was tempted to remain in Rome for ever, by reason of the company he found there.  “What a sky and fields, what libraries and pleasant walks and sweet confabulation with the learned ..."[12] he exclaims, in afterwards recalling that paradise of scholars.  There was, for instance, the Cardinal Grimani, who begged Erasmus to share his life ... and books.[13] And there was Aldus Manutius.  We get a glimpse of the Venetian printing-house when Aldus and Erasmus worked together:  Erasmus sitting writing regardless of the noise of printers, while Aldus breathlessly reads proof, admiring every word.  “We were so busy,” says Erasmus, “we scarce had time to scratch our ears."[14]

It was this charm of intellectual companionship which started the whole stream of travel animi causa.  Whoever had keen wits, an agile mind, imagination, yearned for Italy.  There enlightened spirits struck sparks from one another.  Young and ardent minds in England and in Germany found an escape from the dull and melancholy grimness of their uneducated elders—­purely practical fighting-men, whose ideals were fixed on a petrified code of life.

I need not explain how Englishmen first felt this charm of urbane civilization.  The travels of Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, of Gunthorpe, Flemming, Grey and Free, have been recently described by Mr Einstein in The Italian Renaissance in England.  As for Italian journeys of Selling, Grocyn, Latimer, Tunstall, Colet and Lily, of that extraordinary group of scholars who transformed Oxford by the introduction of Greek ideals and gave to it the peculiar distinction which is still shining, I mention them only to suggest that they are the source of the Renaissance respect for a foreign education, and the founders of the fashion which, in its popular spreadings, we will attempt to trace.  They all studied in Italy, and brought home nothing but good.  For to scholarship they joined a native force of character which gave a most felicitous introduction to England of the fine things of the mind which they brought home with them.  By their example they gave an impetus to travel for education’s sake which lesser men could never have done.