To Wake the Dead A Renaissance Merchant and the Birth of Archaeology [Paperback]

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, a young Italian bookkeeper fell under the spell of the classical past. Despite his limited education, the Greeks and Romans seemed to speak directly to himnot from books but from the physical ruins and inscriptions that lay neglected around the shores of the Mediterranean.How Cyriacus of Anconamerchant, spy, and amateur classicisttraveled the world, fighting to save ancient monuments for posterity.