“Dear friend! At the end of my last letter to you, I promised to tell you someday the most extensive thoughts about the benefits that we can receive from reading good books. And now, while waiting for an answer to my letters from you, I find a convenient time, I want to fulfill my promise. Here they are, dear friend. The benefits that come, or at least can come, from the good use of books are certainly worthy of being accepted with some respect. It is so important, so great and so obvious that it is impossible to be quite surprised that people see and revere it so little. Isn’t this proof, and isn’t it an example of many European states that have come to a prosperous state in such a short time? Wasn’t it only from that time that they began to flourish, when sciences were resumed from their previous oblivion and the printing of books began in abundance?..”