To Wake the Dead: A Renaissance Merchant and the Birth of Archaeology

At the beginning of the 15th 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 him - not from books but from the physical ruins and inscriptions that lay neglected around the shores of the Mediterranean. Cyriacus of Ancona, having seen first-hand the destruction of the world's cultural heritage, resolved to preserve it for the future generations, leading a crusade in the process.