A quest for knowledge - Ep. 2: All set to go

I had made the decision. I would leave soon. But where to?

To the north, to Leipzig, the hometown of Wagner and the University of strong Lutheran tradition? Too close! Further away, heading east towards icy winters, to the renowned University of Krakow, where Copernicus has studied? Too cold! To Bologna, that after Padua was just the second university to grant the degree of doctor in Philosophy to a woman? Maybe later.

Paris is calling me. The University of Paris. The Sorbonne. The Lights. The news announcing that the great work of Diderot and d'Alembert, the Encyclopedia, Encyclopédie, or Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des Arts et des métiers, has come to an end. More than two dozen volumes, thousands of articles, gathering all the most up to date knowledge. Paris will be!


I did not knew, by then, that the Royal Spanish Academy had decided to send the librarian Don Hermógenes Molina and the Admiral Don Pedro Zárate, two good men, to Paris, with the delicate mission of bringing back to Spain a copy of this thought challenging encyclopedia, against the orders of the catholic church. But that's another story.


Then maybe Cambridge, on the other side of the English Channel, who knows. Or Salamanca, traversing the Pyrenees, by land, or across the waters of Biscay; and from there on to the mysteries of Granada and onto the Mare Nostrum.

Now it was time for the final preparations. I hung the saddlebags in the chair and put some of my belongings on the undone bed. I must travel light. A few pieces of clothing, provisions for the early stage of the journey, the books that would be my fellow travelers, the coins in a purse, the letters of recommendation, from my former masters to my future masters. All set.

I hit the road.


(to be continued)

On a journey, riding with Newton, a game of Nestore Mangone and Simone Luciani, Ediciones Mas que Oca (2018) under license of Cranio Creations. 

Homens Bons [Good Men] (2015), Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Edições ASA.
Uma História da Universidade na Europa [A History of the University in Europe], Vol. II – As Universidades na Europa Moderna (1500-1800), Coordenação de Hilde de Ridder-Symoens, Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda (2002).