“The humanists also lived double lives, in their own way: they had their officia, their negotia, and could only dedicate the best of their otium to solitary study and savant sociability. It was the model of the devout brotherhood, rather than the guild of artisans, that gave meetings between savants their regularity, festive rites, and a climate of literary zeal that warmed and familiarized those remnants of antiquity that seemed spectral or affected.”
