"... Isolated, might have been a good word for it." He pauses, then nods. Yeah, that's a good word. He begins to explain to Firo now, telling him about the small-ish city on the coast of Naples that was built to follow the natural borders of the sea and the mountains, how the nobles built their homes atop the hills so they overlooked the rest of the city, how many traders came to use the city's harbor so there were many people from many countries speaking many languages there all the time. Then he explains how, despite how powerful the Church was in the rest of Europe at the time, Lotto Valentino had one old church hardly anybody used anymore, and religion had hardly any influence over the city. War never affected it either.
"Instead, there were many, many libraries. I learned this later, but if we just counted the number of libraries there, it had one of the largest number of libraries in Europe."
no subject
"... Isolated, might have been a good word for it." He pauses, then nods. Yeah, that's a good word. He begins to explain to Firo now, telling him about the small-ish city on the coast of Naples that was built to follow the natural borders of the sea and the mountains, how the nobles built their homes atop the hills so they overlooked the rest of the city, how many traders came to use the city's harbor so there were many people from many countries speaking many languages there all the time. Then he explains how, despite how powerful the Church was in the rest of Europe at the time, Lotto Valentino had one old church hardly anybody used anymore, and religion had hardly any influence over the city. War never affected it either.
"Instead, there were many, many libraries. I learned this later, but if we just counted the number of libraries there, it had one of the largest number of libraries in Europe."