If Petrarch were here now, would he be satisfied with what the Renaissance achieved? Hell, no! He'd still be horrified by all our wars, and keep striving for peace, and telling us to be more virtuous, and build more schools, ask more worldly questions, so someday we can have real peace like the Pax Romana of the good gay emperors. But he would say it with new hope beyond his former hope, born of realising he and his friends aided an achievement - beating back the deadly Horseman Plague! - far beyond his loftiest imagining, that humanity can aim for even better than climbing out of a pit back to antiquity's high hill - we can keep climbing.

— Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer (duplicate) (Page 644)