From Content: and “Cain was the first author of cities; but the poets (whom Cicero therein followed) fable that in the old world men scattered here and there, on the mountains and the plains, led a life little different from brute beasts, without laws, without conformity of customs and matter of civil conversation. And that afterward there rose up some who, having with their wisdom and their eloquence won a special reputation and authority above the rest, declared to the rude and barbarous multitude how much and how great profit they were like to enjoy if, drawing themselves to one place, they would unite themselves into one body, by an interchangeable communication and commerce of all things that would proceed thereof. And by this means they first founded hamlets and villages, and after towns and cities, and thereupon these poets further feigned that Orpheus and Amphion drew after them the beasts of the fields, the woods and stones: meaning under these fictions to signify and show the grossness of the wits and the roughness of the matters of the same people. But besides these fables, we read of Theseus that after he had taken upon him the government of the Athenians, it came into his mind to unite into one city all the people that dwelt in the country there about, dispersedly in many villages abroad; which he easily effected, by manifesting unto them the great commodity and good that would ensue of it. The like thing is daily at this time put into practice in Brazil. Those people dwell dispersed here and there in caves and cottages (not to call them houses) made of boughs and leaves of the palm. And forasmuch as this matter of life, to live so dispersedly, causeth these people to remain in that same savage mind of theirs, and roughness of matter and behaviour, and bringeth therewith much difficulty and hindrance to the preaching of the Gospel, to the conversion of the infidels and the instruction of those that travail painfully, to convert them and to bring them to knowledge and civility, the Portuguese and Jesuits have used extreme diligence and care to reduce and draw them into some certain place together more convenient for their purpose, where living in a civil conversation they might more easily be instructed in the Christian faith and governed by the magistrate and ministers of the King. So that to this purpose I might here remember those cities that have been built by the power and inhabited by the authority of great princes or some famous commonweals. For the Greeks and Phoenicians were the authors of an infinite sight of cities. And Alexander the Great and other kings erected a number more besides, whereof bear witness Alexandria, Ptolemais, Antioch, Lysimachia, Philippopolis, Demetrias, Caesarea, Augusta, Sebastia, Agrippina, Manfredonia, and in our time Cosmopolis, and the City of the Sun. and “

On the Causes of the Greatness and Magnificence of Cities (Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library) by Geoffrey Symcox (2013-01-22) PDF

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