The greatest German historian Leopold von Ranke, who lived to be over ninety, was the author of a great many works: on the history of the papacy, the Reformation, modern history, the sovereigns of southern Europe, and so on

The greatest German historian Leopold von Ranke, who lived to be over ninety, was the author of a great many works: on the history of the papacy, the Reformation, modern history, the sovereigns of southern Europe, and so on. His approach was distinguished by the fact that Ranke did not write from the literature; he wrote from archival sources.

Works written from archival sources are the Chanel of the world of classical history. It is curious, though, how Ranke managed to spend so much time working in the Vatican, in the Madrid and in other European archives. The answer is simple. The professor of the University of Berlin set his students a great deal of homework. Those who attended his seminars received assignments exclusively on the subjects over which the maestro was himself labouring. And every obscure passage was discussed at those same seminars by all the students together, until the truth was arrived at, and only the best came to him, and only the most hardy and industrious of them could survive it.