And so Europe got its own birth... And this is how Europe was born...

• Main Author: Vincenzo Cappelletti
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Bologna 2007-07-01
• Series: Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
• Online Access: http://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/view/1225

They declared themselves to be no slaves or subjects to any leader: this is how the Chorus describes the Greeks to queen Atossa, mother of Serse in the Persian by Aeschylus. That was the symbolic sign impressed on the immediate image of European civilization from its very origins. The following eras would have been in contradiction with this starting proud declaration of psychological, and then physical independence; but today, still and again, in the precarious state of territories and geographical borders, we must remind that it is the true essence that makes us European. We can still find the deep core of this identity in the Greek devotion to an absolute rationality, to the logos of the philosophers of dual Greece – both in Athens and Italy, first in Elea and then in Rome – and that the revelation contained in the Bible – translated into Greek by seventy two learned Jews at the time of Tolomeo Filadelfo – will definitely strengthen the idea of a Creator different from what he has created.