But another reason15 he was so open to the Catholic church now had to do with Rome itself, where the best of the classical pagan world he so loved met and coexisted harmoniously with the world of Christendom. Here in Rome it was all part of some continuum. For him, it was difficult to be closed to a church that somehow partook of the splendor of classical antiquity, that seemed to see the best in it and even to redeem some of it.
