Augustine’s optimism was typical; progress beckoned. As Gilbert de Tournai wrote in the thirteenth century, “Never will we find truth if we content ourselves with what is already known. . . . Those things that have been written before us are not laws but guides. The truth is open to all, for it is not yet totally possessed.”23 Especially typical were the words preached by Fra Giordano in Florence in 1306: “Not all the arts have been found; we shall never see an end to finding them. Every day one could discover a new art.”
