"To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region. [...] My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer." —from the Chris & Anna Celenza Library, Baltimore, Maryland:  Francis Petrarch, “The Ascent of Mount Ventoux," in Petrarch: The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters, ca. 1350, Ed. & Trans., James Harvey Robinson, New York, Putnum, 1898