Once firmly established in the north of Italy, Science soon extended her sway over the entire peninsula.

The increasing number of her devotees is indicated by the rise and rapid multiplication of learned societies.

These were reproductions of the Moorish ones that had formerly existed in Granada and Cordova.

As if to mark by a monument the track through which civilizing influences had come, the Academy of Toulouse, founded in 1345, has survived to our own times.

It represented, however, the gay literature of the south of France, and was known under the fanciful title of "the Academy of Floral Games." The first society for the promotion of physical science, the Academia Secretorum Naturae, was founded at Naples, by Baptista Porta.