The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns () was a debate about literary and artistic merit, which expanded to from the debaters to the members of the Académie Française in the 17th century. Origins of the debate It was an essential feature of the European Renaissance to study the culture and institutions inherited from classical (Greek and Roman) antiquity. In contrast to the medieval scholastic emphasis on Christian theology and unchanging monarchy, Renaissance humanists launched a movement to recover, interpret, and assimilate the language, literature, learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome. The 15th century rediscovery of ancient texts and their wide distribution after the invention, in about 1440, of the printing press democratized culture, allowing a faster propagation of ideas; and the resurgence of learning based on classical sources brought revolutions in many intellectual and social scientific pursuits. For example, in the field of architectural theory, Filippo Brunelleschi revolutionized medieval architecture using the knowledge he rediscovered after studying the remains of ancient classical buildings, analyzing the works of 1st century writer Vitruvius, and understanding the mathematical principles that could be discerned from them. This cultural rebirth of the classical ideals of ancient times, and the following changes in scientific and artistic thought, gave rise to a reaction from those who perceived it as a danger to the stability of Christian civilization and wished to reassert the social and political values of medieval modernity. The debate became known as a "quarrel," after the frequently made pun on Charles Perrault's title Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes (Parallel between Ancients and Moderns, 1688–92); the word querelle being used in the place of parallèle. Debate in France The quarrel between the Classics and the Moderns opposes two distinct currents: The Ancients (Anciens), led by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, say that literary creation has its roots in the fair appreciation of the heritage of antiquity. According to them, it's the test of time that makes the masterpieces, not the pedantic opinion of an elite of scholars; the worth of the famous authors from Greece and Rome is established by twenty centuries of universal admiration. While recognizing the merits of the great writers of his time (Boileau predicted that Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine and Molière would be acclaimed as geniuses in centuries to come) it is also important to recognize the cumulative dimension of culture and study our predecessors. The metaphor of the dwarves