A manuscript comes to light after being in obscurity for a thousand years, changing the way of human thinking and paving the way for the evolution of the world as we know it today.
Six hundred years have passed since a visionary bookworm passionate about the study of antiquity, the papal secretary Pozzo Bracciolini, unearthed an ancient manuscript from the shelf of a monastery library, saw with awe what he had discovered, and had it copied. The manuscript, the last one saved from the ravages of time, contained a Latin philosophical epic, "De rerum natura" (On the Nature of Things) by Lucretius, a magnificent poem filled with the most dangerous ideas: that the universe operates without the help of gods, that superstition harms human life, that matter consists of infinitely small particles, invisible, indestructible, and in constant motion, the atoms. Lucretius argued that in such a universe, there is no reason to believe that the Earth or its inhabitants occupy a central position or to separate humans from other animals.

"It is not paradoxical," the author notes in his introduction, "that the philosophical tradition from which Lucretius' poem originates, a tradition so incompatible with the worship of gods and the worship of the state, was considered scandalous by some, even in the tolerant civilization of the Mediterranean in classical times." The fact that this particular work was saved, while all other works of this tradition were lost, "is something that one might be tempted to call a miracle." However, Lucretius did not believe in miracles. On the contrary, he believed that nothing can violate the laws of nature. Thus, he "suggested what he himself called 'deviation' (Greek: παρέγκλισις)" for the unexpected and unpredictable movement of matter, the unexpected turn of events. Exactly such a deviation "from the straight path - in this case towards oblivion -" was the discovery of the last manuscript of his work. The copying, translation, and dissemination of this ancient poem fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists like Botticelli and thinkers like Giordano Bruno, shaping the thinking of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein, and had a catalytic impact on writers from Montaigne to Thomas Jefferson.