Italo Pizzi

"If not even the Arabs, the Muslims all, of whatever nation they were, had the pride in the Middle Ages of finesse and splendor in life, of skill sought in everything that touches pomp and luxury, from the fantastically crafted palaces to the most delicate essences and scents, of all costs they owe to the Persians from whom they took it and appropriated Even the science that came to us from Asia in the Middle Ages, in great part was Persian; and Persians are almost all philosophers, doctors, astronomers, mathematicians, whose names we read in the pages of our middle age, such as Agazel and Alrasi, Albatenio, Avicenna, Alfarabi. They wrote their works in Arabic, this being the learned language of the Muslim empire; and we therefore, with manifest error, called them Arabs and yet we consider them to be so."

"The morality taught by the Avesta, beyond and above its theological, dogmatic, ritual precepts, is still a very high and pure morality that rightly places Zoroastrianism among the most elected religions in the world. The same threefold precept of never sinning in thoughts, in works, in words, which is also among the precepts of Christianity, encloses in its rigidity and summarizes every other precept that is intended to guide man down here. The greatest virtues that, moreover, were recommended not also by the Avesta, but also by the law and custom common to all the Iranians, were justice, charity, generosity, piety, the horror of lying."

"The Ancients [...] almost all made great praises of the Iranians. They praised his tall and beautiful person and his dignified and noble appearance. Herodotus certainly speaks of their decent and great bearing; Aeschylo notices their beautiful and thick skin; Diodorus is pleased to describe the manly beauty of some of them. The Arabs of the Middle Ages used to say that those who wish to have brave and soulful children must take a woman from Persia as a wife. And, after all, in all that strong predilection that the Iranians, according to the Greek and Roman writers, have always had for everything that is chivalrous, noble, elected, as are noble horses, noble dog suits, jurs and exercises in the gym and in hunting, sumptuous palaces and gardens, drapes, gems, perfumes, sumptuous ornaments The same sacred book attributed to Zoroaster, the Avesta, commands and orders every pious man to honestly enjoy life and his possessions, as long as he does not exceed anything, as a precious gift of the Creator. The same book proclaims sovereign art among all agriculture, and the Iranians have always been, and still are, of the most diligent and diligent farmers in Asia."