A great essay, by Anthony Grafton, on Arnaldo Momigliano, his revered teacher.  Anyone who knows Grafton knows that for him to revere somebody, that somebody must be really impressive.  The simplest way to complete this thought is just to say: Momigliano was.  

Above all, he told me stories—the principal medium by which great scholars, and great teachers, survive.

Talking about his overall project, talking about his style, talking about the world of continental scholarship that he embodied, this essay is an introduction into a world where erudition was a word universally understood, and—and for that reason—rarely used.  

I give you a lot of links to read, but once in a while, one stands out.  This taught me new things, not just about Grafton and Momigliano (though I had read bits of this before, in other things that Grafton has written about Momigliano in the past), but also about teaching, about scholarship, and about the terrible burdens of erudition.  I doubt Momigliano ever thought he lived up to his teachers, either.