The Jews have never practically lost sight of the Samaritans, unlike the Christians, who for at least a thousand years had entirely forgotten their existence, as no writer or pilgrim to the Holy Land speaks of them with the solitary exception of Mandeville. It was therefore a great surprise to the Western world when at the beginning of the seventeenth century the darkness began to be lifted, and through Scaliger, Huntingdon, and Della Valle for the first time authentic news about the Samaritans, their language, and their Bible began to reach Europe.