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Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, not during the Pericles period, nor during the middle ages, but only since the Renaissance when Leonardo da Vinci, pushed by his jealousy of Michelangelo, wrote his famous pamphlet against sculptors, were the sculptors considered not even artists.  Rather they were considered like masons, like stone-carvers, some kind of musclemen.  That's probably why I never heard of a sculptor to whom an honorary doctor's degree was given.  It is true that the great sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein was knighted.  But, after all, a knight can be a brute, but not a doctor: to give a doctor's degree to a sculptor is a novelty; a doctor has to have brains.  That's why in the name of all sculptors I am very grateful to Brandeis University, and to Prof. Sadian personally who dared to honour a sculptor in such a way.  I accept this distinction with gratefulness and sincere humility.