Old artisans' bread

n excellent book I read some time back on bread baking, called Bread Alone, described the elements that make for really great old world bread. The author traveled around the world, trying to find what made the old artisans' bread so excellent. He hit upon a few things that I'm hopefully recalling correctly:

1: the wheat: Must be organic in order to have the proper naturally occurring yeasts that will produce the best bread. 2: the water: must NOT be chlorinated or otherwise treated such that it will kill the naturally occurring yeasts 3: the oven: must produce an even heat, with a degree of moisture in the oven. Brick ovens are perfect for this, but a home oven can be made almost as good if one puts a layer of bricks at the bottom and sprays a few spritzes of water in before baking. This should produce bread that's golden brown and crusty while soft and delicious in the middle. 4: the dough must rise at (if I recall correctly) between 72-79 degrees F. There are a number of naturally occurring yeasts in wheat. The temperature at which the dough rises will determine which type of yeasts "win" out over the others to reproduce and do their yeasty bubbling thang. Bread allowed to rise at this temperature will be most delicious. The water, flour and bowl should all be brought to this temperature BEFORE mixing ideally, and the room should be tested a bit to find a spot that's reliably this temperature (good luck in the summer). 5: set aside some of the dough to use as a "levain" or starter for the next batch of bread you'll make in a few days. (you ARE making bread every few days, right??) This starter will have all kinds of yeasty goodness that will jump start the dough rising. In fact.one is supposed to make this "levain" a few days (or more) before making the first batch of bread, in order to use it to start up the batch of bread rising.