Literature.
Reference has already been made from time to time to helpful literature. Burckhardt’s “Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy” is often cited as the best book in English on the Renaissance in Italy, but it offers comparatively little in the way of suggestive treatment for the secondary teacher. His point of view is psychological and therefore quite beyond the comprehension of the secondary student. This fact, however, should not discourage the teacher from a perusal of his pages, as he throws new light on many a vexed question connected with the movement. Symonds’s “Short History of the Renaissance in Italy,” an abridgement of his larger work, though more popular and less scholarly, portrays the more attractive and the more intelligible side of the period and makes it glow with life and enthusiasm. Placed in the hands of the young reader, it may be the means of inspiring him with some of the writer’s enthusiasm for the labors of the men of that period, and possibly stimulate a stronger desire for some of that culture of which they were such worthy exponents. The chapter by Adams on the Renaissance in his “Civilization During the Middle Ages” is most suggestive and helpful. He not only summarizes the various revivals which culminated in the Renaissance proper, but traces the movement from its inception in Italy to its appearance in Italy and Germany, pointing out clearly its leading spirits and characterizing their special contributions to the movement. Lodge, in the concluding chapter of his “Close of the Middle Ages,” deals with the main features of the Renaissance and presents some admirable contrasts between the old and the new. Mention should also be made of the chapters in Seignobos’s “History of Medieval and Modern Civilization” on the “End of the Middle Ages,” “Modern Times,” “Inventions and Discoveries,” and the “Renaissance.” Beazley’s “Prince Henry the Navigator,” contains much more than a biography of this great pioneer in the field of discovery, and will be found useful for its summary of earlier achievements. Seebohm’s small volume on the “Era of the Protestant Reformation,” though brief, contains an excellent summary of the conditions which prevailed during the Renaissance and their relation to the movement for religious reform. Van Dyke, “History of Painting,” and Marquand and Frothingham, “History of Sculpture,” are useful handbooks for the artistic side of the Renaissance. Whitcomb’s “Source Book of the Renaissance” probably contains the greatest number of readings from the Renaissance authors, both Italian and German. Special mention might be made of his extracts from Petrarch and Benevenuto Cellini in Part I.; and from Erasmus and the “Letters of Obscure Men” in Part II. Part II. is preceded by a short account of the Renaissance in Germany. Robinson’s “Readings,” Vol I., contains much that is helpful, particularly in contrasting the culture of the Middle Ages with that of the Renaissance. In this connection should be noted Chapter xix, on the “Culture of the Middle Ages,” with its subdivisions on “Mediæval Natural Science,” “Historical Knowledge in the Middle Ages,” “Abelard and the Universities,” “Supremacy of Aristotle in the Mediæval Universities,” “Scholasticism,” and “Roger Bacon and the Beginning of Modern Experimental Science.” Chapter xxii contains extracts illustrating the Renaissance in Italy, with subdivisions on the Italian despots (quoting from Machiavelli), “Humanism,” and the “Artists of the Renaissance.” Ogg devotes one of his concluding chapters (xxvi) to the “Beginnings of the Italian Renaissance,” in which he quotes from Dante and Petrarch.