This sentimental and subjective feeling for Nature, half-idyllic, half-romantic, which seemed to arise suddenly and spontaneously in Petrarch, is not to be wholly explained by a marked individuality, nourished by the tendencies of the period; the influence of Roman literature, the re-birth of the classic, must also be taken into account. For the Renaissance attitude towards Nature was closely allied to the Roman, and therefore to the Hellenic; and the fact that the first modern man arose on Italian soil was due to the revival of antiquity plus its union with the genius of the Italian people. Many direct analogies can be traced between Petrarch and the Roman poets; it was in their school that his eyes opened to the wonders of Nature, and he learnt to blend the inner with the outer life.
Boccaccio does not lead us much further. There is idyllic quality in his description of a wood in the Ameto,[[9]] and especially in Fiammetta, in which he praises country life and describes the spring games of the Florentine youth.
This is the description of a valley in the Decameron: 'After a walk of nearly a mile, they came to the Ladies' Valley, which they entered by a straight path, whence there issued forth a fine crystal current, and they found it so extremely beautiful and pleasant, especially at that sultry season, that nothing could exceed it, and, as some of them told me afterwards, the plain in the valley was so exact a circle, as if it had been described by a pair of compasses, though it seemed rather the work of Nature than of art, and was about half a mile in circumference, surrounded by six hills of moderate height, on each of which was a palace built in the form of a little castle.... The part that looks toward the south was planted as thick as they could stand together with vines, olives, almonds, cherries, figs, and most other kinds of fruit trees, and on the northern side were fine plantations of oak, ash, etc., so tall and regular that nothing could be more beautiful. The vale, which had only that one entrance, was full of firs, cypress trees, laurels, and pines, all placed in such order as if it had been done by the direction of some exquisite artist, and through which little or no sun could penetrate to the ground, which was covered with a thousand different flowers.... But what gave no less delight than any of the rest was a rivulet that came through a valley which divided two of the mountains, and running through the vein of a rock, made a most agreeable murmur with its fall, appealing, as it was dashed and sprinkled into drops, like so much quicksilver.'
Description of scenery for its own sake is scarcely more than attempted here, nor do Petrarch's lyrics, with their free thought of passion and overpowering consciousness of the joys and sorrows of love, reach the level of Hellenism in this respect. Yet it advanced with the Renaissance. Pope Pius II. (Æneas Sylvius) was the first to describe actual landscape (Italian), not merely in a few subjective lines, but with genuine modern enjoyment. He was one of those figures in the world's history in whom all the intellectual life and feeling of a time come to a focus.
He had a heart for everything, and an all-round enthusiasm for Nature unique in his day. Antiquity and Nature were his two passions, and the most beautiful descriptions of Nature before Rousseau and Goethe are contained in his Commentaries.
Writing of the country round his home, he says:
'The sweet spring time had begun, and round about Siena the smiling hills were clothed with leaves and flowers, and the crops were rising in plenty in the fields. Even the pasture land quite close to the town affords an unspeakably lovely view; gently sloping hills, either planted with homely trees or vines, or ploughed for corn, look down on pleasant valleys in which grow crops, or green fields are to be seen, and brooks are even flowing. There are, too, many plantations, either natural or artificial, in which the birds sing with wondrous sweetness. Nor is there a mound on which the citizens have not built a magnificent estate; they are thus a little way out of the town. Through this district the Pope walked with joyous head.'
Again and again love of Nature drew him away even in old age from town life and the circle of courtiers and flatterers; he was for ever finding new reasons to prolong his villeggiatura, despite the grumbling of his court, which had to put up with wretched inns or monasteries overrun by mice, where the rain came through the roofs and the necessaries of life were scanty.[[10]]
His taste for these beautifully-situated monastic solitudes was a riddle to those around him. He wrote of his summer residence in Tibur:
'On all sides round the town in summer there are most lovely plantations, to which the Pope with his cardinals often retired for relaxation, sitting sometimes on some green sward beneath the olives, sometimes in a green meadow on the bank of the river Aino, whence he could see the clear waters. There are some meadows in a retired glen, watered by many streams; Pius often rested in these meadows near the luxuriant streams and the shady trees. He lived at Tibur with the Minorites on an elevation whence he could see the town and the course of the Aino as it flowed into the plain beneath him and through the quiet gardens, nor did anything else give him pleasure.