Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

For six centuries, millions of readers, in and out of the church, had fed on religious romance, which had continually depreciated in merit, when John Bunyan was born, 1628, to gather up every remnant of excellence which had ever been expressed under that type; and having re-issued the essence of it all most divinely refined, he terminated legendary literature forever. With the same providential intent, in the same year that Michael Angelo died, William Shakspeare was born, and having perfected to the last degree every element which had accumulated during the lapsing of thirty centuries, romantic literature ended with the closing of his grave. Mid-way between Shakspeare and Bunyan, Milton lost his eyes; and Poetry, Freedom, and Religion, at the same time lost theirs for a season. But, behold! The splendors which fade along the western sky of the old world already foretoken the rising of a brighter day over the new.

CHAPTER II.

ART.

In reviewing the various realms of art in the age of Leo X., we shall first consider the origin and progress of the architecture peculiar to that great stage of human development, and then proceed to notice briefly the sculpture, painting, and other correlative productions. The sources of illustration are so numerous, and the material so abundant, it will be necessary to observe comprehensiveness as far as possible in the exploration of each department.

The facts of history require us to resume the consideration of debased Roman art at its nadir of utter degradation in the fifth century, and thence to follow it as it arises with a new life, transformed into two original types, Gothic and Byzantine, till both blended in the Christian architecture of the thirteenth century, and this in turn perished before the rising influence of the Renaissance. The old Romanesque prevailed from the time of Constantine to that of Justinian, and always remained the molding influence in Teutonic art. The Byzantine style absorbed into itself oriental lightness and beauty, traversed the whole domain of superannuated civilization in the East, and, with all its modifying charms, in due time coalesced with the more rugged and progressive element in the far West.

Justinian ascended the throne of the East, in 527. By him the celebrated architect Anthemius was invited to Constantinople, and Saint Sophia was built. This famous church was so splendid that the emperor is said to have exclaimed on its completion: "Glory be to God, who hath thought me worthy to accomplish so great a work. I have vanquished thee, O Solomon." Then an aërial cupola was first erected, a model of bold design and skillful execution. This was the third edifice on the same spot since the original by Constantine, and combined all the skill, taste, and munificence of the age. Its columns of granite, porphyry, and green marble, its semi-domes and walls incrusted with precious stones, its various members, admirable by their size and beauty, and all embellished with a rich profusion of jaspers, gems, and costly metals, furnished a rich repast to the curiosity of travelers, and was a magnificent monument of metropolitan pride. Simultaneous with the creation of the Byzantine type, arose the well-defined Romanesque at Ravenna, the seat of the Greek Exarchate. Unlike the old capital of the world, which she now came to rival in importance, Ravenna possessed no ruined temples whose spoils could be used in constructing new buildings. Being obliged to think for themselves and design every detail, the architects introduced a degree of originality of conception and harmony of proportions into their plans and elevations utterly unknown in the Roman examples. Theodoric had been educated at Constantinople, and was far from being insensible to the national advantages derived from science and art. Great care was bestowed on architecture and sculpture, so that under this royal patron all the Italian cities acquired the useful or splendid decorations of churches, aqueducts, baths, and palaces. The death of Theodoric occurred in 526. His mausoleum, now called Santa Maria della Rotunda, as well as the cotemporaneous church of Santa Apollinaris, still in existence at Ravenna, attest an immense stride in advance of the old Roman style. It was upon these constructions that the peculiar external decoration was first applied which became so remarkably developed in its westward course.

Justinian united the whole of Italy to his dominions in 553, and Ravenna thenceforth became the seat of the government of the Greeks. The new basilicas with which the city was speedily adorned introduced the cupola, and employed the block capitals which had been invented at Constantinople, ornamented with foliage in low relief, in imitation of basket work. But before the end of the sixth century, the Lombards came into supreme power, and still more marked improvement supervened in monumental art. As the pious entreaties of his Athenian bride had long before induced Honorius to exert himself in behalf of sacred works, and the daughter of Theodosius, Galla Placidia, a princess greatly afflicted, found consolation in decorating Ravenna with Christian temples; so Theodolinda, daughter of Garibaldus, Duke of Bavaria, and wife of Agilulfus, the fourth Lombard king, persuaded her husband to abjure his Arian heresies, and to protect the arts. Churches and palaces were multiplied, especially in Pavia, which the Lombard kings chose for their usual abode. The seventh century, and a part of the eighth, was a period of comparative tranquillity, and, under the auspices of this new and active race, the architecture of Italy was greatly improved. The Lombards imported no architects from the North, but availed themselves of the men and means furnished by the conquered country, still retaining the Romanesque form, but investing it internally and externally with a profusion of characteristic ornament. Until the seventh century Christian symbols were admitted into the churches with a sparing hand, but now the greatest license seems to have been given to ornamentation of every sort. Not only does architecture, more than all other material things, co-operate in manifesting the fulfillment of those sacred prophecies, in the deep truth of which is rooted the ever-thriving tree of salvation, but it also bears the clearest trace of national character and pursuits. The Lombards were great hunters, and along their wide façades and around their soaring porticoes they built with constructive sculpture all the wild energy of the daring and tumultuous chase. As a compendious abstract of the picturesque in outline, the impressive in substance, and the exciting in association, architecture exercises the magic of romance, where she emulates the majesty of nature, and portrays her myriad forms; when she unites the regulated precisions of human design, with the bold irregularities of divine creation; or when she presents us the hoary reminiscences of past heroes, whose deeds of good and ill gave radiant light or melancholy shadow to the times in which they lived. No thoughtful spirit can unmoved revert to those sons of barbarians who, as the triumphs of supreme art, caused the castle and cathedral to surmount the natural Goliath, in defiance of the giant mountain; when the huge walls, mellowed by time, even to the very tint of the majestic rock on which they stand, seem of that rock a part, whence lofty towers, festooned by the ivy "garland of eternity," look down upon prosperous towns as they gleam from afar amid patriarchal oaks.

At the commencement of the eighth century, the hopes began to show much solicitude in behalf of the arts. In that age they gained great temporal advantages, and their revenues enabled them to do immense good for Italy. But the era of Charlemagne, which opened about the middle of the eighth century and continued into the ninth, was one in which a greater number of grand edifices were dedicated to Christianity. Rising to extensive dominion, this extraordinary man did much to restore the arts and promote the cause of universal civilization. Meanwhile the decrepit empire of the East was becoming too feeble to employ her architects and artisans, so that when the auxiliary help was needed it was thence derived to plan and execute the supreme seat of civil and ecclesiastical power beyond the Alps. At Aix-la-Chapelle a new form of art arose, to which the general name of Gothic may be correctly applied, meaning thereby all the styles which were introduced by those Teutonic tribes of barbarians who overwhelmed the Roman empire, and established themselves within its boundaries. Exactly in the ratio this barbarian element prevailed along the course of its westward development, architecture flourished in originality and beauty, the aggregated worth of which was always found at the point remotest from its source. All the western styles were derived from Roman art, but before the tenth century the originals had been forgotten, and a new type appeared wholly independent of the old one. The forms of the pillars, of the piers, and the arches they support, are different as created by Gothic genius. The whole edifice is roofed with intersecting vaults, which have become an integral part of the inner design, while buttresses afford firm support outside.

But we must trace the derivation of a new element which is combined with the Lombard type in the wilds of Germany. In the ninth century, on the designs of a Greek artist, rose the cathedral of Saint Mark, at Venice, the largest Byzantine church in Italy. Saint Anthony of Padua bore this eastern element still nearer its destined goal, and at Pisa it was absorbed into the older and mightier element; but the perfect manner of amalgamation did not obliterate either of the original components. The cathedral at Pisa, whose architect was Buschetto, a Greek, was built in the beginning of the eleventh century, and was completely differenced from the previous basilicas by the addition of transepts, thus assuming the form of a Latin cross. Just half a century earlier, the beautiful church of Saint Miniato, near Florence, had presented the first coupled piers, and made the first timid attempt at vaulting the nave. But the Pisan progress went much further, by boldly extending the Ravenna apse into a spacious choir beyond the transepts, with well-defined triforium galleries over the pier arches. These are all striking approximations toward consummate art, but we still have a five-aisled basilica with the aisles vaulted, and a flat wooden roof covering the nave. The most observable feature of the exterior is the extravagant display of columns and other members not essential to the construction. Arcades rise over arcades, and orders succeed to orders almost without end. All which in the temples of Athens had been rectangular and symmetrical, in the Byzantine churches, and all under their influence, became curved, dwarfed, and rounded; so that, after the Romans had deprived the Greek architecture of its consistency, the Christian Greeks themselves obliterated every trace of excellence yet spared by the Romans, and made the architecture of their heathen ancestors owe its final annihilation to the same nation to whom it had been indebted for its glorious growth.

But that nothing should be lost to western art, the Byzantine Romanesque was made to sweep most widely over the old world, and enter Europe at the remotest point. "On the wings of Mohammed's spreading creed," says Hope, "wafted from land to land by the boundless conquest of his followers, the architecture of Constantinople, extending one way to the furthest extremities of India, and the other to the utmost outskirts of Spain, prevailed throughout the whole of the regions intervening between the Ganges and the Guadalquiver; in every one of the different tracks into which it was imported, still equally different from the aborigines, or early possessors. Thus, while in none of the various and distant countries, we observe previous to the adoption of Islamism the slightest approach to those inventions, the pride and the stay of architecture—the arch and the cupola; in all of them alike, on the very first settling in them of the Mohammedans, we see these noble features immediately appearing, from the application of Greek skill, in the full maturity of form they had attained among themselves."