History of Human Society

by Frank W. Blackmar

Machiavelli, in his Prince, desired to picture the type of rulers needed to meet the demands of Italy at the time he wrote. It is a picture of imperialism and, indeed, of despotism. The prince or ruler was in no way obliged to consider the feelings and rights of individuals. Machiavelli said it was not necessary that a prince should be moral, humane, religious, or just; indeed, that if he had these qualities and displayed them they would harm him, but if he were new to his place in the principality he might seem to have them. It would be as useful to him to keep the path of rectitude when this was not too inconvenient as to know how to deviate from it when circumstances dictate. In other words, a prudent prince cannot and ought not really to keep his word except when he can do it without injury to himself.

Among other Italian writers may be mentioned Boiardo, on account of his Orlando Innamorato, and Ariosto, who wrote Orlando Furioso. Upon the whole, the writings of the period were not worthy of its intellectual development, although Torquato Tasso, in his Jerusalem Delivered, presents the first crusade as Homer presented the Trojan War. The small amount of really worthy literature of this age has been attributed to the lack of moral worth.

Art and Architecture.—Perhaps the renaissance art exceeded that which it replaced in beauty, variety, and naturalness, as well as in exuberance. There was an attempt to make all things beautiful, and no attempt to follow the spirit of asceticism in degrading the human body, but rather to try to delineate every feature as noble in itself. The movement, life, and grace of the human form, the beauty of landscape, all were enjoyed and presented by the artists of the renaissance. The beauty of this life is magnified, and the artists represented in joyous mood the best qualities that are important in the world. They turned the attention from asceticism to the importance of the present life.

Perhaps the Italians reached the highest point of development in painting, for the Madonnas of Italy have given her celebrity in art through all succeeding generations. Cimabue was the first to paint the Madonna as a beautiful woman. Giotto followed next, and a multitude of succeeding Madonnas have given Italy renown. Raphael excelled all others in the representation of the Madonna, and was not only the greatest painter of all Italy, but a master artist of all ages.

Architecture, however, appears to be the first branch of art that defied the arbitrary power of tradition. It could break away more readily than any other form of art, because of the great variety which existed in different parts of the Roman Empire—the Byzantine in the south of Italy, the Gothic in the north, and Romanesque in Rome and the provinces. There was no conventional law for architectural style, hence innovations could be made with very little opposition. In the search for classical remains, a large number of buildings had already become known, and many more were uncovered as the searching continued. These gave types of architecture which had great influence in building the renaissance art. The changes, beginning with Brunelleschi, were continued until nearly all buildings were completely Romanized. Then came Michael Angelo, who excelled in both architecture and sculpture at Rome, and Palladio, who worked at Venice and Verona. In the larger buildings the Basilica of Rome became the model, or at least the principles of its construction became the prevailing element in architectural design.

Florence became the centre of art and letters in the Italian renaissance.[[2]] Though resembling Athens in many respects, and bearing the same relations to surrounding cities that Athens did to cities in the classic times, her scholars were more modern than those of Greece or Rome, and, indeed, more modern than the scholars who followed after the Florentines, two centuries later. It was an important city, on the Arno, surrounded by hills, a city of flowers, interesting to-day to the modern scholar and student of history. Surrounded by walls, having magnificent gates, with all the modern improvements of paved streets, of sewers, gardens, and spacious parks, it represented in this early period the ideal city life. Even to-day the traveller finds the Palazzo Vecchio, or ancient official residence of the city fathers, and very near this the Loggia dei Lanzi, now filled with the works of precious art, and the Palazzo del Podesta, now used as a national museum, the great cathedral, planned in 1294 by Arnolfo, ready for consecration in 1498, and not yet completed, and many other remarkable relics of this wonderful era.

The typical idea in building the cathedral was to make it so beautiful that no other in the world could ever surpass it. Opposite the main door were the gates of Ghiberti, which Michael Angelo, for their great beauty, thought worthy to be the gates of paradise. They close the entrance of the temple of Saint John the Baptist, the city's patron saint. More than a hundred other churches, among them the Santa Croce and the Santa Maria Novella, the latter the resting-place of the Medici, were built in this magnificent city. The churches were not only used for religious worship, but were important for meeting-places of the Florentines. The Arno was crossed by four bridges, of which the Ponte Vecchio, built in the middle of the fourteenth century, alone remains in its original form. Upon it rest two rows of houses, each three stories high, and over this is the passageway from the Palazzo Pitti to the Palazzo Vecchio. In addition to the public buildings of Florence, there were many private residences and palaces of magnificence and splendor.

The Effect of Humanism on Social Manners.—By the intellectual development of Italy, fresh ideas of culture were infused into common society. To be a gentleman meant to be conversant with poetry, painting, and art, intelligent in conversation and refined in manners. The gentleman must be acquainted with antiquity sufficiently to admire the great men of the past and to reverence the saints of the church. He must understand archaeology in order to speak intelligently of the ancient achievements of the classical people. But this refinement was to a large extent conventional, for there was a lack of genuine moral culture throughout the entire renaissance.

These moral defects of Italy in this period have often been the occasion of dissertations by philosophers, and there is a question as to whether this moral condition was caused by the revival of classical learning or the decline of morality in the church. It ought to be considered, without doubt, as an excessive development of certain lines of intellectual supremacy without the accustomed moral guide. The church had for years assumed to be the only moral conservator, indeed the only one morally responsible for the conduct of the world. Yet its teachings at this time led to no self-developed morality; helped no one to walk alone, independent, in the dignity of manhood, for all of its instructions were superimposed and not vital. At last the church fell into flagrant discord under the rule of worldly popes, and this gave a great blow to Italy through the loss of the one great moral control.