This was the light and careless side of the general awakening of interest in life, which showed itself in so many nobler forms.
In literature Dante (1265-1321) is the first great figure. But, owing to his disproportional importance, we are liable to forget that he has his orderly place in the revival of poetry and literature which began in the brilliant court of Frederick II in Sicily. On the destruction of the Hohenstaufens, the poetic primacy passed to Bologna, where Guido Guinicelli and others composed poetry in a somewhat learned fashion, as befitted a university town, and then passed on to Tuscany, and in particular to Florence, where Dante was preceded by his friend Guido Cavalcanti. Dante, although distinctly mediæval by his theology, his appeals to the authority of Virgil and Aristotle, and by his political views, has the characteristics of the new spiritual energy. He lays immense stress on individuality, and delineates real life with wonderful vividness. These traits mark him as belonging to the new world coming in rather than to the old world going out.
From the point of view of history, Dante's most marked achievement, perhaps, was to raise the Tuscan (or more strictly speaking the Florentine) idiom, from among many competitors, to the dignity of being the Italian language. This was the consequence of writing the "Divine Comedy" in Tuscan, instead of in Latin. Dante's Tuscan verses were recited in the tavern and on the piazza, and were greeted with loud applause by apprentices and artisans, shopmen and tavern-keepers. He excited the enthusiasm of both educated and ignorant. At that time the spoken dialects were very numerous. A friend remonstrating with Dante for writing in an Italian dialect instead of in Latin, said that there were a thousand. Dante himself in his treatise "On the Vernacular Speech" enumerates Sicilian, Calabrian, Apulian, Roman, Tuscan, Genoese, Sardinian, Romagnol, Lombard, Venetian, and others. These dialects of the provinces were further subdivided among themselves. In Tuscany the people of Siena spoke one idiom, those of Arezzo another. In Lombardy the citizens of Ferrara spoke in one way, the citizens of Piacenza in another. Even in one city, as in Bologna, the dwellers in St. Felix Street and those in Greater Street did not speak alike. Besides the difficulties of many dialects, besides the immense prestige of Latin as the language of learning, of law, of the Church, French appeared as a possible literary language for Italy. Authors in Florence, Venice, Siena, and Pisa wrote books in French, "because the French language goes over the world, and is more delectable to read and to hear than any other." But Dante made the Florentine tongue immortal, and not only wrote the "Divine Comedy" in Florentine, but also "The New Life" and "The Banquet." Prior to his time the divers idioms had stood on an equality; after his time Tuscan became the language of polite speech and of literature, the real Italian language, and the others were degraded to the position of mere dialects. Petrarch and Boccaccio, both Florentines, also deserve their share of praise. Petrarch's sonnets and Boccaccio's stories firmly established the primacy to which Dante had raised the Tuscan idiom.
The revival of sculpture also began before the middle of the thirteenth century. Here the great leader is Niccolò Pisano (1206-78?). There has been a dispute as to his birthplace. Some say he came from Southern Italy and learned his art there. If this theory is true, Frederick's kingdom has the honour of having revived sculpture as well as literature; but it is more likely that Niccolò came from some village in Tuscany, and early went to Pisa, where he got his designation Pisano. The first certain record of his work is an inscription on the pulpit in the Baptistery at Pisa, which states that he completed the pulpit in 1260. Pisa was then at the height of her glory, in the happy years before her fatal conflict with Genoa; she had built the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, and the Baptistery, and now wished to beautify them within. Niccolò's pulpit shows both imitation of the classic and observation of nature. He had before him bits of ancient sarcophagi, which had been built into the wall of the Cathedral: his Madonna bears traces of the Phædra of the sarcophagus, one of his three Wise Men resembles a young Greek, and his modelling in general has a touch of classic freedom, dignity, and repose. In his conception of the scenes Niccolò adhered to ecclesiastical tradition, just as Dante did to ecclesiastical theology, but in his figures, in the drapery and various details, his faithfulness to reality is striking, at least when compared with the Byzantine style theretofore prevailing. The success of this pulpit was so great that a few years later he was asked to carve another for the cathedral in Siena. An envoy came on purpose, and in the Baptistery of Pisa a contract was drawn up in which it was agreed that Niccolò should go to Siena and stay till the work was done, taking three assistants, and also his young son Giovanni, at half pay, if he wished. This contract was made in 1265, the year of Dante's birth. Niccolò also worked at Bologna, Perugia, Pistoia, probably at Lucca and almost certainly in many other places. This was the period of the free development of the communes after the death of Frederick II, and Niccolò's popularity is proof of widespread prosperity and interest in art. Niccolò's son Giovanni (1250-1328?) inherited his father's genius; and his work, especially his masterpiece, a pulpit at Pistoia, shows how fast art was developing. Giovanni, in his eagerness to express the animation and passion of life, neglected the classic and went directly to nature, at least in desire if not in execution. This passionate interest in life is the very quality that gives Dante's "Inferno" its intense vividness. These two Pisani founded the great Tuscan school of sculpture, and influenced both painting and architecture as well.
Italian architecture at this time does not show one great figure like Niccolò Pisano, nor does it show a definite beginning of a new period. On the contrary, throughout the Middle Ages building held its own surprisingly well in comparison with the other arts. In the days of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, it carried on the Byzantine tradition at Ravenna, and for centuries the churches in Rome were built on the old basilican principle. Over a hundred years before Dante was born, and before Niccolò carved his pulpit, the Lombard style flourished in Lombardy, Tuscan Romanesque in Tuscany, and Norman Sicilian in Sicily. Before the Empire had received its coup de grâce the Gothic style came down from the North, and its struggle with the Romanesque seemed to typify the conflict between the German Empire and the Italian people. Nevertheless, if we confine ourselves to Tuscany, as perhaps is fair in view of the very great influence of Tuscany on all the arts, there is one man who stands out conspicuous. Arnolfo di Cambio (1232-1300?) began life as one of Niccolò's assistants at Pisa, and did so well that he was included by name in the contract for the pulpit at Siena. In Florence he built the church of Santa Croce for the Franciscans, designed the Palazzo Vecchio, and made the first plans for the Duomo; and so left a deep impress on Florence and through Florence on the world.
In painting, more than in any other art or department of life, perhaps, authority had reigned supreme throughout the Middle Ages. The decadent Greek painters of Constantinople had made a series of rules, which were as autocratic as the edicts of the Emperors. Every Madonna was painted in one attitude, with her eyes opening wide in the same way, arms, legs, and body in the same constrained position, with the same wooden child in her wooden lap, and the same wooden saints about her. But gradually, side by side with the art of authority, another style, at first very simple and primitive, developed. The older style dominated mosaic work, and as mosaics were most intimately associated with the symbolic representation of sacred things, it was strongly intrenched behind all the beliefs and prejudices of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, the revolutionary spirit in Tuscany, for the leaders of the revolution which threw off the authority of the Middle Ages came from among the free men of Tuscany, prevailed in painting as well as elsewhere. The last of the masters who employed the Byzantine manner was Cimabue (1240-1302); yet Cimabue had a sense of the coming change, and showed a desire to break through the enveloping shell of Byzantine authority and portray the grace and beauty of living human beings. However mediæval his manner seems to us, his contemporaries, eager as the Athenians for new things, perceived the novelty in it. When he was painting a Madonna for the Dominican monks in Florence, Charles of Anjou, fresh from his triumph over Manfred, visited his studio for the honour of a first view, and crowds pressed about hoping to get a glimpse of the picture. When the picture was carried through the streets to its destination in the church of Santa Maria Novella, a great procession followed, as if it were a hero returned from the wars. Poor Cimabue, however, is seldom mentioned except as a dull background against which the conquering Giotto stands in brilliant relief.
Giotto (1267?-1336) is the master revolutionist of painting. He was a contemporary of Dante, a few years younger, born at the time when Niccolò and Giovanni were working at the pulpit in Siena, and Charles of Anjou was posing as an admirer of the fine arts in Cimabue's studio. He painted Dante in a fresco on the wall of the Bargello (a palace in Florence), at least so tradition says; and Dante in the "Divine Comedy" speaks of him as outstripping the once renowned Cimabue. Giotto was an ugly little man, of great character and quick wit. Various stories are told of his repartees. Once, when he was painting for the King of Naples and working with great diligence, the king, who used to watch him, said, "Giotto, if I were you, I should not work so hard." "I shouldn't,—if I were you," retorted Giotto. He studied under Giovanni Pisano, and learned so much that it has been said that "Giotto is the greatest work of the Pisani." Giotto was also the successor to Arnolfo as the leading architect in Florence, and built the Campanile of the Duomo, and, being likewise a sculptor, modelled some of the bas-reliefs that ornament the panels of the base. His great art was painting, and especially the painting of figures. Giotto was in demand to paint frescoes on the walls of churches and chapels at Florence, Arezzo, Assisi, Padua, Ravenna, Rome, and Naples; and other painters came from far and near to study under him. He dominated Italian painting, and his school was the only school for a hundred years. After the world had adopted Raphael's frescoes as the type of excellence his fame was dimmed for a time, but since Mr. Ruskin's enthusiastic admiration it has regained its ancient lustre.
These instances of revolution in the arts show that a new intellectual life had begun, that the Middle Ages had really ended. In fact, the passing away of the Holy Roman Empire and of the European suzerainty of the Papacy was merely an episode in the general intellectual revolution.