Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio are but the greater names in the fine arts. Well might Leon Battista Alberti, himself a great architect and humanist, on return from exile to his native city, say to Brunelleschi: "I have been accustomed both to wonder and to grieve that so many divine arts and sciences which we see to have abounded in those most highly endowed ancients were now lacking and utterly lost ... but since I have been restored to this our native land that surpasseth all others in her adornment, I have recognized in many but chiefly in thee, Philip [Brunelleschi], and in our near friend Donato [Donatello] the sculptor, and in those others, Nencio [Ghiberti], and Luca [della Robbia], and Masaccio, genius capable for every praiseworthy work, not inferior to that of any ancient and famous master in the arts."[17]
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Leonardo da Vinci, Richter.
[17] Church Building in the Middle Ages, C. E. Norton, p. 280.
CHAPTER XXV
THE RENAISSANCE (1450-1492)
The last chapter confined itself to the fine arts and omitted the main element, humanism, which gave volume and impetus to the stream, and, though not memorable for conspicuous achievements as the fine arts were, flowed more directly from the classic impulse and produced the greatest immediate effect. The humanists played a part analogous to that which men of science play in our own time; they devoted themselves heart and soul to the classics, as men of science do to Nature. For some time they had had access to the Latin past through Italy, and now they also found their way to the far greater classic world of Greece. The one uninterrupted communication with that world was through Constantinople, which, like a long, ill-lighted and ill-repaired corridor, led back to the great pleasure domes of Plato and Homer, and all the wonderland of Greek literature and thought. Aristotle, indeed, had come by way of the Arabs, and had long been a lay Bible, but for the other Greek classics the rising humanism of Italy was indebted to Constantinople. The glowing young city of Florence lit its torch at the expiring embers of the imperial city. A few Italians went to Constantinople and learned Greek, then stray Byzantines came to Italy. The doom which hung over Constantinople frightened scholars and drove them westward, and the fall itself (1453) dispersed the last of them. These Greeks brought invaluable manuscripts and firmly established Hellenic culture in the kindred soil of Tuscany. In the list of books in Cosimo's library, there was no mention of any Greek classic except Aristotle; but after the immigration of Greek scholars all intellectual Florence went mad over Plato, and Cosimo founded a Platonic Academy. The study of Greek brought with it examination, comparison, criticism; it brought new knowledge; it gave new ideas to all the arts, new impulses to the creative imagination, and general intellectual freedom. Interest in the humanities became so widespread throughout the peninsula that we get a feeling of Italian unity stronger than any we have experienced since the days of Theodoric.
The importance of the humanists, however, was merely as an intellectual leaven. They need not be spoken of apart from the general intellectual movement which expressed itself so much more fully and freely in art than in any other way. That movement kindled enthusiasm from Lombardy to Calabria; and Florence still maintained her primacy. All the other cities of Italy lagged far behind her. We must therefore keep Florence as our paradigm, only remembering that at her heels a score of cities toil and pant in artistic eagerness to make themselves as beautiful and famous as Florence.