Miscellaneous inventions.
In addition to the various forms of progress of which we have spoken, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the invention or wide application of a considerable number of practical devices which were unknown to the Greeks and Romans. Examples of these are, besides printing, the compass, gunpowder, spectacles, and a method of not merely softening but of thoroughly melting iron so that it could be cast.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries not merely a period of revival.
The period of which we have been speaking was, in short, by no means merely distinguished for the revival of classical learning. It was not simply a re-birth of the ancient knowledge and art, but a time during which Europe laid the foundations for a development essentially different from that of the ancient world and for achievements undreamed of by Aristotle or Pliny.
General Reading.—The culture of Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is best treated by Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (The Macmillan Company, $4.00). This is especially adapted for the rather advanced student. The towns are interestingly described in Symonds, Age of Despots (Scribner's Sons, $2.00). For Florence and the Medici, see Armstrong, Lorenzo de' Medici and Florence in the Fifteenth Century (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.50). Machiavelli's Prince may be had in translation (Clarendon Press, $1.10). The best prose translation of Dante's Divine Comedy is that of Charles Eliot Norton (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 3 vols., $4.50). In Robinson and Rolfe, Petrarch the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $2.00), the reader will find much material to illustrate the beginnings of humanism. The volume consists mainly of Petrarch's own letters to his friends. The introduction gives a much fuller account of his work than it was possible to include in the present volume. For similar material from other writers of the time, see Whitcomb, A Literary Source Book of the Italian Renaissance (Philadelphia, $1.00). The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini is a very amusing and instructive book by one of the well-known artists of the sixteenth century. Roscoe's translation in the Bohn series (The Macmillan Company, $1.00) is to be recommended for school libraries.
The greatest of the sources for the lives of the artists is Vasari, Lives of Seventy of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. This may be had in the Temple Classics (The Macmillan Company, 8 vols., 50 cents each) or a selection of the more important lives admirably edited in Blashfield and Hopkins' carefully annotated edition (Scribner's Sons, 4 vols., $8.00). Vasari was a contemporary of Michael Angelo and Cellini, and writes in a simple and charming style. The outlines of the history of the various branches of art, with ample bibliographies, are given in the "College Histories of Art," edited by John C. Van Dyke; viz., Van Dyke, The History of Painting, Hamlin, The History of Architecture, and Marquand and Frothingham, The History of Sculpture (Longmans, Green & Co., each $2.00). Larger works with more illustrations, which might be found in any good town library are: Fergusson, History of Modern Architecture, Lübke, History of Sculpture, Woltmann and Woermann, History of Painting, and Fletcher, A History of Architecture. Two companies publish very inexpensive reproductions of works of art: the so-called Perry pictures at a cent apiece, and the still better Cosmos pictures (Cosmos Picture Company, New York), costing somewhat more.
For the invention of printing see De Vinne, The Invention of Printing, unfortunately out of print, and Blades, Pentateuch of Printing (London, $4.75). Also Putnam, Books and their Makers during the Middle Ages, Vol. I (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $2.50).