We have seen how, as the church-building era developed, the brotherhood grew and multiplied.
The Antelami family founded Lodges in Parma, Padua, and Verona; the Campione at Modena, Bergamo, and Cremona; the Buoni family spread eastwards to Venice, and southwards to Tuscany, founding everywhere laboreriums and schools.
Three hundred years later we see the descendants of the Buoni and Campione artists together, building the Gothic and Renaissance palaces at Venice; masters of the Graci and Antelami families rearing the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto; and in all the ages dispersing about Italy from north to south. We have seen how all these schools increased; native artists joining the Lombard ones, and working together with them, and though a distinctive local style was the characteristic of each school, yet in their fundamental principles they all had one rule and one teaching.
As the Guild increased and multiplied, in the times of the foundation of rival Communes, all vying with each other in building glorious churches, noble palaces, and fine houses, it frequently happened that the primitive Lombard element was overpowered by the newer local one, and then schisms and disintegration took place.
Separate local Guilds were thus formed at Venice, Siena, and Florence.
The painters next seceded, and started painting as an art independent of church decoration; and thus the Academies of Art were formed. This split took place so late after the city Arti or Guilds were established, that the painters of Florence, having left the Freemasons, had no Guild of their own; and if they wished to enjoy civic privileges, they had to enroll themselves in the Company of the Gold-workers, or that of the Apothecaries. Here we get at once a clear explanation of the goldsmith painters in Florence.
This disintegration reached its climax when Brunellesco defied the Maestranze or Masonic Magisters, proving that the Freemasons had not the exclusive right to genius; and that genius had its own claims to be heard, even without the pale of that monopolizing Guild. I think that his dome literally crushed out the almost effete institution of Freemasons, and that the Florentine Lodge was broken up soon after; for by Michael Angelo's time the Medici had to supply a school for sculptors, which we have seen was placed under the instruction of old Bertoldo,—a lingering relic of the great company.
At first sight it might appear that this revelation of the universal fraternity would materially alter the history of art. In some aspects it does; for we can no longer say that Maitani built Siena cathedral, or Arnolfo that of Florence, nor assert that St. Mark's at Venice was entirely Byzantine, or Milan cathedral the work of a German architect. They were all the joint labours of the same brotherhood of artists, the plans made by the first Arch-master being modified a score of times as the centuries went on, and art developed. But in the great points the story of Art remains as it was. Certain masters still stand out as leaders and founders of schools, and every school had its own separate bias and special development of style; but Niccolò di Pisa's influence on future ages is not lessened by our finding out the masters who trained him; the Lorenzetti, Memmi, and Gaddi are not the less famous because their frescoes illustrated with divine truths the walls built by the hands of their brethren of the great Guild.
The recognition of the complex brotherhood only renders history more compact and concentrated, giving it a rich and perfect unity, and showing a gradual and consistent development, like some perfect flower which grows leaf by leaf, bud by bud, until the petals fall from its own over-blossoming. But its seeds are left to future ages.