These three great men were followed by a crowd of collectors, men who travelled throughout Europe and even |The age of collection.| beyond it in search of manuscripts of ancient authors. It is almost impossible nowadays to appreciate the extraordinary ardour with which the search was carried on. In some cases the greed for these new and valuable possessions tempted men into actions which in a less worthy cause would have merited the name of fraud. The greatest of these collectors, who really performed an invaluable service to the world with marvellous industry and success, were Poggio Bracciolini, Francesco Filelfo, and Niccolo Niccoli, the founder of the library of St. Mark in Florence. Their most bountiful patrons were Cosimo de’ Medici, the ‘father of his country,’ and Pope Nicolas V. During this period, which is roughly the first half of the fifteenth century, the Italian language seemed likely to fall into oblivion. The only great writers in Italy were Poggio and Æneas Sylvius, and they both wrote solely in Latin. That Italian did not go wholly out of fashion was due, in the first place, to the influence of the Medici in Florence. One great object of their ambition was to attract the most learned men of the day to their court. But their anomalous position as despots masquerading in republican robes compelled them to appeal to popular favour. Hence even their studies had to some extent to be regulated so as to please the people. The magnificent Lorenzo himself set an example by writing the famous ‘carnival songs’ to be sung at popular festivals. These songs have a place of their own in the history of Italian literature; but they are of special importance as showing how a great prince, in the midst of Greek and Latin studies, could find time to cultivate the language of the people. The finest Italian poem of the century is the Giostra of Politiano, who was not only an eminent scholar, but also a courtier and a favourite companion of Lorenzo de’ Medici.
In classical studies the second part of the fifteenth century was not so much an age of collection as an age of criticism. |The age of criticism.| Men set themselves to read and interpret the treasures which had been already brought together, and they were insensibly led to apply the teaching of ancient writings to the circumstances and problems of their own time. Prominent among the scholars who gave to the world the fruits of their researches were Lorenzo Valla in Rome and Naples, and Ficino and Politiano in Florence. It is impossible to over-estimate the solvent influence of these studies upon human thought. Much of the scholastic philosophy which had been based upon a corrupt translation of Aristotle from the Arabic gave way at once before a study of the philosopher’s original text. All kinds of delusions and superstitious beliefs were overturned by the new spirit of inquiry. Lorenzo Valla published a treatise to prove that the pretended Donation of Constantine, upon which the popes had professed to base their claim to temporal sovereignty, was a forgery. Valla was at this time in the service of Alfonso the Magnanimous of Naples, who had quarrelled with the Pope. Under his protection Valla went on to attack the whole ecclesiastical system, and especially the moral decline of monasticism. These may serve as illustrations of the influence exerted by the new culture. In fact, so great was the energy displayed in the work of destruction, that it seemed probable that all the old religious bonds would be broken before anything had been found to take their place. If Italy had stood alone, this might have been the case. But by this time the new learning had begun to spread to other countries. The more sober temperament of the Germans revolted against the extravagances of many of the Italian scholars. Luther and Reuchlin were impelled by the critical spirit of the age to revolt against the mediæval system, but they were not content with mere negation, and their revolt, constructive as well as destructive, has been called the Reformation.
If we can trace to the Italians the origin of modern literature, we may with still greater confidence call them the creators of modern art, or at any rate of the arts |The revival of art.| of painting and sculpture. Architecture was the only form of art which did not fall into decay during the Middle Ages, and in which the northern peoples may claim at least equality with the people of Italy. But in painting and sculpture the Italians can claim not only that they are entitled to all the glories of their revival, but also that they brought these arts to their highest perfection. This is far more than can be said of their services to literature.
In the Middle Ages painting was so bound down by fixed |1. Painting.| and arbitrary rules that it hardly deserved the name of an art. It was employed only for religious purposes, and it was forced to conform to the dominant religious spirit. Custom and tradition regulated not only the subject and its treatment, but even the very colours to be employed. Any departure from these recognised rules, if it had been possible, would have been regarded as impious. The altar-pieces of mediæval churches were covered with stiff and lifeless representations of madonnas and saints. These had a conventional value, and no artistic standard was dreamt of. There were many pictures, but no artists. The individual, as was so often the case in the Middle Ages, was repressed and kept down by the society of which he was perforce a member. Anybody can obtain a concrete illustration of the differences in painting between the Middle Ages and modern times, who can compare a picture of Cimabue or any other contemporary artist with a picture by Titian. The Renaissance, which bridges over the gap between these artists, is the steady though gradual assertion of the freedom of the individual from the bondage of mediæval rules and traditions. The change may be traced in the increased love of nature, in the new reverence for and study of the human figure, and in the improvement of artistic methods. The most important of the technical changes were the introduction of fresco for wall-pictures, the discovery of oil-colours, which is to be credited to the Flemings, and the employment of copper-plate and woodcuts, which made it possible to reproduce and disseminate great works of art. But still more important than any change in method was the change in the very spirit of art; for the old stereotyped forms were substituted imitations of the beautiful from Nature. The study of anatomy and perspective became necessary for a painter. Works of art ceased to be mechanical copies of a pattern prescribed by ecclesiastical authority; they became an index to the mind of the free artist. The change marks a complete alteration in the motives of religion as well as of art. Religion ceased to be a superstitious reverence for something unearthly and inhuman; it was brought into closer relation with the ordinary life of men and women.
The beginning of the Renaissance in painting is usually placed in the fourteenth century. At that time two great art cities, Florence and Siena, were especially prominent. The first great Florentine artist whose name has been handed down to posterity is Cimabue. His Sienese contemporary was Duccio. In their works we see the first conception of the beauty of the human face and figure, though they were still bound down to the old stiffness of composition and the prescribed distribution of colours. They were followed by a number of artists who have obtained lasting renown. In Florence Giotto, equally great as a painter, sculptor, and architect, founded a school which raised the whole character of art, besides effecting a great improvement in technique. Giotto was the first to substitute dramatic painting for the stiff and lifeless representation of human figures which had hitherto been universal. With him may be coupled the name of Andrea Orcagna, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Fra Angelico, though the last-named belongs chronologically to a somewhat later period. But of these men the same observation may be made as of Dante in literature. They are rather the greatest men of an age which is already passing away than the beginners of a new period. Giotto especially is the Dante of art. He and his contemporaries sum up in a pictorial form the mediæval theories and conceptions of religion and of human life. To their representation they contribute a vast improvement in manner and style, as did Dante in his great poem, but what they represent is essentially mediæval. In fact, if any one wished to see the Middle Ages before his eyes, he might be referred to three great pictures of this period. The gloomy personal religion, which weighed down the spirits of thoughtful men in the Middle Ages, may be seen in Orcagna’s picture, ‘The Triumph of Death,’ in the Campo Santo of Pisa. On the other hand, the converse side of religious life in the Middle Ages, the grand and awe-inspiring organisation of the Church, is represented in ‘The Church Militant and Triumphant,’the work of Giotto’s pupils, in the Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. And the stormy political life of a mediæval commune may be studied in the frescoes of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, entitled ‘Civil Government,’ on the walls of the Palazzo Publico of Siena.
It is when we leave the school of Giotto and his pupils, and turn to the next generation of painters in the fifteenth century, that we find the artistic change associated with the Renaissance in full progress. Florence was still the most important city in the history of art. The first great painter in this transition period was Masaccio. His frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of the Madonna del Carmine at Florence may be taken as illustrating the next marked advance in independence and artistic beauty from the days of Giotto. These works exercised great influence upon all later artists, and especially upon Raphael, who made them the subject of special study. Masaccio was followed by a large number of eminent painters, among whom may be named Filippo Lippi, in connection with whom Browning’s poem gives so vivid a picture of the artistic struggles of the early Renaissance, Sandro Botticelli, who was the first to introduce classical myths and allegories as alternative subjects with the old Biblical stories, Filippino Lippi, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Luca Signorelli. The last is perhaps in some way the ablest, though by no means the most pleasing, of the fifteenth century painters. In the boldness of his conceptions, in his knowledge of anatomy, and in his contempt for arbitrary and meaningless rules, he is not only the forerunner but the rival of Michael Angelo. But Florence, although the most important, was by no means the only city in which this artistic revolution was taking place. The same sort of work was being done in Perugia by Pietro Perugino, the tutor of Raphael, in Padua by Andrea Mantegna, one of the greatest of fifteenth century painters, and, above all, in Venice by Giovanni and Gentile Bellini and by Vittore Carpaccio. It was the work of these men, in addition to that of the Florentine and many other painters, which prepared the way for the supreme artists of the sixteenth century—Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto. These painters still devoted their talents mainly to the illustration of religious subjects; but they treated these subjects in a human and secular spirit. The religious and devotional aspect was subordinated to the desire for artistic perfection of form and colour, and to the exciting of natural associations in the minds of men and women. There is nothing really irreligious in their art, though it shows a new way of regarding both art and religion. At the same time, it is possible to discover in these artists of the completed Renaissance a certain relaxation of moral earnestness and purpose as compared with their predecessors; their very mastery of colour and of drawing seems to mislead them; there is no longer the noble struggle to express a lofty meaning in spite of difficulties and drawbacks. It was the perception of these differences which led many thoughtful artists and art students, who formed what has been called the pre-Raphaelite school, to devote themselves to the study of the earlier and less faultless painters of the fifteenth century, and somewhat to undervalue the more mature artists who had been the idols of previous generations.
The Renaissance marks almost a greater epoch in the history of sculpture than in that of painting. In some |2. Sculpture.| respects the change which took place was the same. Great artists revolted against the prescribed forms of the Middle Ages, and produced works of greater beauty and greater originality. But sculpture was more profoundly influenced than painting by the revived study of antiquity. The great painters of ancient Greece were mere names, their works had perished. It was therefore only the classical spirit that influenced painting. Direct imitation was impossible. With sculpture it was otherwise. Greek and Roman statues were still in existence, and many that had been buried were unearthed and welcomed with passionate reverence. In some of these statues had been realised the utmost possible beauty of form and truth to nature that were possible in sculpture. It was impossible to surpass them, and before long the passion for antiquity led to a servile imitation of the ancient originals. But the first enthusiasm did produce a few great master-workers who rivalled the artists of Greece. The first to inaugurate the new epoch in the history of sculpture was Niccolo da Pisano. A Greek sarcophagus, still preserved, had been brought to Pisa, and Niccolo was induced by its beauty to make a thorough study of Greek forms and methods. From this time he set himself to reconcile, as far as was possible, the Greek love of beauty with the traditions of Christian art. He was followed in the next century by a number of great sculptors, most of whom were Florentines. Among their names the most important are those of Lorenzo Ghiberti, who carved the gates for the Baptistery in Florence, which Michael Angelo declared worthy to be the gates of Paradise; Luca della Robbia, whose chief works are reliefs in terra-cotta; Donatello, the sculptor of the famous figure of David; and Andrea Verrocchio, the modeller of the grand equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Coleone, which stands near the Scuola di San Marco in Venice. After them came the great masters of Renaissance sculpture—Benvenuto Cellini and Michael Angelo. The Memoirs of the former may be commended to any one who wishes to study the purely artistic temperament, uninfluenced by considerations of religion or morality, which was produced in the later stages of the Renaissance. Sculpture, it must be remembered, was more essentially non-religious and pagan than painting. The beauty of the face was necessarily subordinate to beauty of figure. Thus the new religious impulse of the sixteenth century, which led to the Reformation in northern Europe and to the counter-Reformation in the south, was in many ways alien or hostile to sculpture, and from this time the art tended to decline.
In architecture the Renaissance exerted an overwhelming and permanent influence, and here again Italy led the way, but it may be questioned whether the influence resulted in unmixed gain. Architecture had never been a lost art, as painting and sculpture had been. Nor was classical influence a new thing, for the Romanesque style of the early Middle Ages had been based upon ancient models. Beyond the Alps the early Romanesque buildings had been followed by the great Gothic churches and cathedrals which remain the great monument of the religious zeal of the Germanic peoples in the later Middle Ages. Gothic architecture had been introduced into Italy by German builders in the later part of the thirteenth century. But Italian Gothic was a different style of architecture from that which prevailed in the northern countries. From the first it had been modified by national usages and by considerations of climate. The great Gothic churches of Italy are the cathedrals of Orvieto and Siena, and they are very different from the Gothic cathedrals of Germany, France, and England. The excessive height in proportion to the width and length, the enormous arches, and the flying buttresses are absent in Italy. Italy never departed altogether from the classical models.
The Renaissance in architecture, as in sculpture, was the result of the revival of classical studies; and its formal changes |3. Architecture.| are to be seen in the return, first to the round arch of the Romanesque period, and later, in the use of the flat top or lintel of the Greeks and Romans. The great building of the early or transitional Renaissance is the Cathedral of Florence, with its magnificent dome, the work of Filippo Brunellesco, and the progress of the movement, may be traced in St. Peter’s in Rome, designed by Bramante, but modified and completed after his death, and finally in the palaces built by Palladio in Vicenza and Verona. Thus only the beginning of the architectural Renaissance belongs properly to the period covered in this volume, whereas much more progress had been made in painting and sculpture by the end of the fifteenth century. And its ultimate results were in many ways alien to the true spirit of the real Renaissance. Gothic architecture, whatever its defects, had given great scope for originality. After the main design had been agreed upon, the completion of details had been left in great measure to the ability and imagination of the individual workmen. But the architecture of the later Renaissance laid supreme stress upon symmetry and uniformity. Thus the workmen could no longer be allowed to be original. Every detail, as well as the central design, had to be fixed from the outset. The result was magnificent and imposing, but it was purchased at the sacrifice of originality and imagination. When the first vigour of the intellectual revival was spent, there was a marked decline in architecture as in sculpture, because in both the imitative faculty was cultivated rather than the power of independent creation.
The Renaissance, like all great historic movements, contained good and evil intermingled together. Its two prominent |Humanism and the Reformation.| directions, especially in its earlier period, were the revival of classical influences in literature and art, and the vindication of originality of thought and of individual freedom. Both had their special dangers, and they only went together for a limited distance. The first tended to degenerate into the slavish and mechanical imitation of ancient models; the second led in many cases to atheism, to licence, to the chaos of pure negation. Nor were these the only evils. The Renaissance spirit of free inquiry, when applied to religion, gave rise to the Reformation, and the religious Reformation hastened to turn against the spirit that had given it birth. Extreme Protestantism or Puritanism was in many ways diametrically opposed to humanism. Savonarola, who may be said to represent the Puritan spirit upon Italian soil, urged his followers to make bonfires of their pictures, their personal ornaments, and even of their books. The English Puritans denounced the love of beauty in art as a carnal and misleading pleasure. The Protestants, who owed their origin to the assertion of freedom of thought and worship, soon came to erect a rigid system of dogma and church government, which was fully as repressive and intolerant as that against which they had revolted. The persecution which they resisted with such heroism impelled them, unfortunately, not to practise toleration, but to become persecutors in their turn.