Essays Literary, Critical and Historical

by Thomas O'Hagan

Graven on it Italy.”

He found in the land of Dante and Michael Angelo fit subjects for his dramatic monologues. The art world of Italy opened up to Browning new themes, new thoughts. The intense life of its people, full of the sweetness and aroma of virtue and the dark tragedy of vice, gave him scope which he could not find elsewhere. Pity it is that he presents only the dark side of Italian character. Pity it is that the paganized and sensual Bishop of the Italian Renaissance depicted by Browning in “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church” did not find setting, in his poems, as a foil to the pure and pious men and women who prayed before the shrines and in the cloisters of Italy when the new wine of old classicism poured from Homeric flasks and casks had intoxicated the head and heart of that garden of Europe and turned possible saints into satyrs.

De Maistre, the great French publicist, has said that history for the past three hundred years has been a conspiracy against truth. Aye, and poetry, too, whose countenance should reflect the beauty of heavenly truth, often wears the mask of the assassin. To-day there are so-called advanced and up-to-date scholars in our universities and clubs who hold that “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church” is a true reflection of the religious life of the Italian Renaissance. They quote Ruskin as saying of that poem:

“I know of no other piece of modern English, prose or poetry, in which there is so much told as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit—its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly all that I have said of the Central Renaissance, in thirty pages of the ‘Stones of Venice,’ put into as many lines, Browning’s being also the antecedent work.”

We would say just here to students of literature and history: Let not the shadow of a great literary name overawe you. John Ruskin did a great deal for art and criticism, but he is far from being an infallible apostle of truth in either domain; and though he loved the lowly, brown-hooded friars of St. Francis, this love was not based on spiritual affinity, but on the poetry and art bound up in their humble lives.

John Ruskin and Robert Browning, respectively art critic and poet, have done the religious life of the Italian Renaissance a grievous wrong—nay, they grossly misrepresent it when they say that this abnormal picture of a Renaissance Catholic bishop truly represents and reflects the religious life of Italy at that period. No doubt but a certain amount of abuses and corruption prevailed in the Church at that time, largely as a consequence of the worldly spirit which had gained entrance into it during its exile at Avignon.

However, all was not darkness and sin. The vivifying life of the Church was not exemplified in the Bishop of St. Praxed’s. As the great historian of the Popes of the Renaissance, Dr. Ludwig Pastor, says, “If those days were full of failings and sins of every kind, the Church was not wanting in glorious manifestations through which the source of her higher life revealed itself. Striking contrasts—deep shadows on the one hand and most consoling gleams of sunshine on the other—are the special characteristics of this period. If the historian of the Church of the fifteenth century meets with some unworthy prelates and bishops, he also meets in every part of Christendom with an immense number of men distinguished for their virtue, piety and learning, not a few of whom have been, by the solemn voice of the Church, raised to her altars.”

Limiting ourselves to the most remarkable individuals of the period of which we are about to treat, we shall mention only the saints and holy men and women given by Italy to the Church: St. Bernardine of Siena, of the order of Minorites, whose eloquence won for him the title of “Trumpet of Heaven and fountain of knowledge”; around him are grouped his holy brothers in religion, Saints John Capestran and Jacopo della Marca. St. Antonius, whose unexampled zeal was displayed in Florence, the very centre of the Renaissance, had for his disciples blessed Antonio Neyrot of Ripoli and Constanzio di Fabriano. In the order of St. Augustine are the following who have been beatified: Andrea, who died at Montereale in 1497; Antonio Turriani, in 1494. In 1440 St. Frances, the foundress of the Oblates, was working at Rome. The labors of another founder, St. Francis of Paula, who died in 1507, belong in part to this period. These names, to which many more might be added, furnish the most striking proof of the vitality of religion in Italy at the time of the Renaissance. Such fruits do not ripen on trees which are “decayed and rotten to the core.”

Indeed, it is astonishing what nonsense is talked about this period of the Italian Renaissance, especially as it influenced the religious life of the people. In one breath our would-be professors will tell you that the Italian Renaissance movement swept the Catholic Church into a vortex of paganism—pope, cardinals, bishops, and all; and in the next they will lead you to believe that the Catholic Church set its face against the new revival of classical learning, fearing that the development of the intellect would be prejudicial to the faith of the people. Either slander will effect its end.

As we write we have before us two historical works of somewhat recent publication: “Books and Their Makers During-the Middle Ages,” by George Haven Putnam, A.M., and “A General History of Europe,” by Professors Thatcher and Schwill, of Chicago University. As the latter is now used as a text-book in many American High Schools, we will deal with its worth and wisdom first.