What we call, for want of a better name, the Renaissance,
was a period of transition from the Middle Ages to the first
phase of modern life. It was a step which had to be made, at
unequal distances of time and under varying influences, by all
the peoples of the European community. At the commencement
of this period, the modern nations acquired consistency
and fixity of type. Mutually repelled by the principle of
nationality, which made of each a separate organism, they were
at the same time drawn and knit together by a common bond of
intellectual activities and interests. The creation of this
international consciousness or spirit, which, after the lapse
of four centuries, justifies us in regarding the past history
of Europe as the history of a single family, and encourages us
to expect from the future a still closer interaction of the
western nations, can be ascribed in a great measure to the
Renaissance.[b]
We must now interrupt the story of political development, to make a
casual survey of the culture of the time of the Medici and the succeeding
generation. Scholarship had progressed pretty steadily since the days of
Petrarch. “Even the early part of the fifteenth century,” says Roscoe,[j]
“produced scholars as much superior to Petrarch and his coadjutors,
as they were to the monkish compilers and scholastic disputants who
immediately preceded them; and the labours of Leonardo Aretino, Gianozzo
Manetti, Guarino Veronese, and Poggio Bracciolini, prepared the way for
the still more correct and classical productions of Politiano, Sannazaro,
Pontano, and Augurelli.”
Now there came a fresh impulse through the arrival of numerous Greek
scholars from the East, and their example led to a more philosophical
study of classical languages. The establishment of public libraries in
Italy began now to be a prominent feature of the culture development.
Cosmo de’ Medici was particularly active in this direction; his son
Piero steadily pursued the same object; and Lorenzo brought the work
to a culmination in the final development of the Laurentian library.
The interest in the classics was probably influential in retarding the
development of Italian literature. Nevertheless, the influence of Lorenzo
de’ Medici was directed also towards the field of creative literature,
and he himself was prominent in the restoration of Italian poetry.[a] He
attempted to restore the poetry of his country, to the state in which
Petrarch had left it; but this man, so superior by the greatness of his
character, and by the universality of his genius, did not possess the
talent of versification in the same degree as Petrarch. In his love
verses, his sonnets, and canzoni, we find less sweetness and harmony.
Their poetical colouring is less striking; and it is remarked that they
display a ruder expression, more nearly allied to the infancy of the
language. On the other hand, his ideas are more natural, and are often
accompanied by a great charm of imagination.
The most talented literary protégé of Lorenzo was the famous scholar,
Angelo Politiano. Politiano was born on the 24th of July, 1454, at Monte
Pulciano (Mons Politianus), a castle, of which he adopted the name,
instead of that of Ambrogini, borne by his father. He applied himself
with ardour to those scholastic studies which engaged the general mind
in the fifteenth century. Some Latin and Greek epigrams, which he wrote
between the age of thirteen and seventeen, surprised his teachers and the
companions of his studies. But the work which introduced him to Lorenzo
de’ Medici, and which had the greatest influence on his age, was a poem
on a tournament, in which Julian de’ Medici was the victor, in 1468.
From that time, Lorenzo received Politiano into his palace; made him the
constant companion of his labours and his studies; provided for all his
necessities, and soon afterwards confided to him the education of his
children. Politiano, after this invitation, attached himself to the more
serious studies of the Platonic philosophy, of antiquity, and of law;
but his poem in honour of the tournament of Julian de’ Medici remains
a monument of the distinguished taste of the fifteenth century. This
celebrated fragment commences like a large work, but unfortunately was
never finished.[c]
We need not now mention the other minor poets of the age. Suffice it
that, all in all, the age of the Medici cannot be called a time of really
great literary development. It produced no Dante, Petrarch, or Boccaccio.
But it witnessed a tremendous advance in general culture, due in part to
the study of the classics, and it prepared the way for Ariosto and Tasso.
FIFTEENTH CENTURY ART
The real glory of the time was its achievement in the field of the
graphic arts. In this field also the epoch was transitional; but the
transition carries us, in the latter part of the epoch, to heights never
previously attained. At the beginning of the fifteenth century such work
as that of Giotto represents the highest standard of accomplishment;
before the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Leonardo da Vinci had produced
his greatest masterpiece. In other words, the fundamental problems of
the pictorial art which the fourteenth century had failed to solve
had yielded to the researches of this later generation. The laws of
perspective had been perfected by Brunelleschi and Masaccio; anatomy
had been studied as never previously by the Florentines Ghiberti and
Donatello; and a large number of earnest investigators, turning to nature
on the one hand for their model, while developing a pictorial sense
by observation combined with reflection, had prepared the way for the
final realisation of the value of light and shadow and of the proper
distribution of the parts of a composition which reached approximate
perfection at the hands of Leonardo.
A brief but comprehensive estimate of the art development of the
first half of the fifteenth century has been left us by Vasari,
himself an artist contemporary with Michelangelo. Viewing the work
of his predecessors from the standpoint of the final culmination of
the sixteenth century,--the time of Michelangelo,--Vasari combines
the judgment of a tolerably keen critic with the sympathies of a
fellow-student. His estimate thus has double value.[a]
_Vasari’s Estimate of Fifteenth Century Art_
[Illustration: JESUS DISPUTING WITH THE DOCTORS
(By Leonardo da Vinci)]
In this period, he says, the arts will be seen to have infinitely
improved at all points; the compositions comprise more figures; the
accessories and ornaments are richer, and more abundant; the drawing
is more correct, and approaches more closely to the truth of nature;
and, even where no great facility or practice is displayed, the works
yet evince much thought and care; the manner is more free and graceful;
the colouring more brilliant and pleasing, insomuch that little is now
required to the attainment of perfection in the faithful imitation of
nature. By the study and diligence of the great Filippo Brunelleschi,
architecture first recovered the measures and proportions of the
antique, in the round columns as well as in the square pilasters, and
the rusticated and plain angles. Care was taken that all should proceed
according to rule; that a fixed arrangement should be adhered to, and
that the various portions of the work should receive each its due measure
and place. Drawing acquired force and correctness, a better grace was
imparted to the buildings erected, and the excellence of the art was
made manifest: the beauty and variety of design required for capitals
and cornices were restored; and, while we perceive the ground plans of
churches and other edifices to have been admirably laid at this period,
we also remark that the fabrics themselves are finely proportioned,
magnificently arranged, and richly adorned, as may be seen in that
astonishing erection, the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore, in Florence,
and in the beauty and grace of its lantern; in the graceful, rich,
and variously ornamented church of Santo Spirito; and in the no less
beautiful edifice of San Lorenzo; or again, in the fanciful invention of
the octangular church of the Angioli; in the light and graceful church
and convent belonging to the abbey of Florence; and in the magnificent
and lordly commencement of the Pitti Palace, to say nothing of the
vast and commodious edifice constructed by Francesco di Giorgio, in
the church and palace of the Duomo, at Urbino; of the strong and rich
castle of Naples; or of the impregnable fortress of Milan, and many other
remarkable erections of that time.
What is here said of architecture, may with equal propriety be affirmed
of painting and sculpture, in both of which are still to be seen many
extraordinary works executed by the masters of the period, as that of
Masaccio in the church of the Carmine, for example, where the artist has
depicted a naked figure shivering with the cold, besides many spirited
and life-like forms, in other pictures. Meantime the art of sculpture
made so decided an improvement as to leave but little remaining to be
accomplished. The method adopted by the masters of the period was so
efficient, their treatment so natural and graceful, their drawing so
accurate, their proportions so correct that their statues began to
assume the appearance of living men, and were no longer lifeless images
of stone, as were those of the earlier day. Of this there will be found
proof in the works of the Sienese, Jacopo della Quercia, which, as
compared with earlier works, possess more life and grace, with more
correct design, and more careful finish; those of Filippo Brunelleschi
exhibit a finer development and play of the muscles, with more accurate
proportions, and a more judicious treatment--remarks which are alike
applicable to the works produced by the disciples of these masters. Still
more was performed by Lorenzo Ghiberti, in his work of the gates of San
Giovanni, fertility of invention, judicious arrangement, correct design,
and admirable treatment, being all alike conspicuous in these wonderful
productions, the figures of which seem to move and possess a living soul.
Donato [Donatello] also lived at the same period. His productions are
equal to good works of antiquity. He is the type and representative of
all the other masters of the period; since he united with himself the
qualities which were divided among the rest, and which must be sought
among many, imparting to his figures a life, movement, and reality which
enables them to bear comparison with those of later times--nay even, as
has been said, with the ancients themselves.
Similar progress was made at the same time in painting which the
excellent and admirable Masaccio delivered entirely from the manner
of Giotto, as regards the heads, the carnations, the draperies,
the buildings, and colourings; he also restored the practice of
foreshortening, together with more natural attitudes, and a much more
effectual expression of feeling in the gestures and the movements of
the body, art seeking to approach the truth of nature by more correct
design, and to exhibit so close a resemblance to the countenance of the
living man that each figure might at once be recognised as the person
for whom it was intended. Thus the masters constantly endeavoured to
reproduce what they beheld in nature, and no more; their works became,
consequently, more carefully considered and better understood. This
gave them courage to impose rules of perspective, and to carry the
foreshortenings precisely to the point which gives an exact imitation
of the relief apparent in nature and the real form. Minute attention
to the effects of light and shade, and to various difficulties of the
art, succeeded, and efforts were made to produce a better order of
composition. Landscapes also were attempted. Tracts of country, trees,
shrubs, flowers, the clouds, the air, and other natural objects were
depicted with some resemblance to the realities represented, insomuch
that we may boldly affirm that these arts had not only become ennobled,
but had attained that flower of youth from which the fruit afterwards to
follow might reasonably be looked for, and hope entertained that they
would shortly reach the perfection of their existence.[d]
We must not pause even to mention the names of all the distinguished
company of artists, a good proportion of them Florentines, who flourished
in the time of Masaccio and in the immediate succeeding generation,
although this list includes such names as Ghirlandajo, Filippo Lippi,
Filippino Lippi, Perugino, and Botticelli; the last named in particular
is still the delight of all who love the spirituelle in art; the others
are known and esteemed by all students of painting, and by the countless
hosts of travellers who flock yearly to the churches and galleries
of Italy to see their works. We must pause for a moment, however, to
consider the work of the great master, whose accomplishment was in some
sense to eclipse their efforts, the versatile genius, Leonardo da Vinci.
_Leonardo da Vinci_
Without question Leonardo was the most colossal intellect of the
century;[20] indeed, he has been called by Hamerton[e] the most
comprehensive genius of any age. Scarcely any other intellectual hero
ever so completely won the admiration of his contemporaries and the
unqualified approval of posterity. Vasari’s estimate of Leonardo voices
the contemporary judgment regarding him.[a]
[Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI
(1452-1519)]
The richest gifts, he says, are occasionally seen to be showered, as
by celestial influence, on certain human beings--nay, they sometimes
supernaturally and marvellously congregate in one sole person; beauty,
grace, and talent being united in such a manner that to whatever the
man thus favoured may turn himself, his every action is so divine as to
leave all other men far behind him, and manifestly to prove that he has
been specially endowed by the hand of God himself, and has not obtained
his pre-eminence by human teaching, or the power of man. This was seen
and acknowledged by all men in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, in whom,
to say nothing of his beauty of person, which yet was such that it has
never been sufficiently extolled, there was a grace beyond expression
which was rendered manifest without thought or effort in every act and
deed; and who had besides so rare a gift of talent and ability that
to whatever subject he turned his attention, however difficult, he
presently made himself absolute master of it. Extraordinary power was in
his case conjoined with remarkable facility, a mind of regal boldness
and magnanimous daring; his gifts were such that the celebrity of his
name extended most widely, and he was held in the highest estimation, not
in his own time only, but also, and even to a greater extent, after his
death--nay, this he has continued, and will continue in all succeeding
ages.[d]
Our present concern is chiefly with Leonardo as an artist, but it is
impossible not to consider the other phases of his multifarious genius.
Hallam has briefly summarised his position as a writer and scientific
investigator.[a]
As Leonardo was born in 1452, he says, we may presume his mind to have
been in full expansion before 1490. His _Treatise on Painting_ is known
as a very early disquisition of the rules of the art. But his greatest
literary distinction is derived from those short fragments of his
unpublished writings that appeared not many years since; and which,
according, at least, to our common estimate of the age in which he lived,
are more like revelations of physical truths vouchsafed to a single mind,
than the superstructure of its reasoning upon any established basis. The
discoveries which made Galileo, and Kepler, and Mæstlin, and Maurolycus,
and Castelli, and other names illustrious, the system of Copernicus, the
very theories of recent geologers, are anticipated by Da Vinci, within
the compass of a few pages, not perhaps in the most precise language, or
on the most conclusive reasoning, but so as to strike us with something
like the awe of preternatural knowledge.
In an age of so much dogmatism, he first laid down the grand principle of
Bacon, that experiment and observation must be the guides to just theory
in the investigation of nature. If any doubt could be harboured, not
as to the right of Leonardo da Vinci to stand as the first name of the
fifteenth century, which is beyond all doubt, but as to his originality
in so many discoveries, which, probably, no one man, especially in such
circumstances, has ever made, it must be on a hypothesis, not very
untenable, that some parts of physical science had already attained
a height which mere books do not record. The extraordinary works of
ecclesiastical architecture in the Middle Ages, especially in the
fifteenth century, as well as those of Toscanelli and Fioravanti, which
we have mentioned, lend some countenance to this opinion; and it is said
to be confirmed by the notes of Fra Mauro, a lay brother of a convent
near Venice, on a planisphere constructed by him, and still extant.
Leonardo himself speaks of the earth’s annual motion, in a treatise
that appears to have been written about 1510, as the opinion of many
philosophers in his age.[f]
Among the almost numberless scraps of manuscript left us by Leonardo is
a letter which he addressed to Ludovico il Moro, duke of Milan, in 1483.
The original of this letter exists in the author’s own orthography,
and it gives his own estimate of his accomplishments at the age of
thirty-one. It will be borne in mind, of course, that this letter is
addressed to a prince who would be likely to value the services of a
practical engineer more than those of a mere painter. This, no doubt,
explains in part the subordinate place given to Leonardo’s capacity as
sculptor and painter, which, as will be seen, is only mentioned after ten
other specifications. Nevertheless, it was while in Milan that Leonardo
executed his greatest work, the famous _Last Supper_. The letter is as
follows:[a]
Having seen and sufficiently considered the works of all
those who repute themselves to be masters and inventors of
instruments for war, and found that the form and operation of
these works are in no way different from those in common use,
I permit myself, without seeking to detract from the merit of
any other, to make known to your excellency the secrets I have
discovered, at the same time offering with fitting opportunity,
and at your good pleasure, to perform all those things which,
for the present, I will but briefly note below.
(1) I have a method of constructing very light and portable
bridges, to be used in the pursuit of, or retreat from, the
enemy, with others of a stronger sort, proof against fire or
force, and easy to fix or remove. I have also means for burning
and destroying those of the enemy.
(2) For the service of sieges, I am prepared to remove the
water from the ditches, and to make an infinite variety of
fascines, scaling-ladders, etc., with engines of other kinds
proper to the purposes of a siege.
(3) If the height of the defences or the strength of the
position should be such that the place cannot be effectually
bombarded, I have other means, whereby any fortress may be
destroyed, provided it be not founded on stone.
(4) I have also most convenient and portable bombs, proper for
throwing showers of small missiles, and with the smoke thereof
causing great terror to the enemy, to his imminent loss and
confusion.
(5) By means of excavations made without noise, and forming
tortuous and narrow ways, I have means of reaching any given
... (point?), even though it be necessary to pass beneath
ditches or under a river.
(6) I can also construct covered wagons, secure and
indestructible, which, entering among the enemy, will break
the strongest bodies of men; and behind these the infantry can
follow in safety and without impediment.
(7) I can, if needful, also make bombs, mortars, and
field-pieces of beautiful and useful shape, entirely different
from those in common use.
(8) Where the use of bombs is not practicable, I can make
crossbows, mangonels, ballistæ, and other machines of
extraordinary efficiency and quite out of the common way. In
fine, as the circumstances of the case shall demand, I can
prepare engines of offence for all purposes.
(9) In case of the conflict having to be maintained at sea, I
have methods for making numerous instruments, offensive and
defensive, with vessels that shall resist the force of the most
powerful bombs. I can also make powders or vapours for the
offence of the enemy.
(10) In time of peace, I believe that I could equal any other,
as regards works in architecture. I can prepare designs for
buildings, whether public or private, and also conduct water
from one place to another.
Furthermore, I can execute works in sculpture, marble, bronze,
or terra-cotta. In painting also I can do what may be done, as
well as any other, be he who he may.
I can likewise undertake the execution of the bronze horse,
which is a monument that will be to the perpetual glory and
immortal honour of my lord your father of happy memory, and of
the illustrious house of Sforza.
And if any of the above named things shall seem to any man to
be impossible and impracticable, I am perfectly ready to make
trial of them in your excellency’s park, or in whatever other
place you shall be pleased to command, commending myself to you
with all possible humility.[g]
Leonardo liked better to theorise, observe, and commit his inferences
and perceptions to his memorandum-book, than to weary himself with those
slavish details which are essential to the production of every immortal
work. From these causes, aided by his extreme fastidiousness of taste and
love for minute finish, his works were few, and scarcely one of them was
ever completed. But this very universality of capacity, with his eagerly
inquiring spirit, qualified him to supply the defects under which art
yet laboured: no one has as good a claim as he, to be considered the
parent of the highest school in his art; and no artist, before or since,
has ever united in himself so many of the most illustrious qualities of
genius.
His most characteristic excellence, in his own profession, is his tone
of feeling and imagination, which is mild, graceful, and poetically
devotional; too ethereal for effectively depicting scenes from active
life, but admirably harmonised to religious subjects. To these merits
in the poetical elements of his art, he added others not less valuable
in the practical; for not only was he the first who exhibited minutely
scientific anatomical knowledge, but he set a perfect example of relief
and harmony in colouring, for which, especially in that rich dark style
which is common with him, his pictures and those of his school are at
this day a banquet to the eye.[h]
[Illustration: MODESTY AND VANITY
(By Leonardo da Vinci)]
We possess pictures enough of this great master, says Grimm,[i] to
prevent us from considering the accounts of the magic of his art as
empty exaggeration. We are ever inclined to be incredulous. Leonardo’s
paintings, however, possess such a charm, that the truest description
falls far short of them. We should scarcely consider them possible, if
we did not see them with our eyes. He possesses the secret of letting us
almost read the beating of the heart in the countenance of those whom
he represents. He seems to see nature in constant holiday brightness,
and never otherwise. Our feelings become gradually so deadened, that
perceiving the same loss among our friends, we at length believe, that
the fresh spring-like appearance of nature and life, which opened before
us so long as we were children, was only the delusion of happiness, and
that the dimmer light in which they appear to us subsequently, affords
the more true view. But let us step before Leonardo’s finest works,
and see if the dreams of ideal existence do not appear natural and
significant! As splinters of metal are drawn to the magnet as it moves
through iron filings, and adhere to it in a thousand fine points, while
the grains of sand fall powerless away, so there are men, who, passing
through the lifeless throng of constant intercourse, carry away with
them, involuntarily, only the traces of the genuine metal in it, in this
following their nature alone, which absorbs it on every side. They are
rare privileged men to whom this is awarded. Leonardo belonged to these
favoured ones of fate.[i]
THE END OF THE MEDIÆVAL EPOCH
While Leonardo was in his prime the period usually marked as terminating
the Middle Ages was passed. Recent students are much less disposed than
were students of the earlier generation to emphasise the division of
past time into epochs; and of course it cannot be too often emphasised
that the year 1492 marked no decisive turning-point in the estimate of
contemporary minds. Nevertheless, the close of the fifteenth century
has by common consent been regarded as marking the culmination of
that intellectual development in Italy which has long been spoken
of as the Renaissance. Scholars of to-day are fond of pointing out
that the real re-birth of culture began away back in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries; and we have seen how far this new development had
progressed in the time of Dante and Petrarch. Nevertheless, despite the
illogicality of such divisions, classifications of time, like the minor
classifications of the zoölogist, have utility as aids to memorising and
to vivid presentation of the facts of history, that make them all but
indispensable. And doubtless the popular mind at least will long cling to
the term “Renaissance” and apply it more particularly to that great final
development of the graphic arts which reached its culmination late in the
fifteenth and early in the sixteenth century and which had such exponents
as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and their minor confrères.
It is quite impossible to attempt anything like an elaborate discussion
of the culture of this period within present spatial limits. We can
at best glance at the work of the great central figure of the epoch,
Michelangelo, and, letting him typify the period, content ourselves with
scarcely more than mentioning the names of his great contemporaries.[a]
THE AGE OF MICHELANGELO
[Illustration: MICHELANGELO
(1475-1564)]
But he who bears the palm from all [says Vasari with an enthusiasm
which all posterity has echoed], whether of the living or the dead; he
who transcends and eclipses every other, is the divine Michelangelo
Buonarotti, who takes the first place, not in one of these arts only,
but in all three. This master surpasses and excels not only all those
artists who have well-nigh surpassed nature herself, but even all the
most famous masters of antiquity, who did, beyond all doubt, vanquish
her most gloriously; he alone has triumphed over the later as over the
earlier, and even over Nature herself, which one could scarcely imagine
to be capable of exhibiting anything, however extraordinary, however
difficult, that he would not, by the force of his most divine genius, and
by the power of his art, design, judgment, diligence, and grace, very far
surpass and excel; nor does this remark apply to painting and the use
of colours only, wherein are, nevertheless, compromised all corporeal
forms, all bodies, direct or curved, palpable or impalpable, visible or
invisible, but to the exceeding roundness and relief of his statues also.
Fostered by the power of his art, and cultivated by his labours, the
beautiful and fruitful plant has already put forth many and most noble
branches, which have not only filled the world with the most delicious
fruits, in unwonted profusion, but have also brought three noble arts
to so admirable a degree of perfection, that we may safely affirm the
statues of this master to be, in all their parts, more beautiful than
the antique. If the heads, hands, arms, or feet of the one be placed
in comparison with those of the other, there will be found in those of
the modern a more exact rectitude of principle, a grace more entirely
graceful, a much more absolute perfection, in short, there is also in
the manner, a certain facility in the conquering of difficulties, than
which it is impossible even to imagine anything better; and what is here
said applies equally to his paintings, for if it were possible to place
these face to face with those of the most famous Greeks and Romans, thus
brought into comparison, they would still further increase in value, and
be esteemed to surpass those of the ancients in as great a degree as his
sculptures excel all the antique.[d]
Painting, sculpture, and architecture, with fortification, theology,
and poetry, employed by turns the universal genius of the great
Florentine. Born of a distinguished family, who reluctantly gave way
to his inclination, he was first instructed in painting: and for his
study of this art as well as of sculpture, the antiques in Florence
and Rome, and the anatomy of the human body, were actively laid under
contribution. Indeed, his profound anatomical knowledge gave at once the
most prominent feature to his style of design, and the most dangerous of
the examples which he furnished to his indiscriminating imitators; and
among his grandest figures some are exact reproductions of the Torso of
the Belvedere. The influence which this extraordinary man exercised over
every department of art, was as great in painting as in any of his other
pursuits; but his predilection for sculpture, assisted perhaps by other
motives, diverted him from the use of the pencil, and his works were
consequently few.
He despised oil-painting, and it is doubtful whether there exists a
single genuine picture of his executed in that way. Florence contains a
doubtful piece in oils representing the _Fates_, and a composition of a
_Holy Family_ in distemper, which is acknowledged to be that which he
produced for Angelo Doni. But several masterpieces, still extant, are
believed to have been painted after his designs. Rome contains two of
these,--Daniele da Volterra’s _Deposition from the Cross_, in the church
of the Trinità de’ Monti, and an _Annunciation_ by Marco Venusti, in the
sacristy of the Lateran. The finest, however, of all the works in which
his assistance has been traced, is the oil-painting of the _Raising of
Lazarus_, executed by the Venetian Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, who, after
acquiring great excellence in his native school, went to Rome and studied
design under Buonarroti. He was prompted to attempt the _Lazarus_ by
his master, who desired to eclipse, by a union of Florentine drawing
with Venetian colour, the great picture of the _Transfiguration_, on
which Raphael was then engaged. Michelangelo unquestionably designed the
principal group in Sebastiano’s piece; and the strength of expression,
the grandeur of composition and style, and the anatomical knowledge,
favour the belief that he actually painted a great part of it. The figure
of Lazarus, seated on his coffin, assisting in disengaging himself from
the grave-clothes, and gazing up at the Saviour in the first return
of consciousness, amazed, grateful, and adoring, is in every respect
inspired by the patriarchal sublimity and powerful expression which
belong to the master.
But Buonarroti’s genius shone forth unclouded in his immense series of
paintings in fresco, which still adorn Rome in the Sistine chapel of the
Vatican. Their history is as characteristic as the works themselves.
Before leaving Florence he had begun, and he afterwards at intervals
finished, a work which, now lost, is described as having more than any
other evinced his anatomical skill and power of expression. This was the
famous cartoon of Pisa, figuring the Florentine soldiers bathing in the
Arno and called to arms on a sudden attack by the Pisans. In 1504 Julius
II invited him to Rome and employed him as a sculptor; but some years
later the same pontiff ordered him to paint in fresco the ceiling of the
Sistine chapel. Dissatisfied with his assistants he executed the whole of
the immense ceiling with his own hands, in the space of twenty months,
finishing it in 1512 or 1513. The universal admiration excited by this
stupendous work did not tempt the artist to prosecute painting further;
and his next great undertaking, the _Last Judgment_, which fills the end
of the same chapel, was not commenced till the pontificate of Paul III,
and was completed, after eight years’ labour, in 1541. His last frescoes,
the _Crucifixion of Saint Peter_ and the _Conversion of Saint Paul_, both
in the Pauline chapel of the Vatican, were the offspring of old age, and
bodily, though not mental, exhaustion.
The frescoes of the Sistine chapel represent, from the pages of the
Bible, the outlines of the religious history of man. The spirit which
animates them is the stern awfulness of the Hebrew prophets; the milder
graces of the new covenant glimmer faintly and unfrequently through;
the beauty and repose of classicism are all but utterly banished. The
master’s idea of godhead is that of superhuman strength in action, and
the divinity which he thus conceives he imparts to all his figures of the
human race. The work, as a whole, is one which no other mind must venture
to imitate; but of those very qualities which make it dangerous as a
model in art, none could be removed without injuring its severe sublimity.
[Illustration: RAPHAEL
(1483-1520)]
The ceiling is divided into numerous compartments, each of which contains
a scene selected from the Old Testament:--the Creator forming the
elements, the earth, the first man;--the creation of Eve, and the fall
of man, in which feminine grace for a moment visits the fancy of the
artist;--the expulsion from Eden;--the deluge, and the subsequent history
of Noah;--the brazen serpent, the triumphs of David and of Judith, and
the symbolical history of Jonah. The absorbed greatness which animates
the principal figures of these groups, is repeated in the ornamental
divisions of the ceiling, where are the Sibyls, and those unparalleled
figures of the prophets, which are the highest proofs of the painter’s
religious grandeur.
The _Last Judgment_, a colossal composition, sixty feet in height by
thirty in breadth, and embracing an almost countless number of figures,
is a more ambitious and also a more celebrated work, but is far from
being so completely successful. No artist but Michelangelo could have
made it what it is; but it might have been made much greater by him,--the
painter of the _Eve_, the _Delphic Sibyl_, the _Lazarus_, and the
_Prophets_. Its faults are many;--an entire absence of beauty and of
repose;--vagueness and monotony of character, which is increased by
the general nudity of the figures;--ostentatious display of academic
attitudes and anatomy;--and, in some prominent personages, especially the
Judge, an absolute meanness and grossness of conception. The merits of
this wonderful monument of genius are less easily enumerated. Its heaven
is not the heaven either of art or of religion; but its hell is more
terribly sublime than anything which imagination ever framed. Vast as
the piece is, its composition is simple and admirable, and nothing ever
approached to its perfect unity of sentiment. Every thought and emotion
are swallowed up in one idea,--the presence of the righteous Judge: with
the exception of a single unobtrusive group composed by a reunited wife
and husband, every one in the crowd of the awakened dead stands solitary,
waiting for his doom.
_Michelangelo as Sculptor_
The character of this great man’s sculpture was as vast, as strong, as
eagerly bent on the exhibition of science and the representation of
violent action, as were his wonderful paintings; but the plastic art
was still less fitted than the pictorial, for being guided by these
principles uncontrolled. Though he adored the antiques for their anatomy,
he was blind to their beauty and repose: his own ideal was a ruder one,
which neither his skill nor that of any other was qualified fully to
express; and yet his vigour and feeling do in a few instances overcome
all material obstacles, leading him to the very verge of sublimity, and
not far from the true path of art.
His purest works are those of his youth, executed while his imagination
was still filled by the Grecian statues, which, with Ghirlandajo’s
other pupils, he had studied in the gardens of the Medici. There is
much antique calmness in the fighting groups on the bas-relief which,
preserved by the Buonarroti family in Florence, is the earliest of his
known specimens; and his _Bacchus_ with the young Faun in the Uffizi, an
effort of his twenty-fourth year, possessing indifferent and somewhat
inaccurate forms, approaches, in its softly waving lines and gentleness
of expression, nearer to the Greek than any other work of its author.
The _Pieta_ of St. Peter’s is characterised, especially in the figure of
the mother, by much of the same temper, which is not lost even in the
colossal _David_ of the Florentine Piazza del Granduca.
His genius had free scope in the three greatest of his works: the
Monument of Pope Julius II, and the Tombs of Julian and Lorenzo de’
Medici. The first of these, planned by the old priest himself with his
characteristic boldness and magnificence, but curtailed in its execution
by the parsimony of his heirs, furnished occupation to the artist, at
intervals, during many years. Statues merely blocked out, which were
intended to belong to it, are now in the gardens of the Pitti palace;
two slaves are in the Louvre; the remainder of the monument, being the
only part that was finished by the master, consists of the celebrated
sitting figure of Moses, in the Roman church of San Pietro in Vincoli.
The lawgiver of the Hebrews, a massy figure in barbaric costume, with
tangled goat-like hair and beard, and horns like Ammon or Bacchus, rests
one arm on the tables of the law, looking forward with an air of silent
and gloomy menace. The strength of the work is unquestionable; its value
as being, with the _Victory_, the most characteristic of its author’s
works, is equally clear; its sublimity admits of greater doubt. The
tombs of the two Medici, finished earlier than the Moses, are works of
a far higher and purer strain; being really the finest that Michelangelo
ever produced. Upon each of the two sarcophagi rests a sitting figure in
armour, the likeness of the dead man who reposes within. On each side
of Lorenzo is a reclining statue, the one representing Twilight, the
other Dawn; and Julian’s tomb is in like manner flanked by the recumbent
figures of Night and Day. The statue of Lorenzo is a fine and simple
portrait: that of Julian has scarcely ever been surpassed for its air
of dignified and thoughtful repose. The Dawn is a majestic female; the
Twilight is a grand male figure, looking down. The Day is unfinished, but
fine--a bold male form; the Night is a drooping, slumbering, sad-looking
female.
[Illustration: THE DEAD CHRIST IN THE ARMS OF THE VIRGIN
(By Andrea del Sarto, a famous Florentine contemporary of Michelangelo)]
RAPHAEL
The one great rival of Michelangelo, and the one painter whom posterity
has been disposed to rank even above him in genius is Raphael. This
wonderful man was the son of an obscure painter in Urbino. He studied
under Perugino, and is believed to have profited largely also through
study of the works of Leonardo and of Michelangelo, but particularly
from Narcaccio.[a] To Michelangelo’s cartoons as well as to his Sistine
ceiling, Raphael certainly owed deep obligations. In his twenty-sixth
year, invited by his kinsman Bramante, he migrated to Rome, where he
laboured with unwearied industry from that time till his death, which
took place when he was thirty-seven years old, and about to be raised by
Leo X to the rank of a cardinal.
Raphael found the mechanism of art nearly complete, and its application
no longer exclusively ecclesiastical. These two circumstances gave full
play to that union of powers, which his mind possessed to an unequalled
extent. Far less correct than Michelangelo in drawing and anatomy, less
profound in his study of the antique, and less capable of dealing with
those loftiest themes that may be said to hover on the very brink of
impracticability, he yet possessed knowledge of a high order, an elevated
sense of sublimity and energy within his own sphere, an extensive and
felicitous invention, and a feeling of beauty and grace which was the
very purest and most divine that art has ever boasted. The idealism of
his genius was united to a perception of character and expression, and
a dramatic power of representing human action, which he used with the
happiest effect when his subject called for their exercise. His admirers
are influenced more by their own prepossessions than by his peculiar
merits, when they give the preference to his Madonnas, saints, angels, or
apostles, to his portraits, or to his historical and epic compositions.
[Illustration: TIZIANO VECELLI TITIAN
(1477-1576)]
The general progress of Raphael’s manner may be traced with sufficient
certainty. He appears at first as little more than the ablest pupil of
Pietro; inspired by all the warmth and tenderness of the Perugian school,
but embarrassed by all his master’s timidity and littleness. When he
had become acquainted with the bolder spirit and the better mechanism
of the Florentines, we see how his genius gradually extricated itself,
and how, though still guided by the devotional temper of his youthful
models, he attained greater freedom both in handling and invention. In
his earliest works at Rome he struggles to emerge into a sphere wider
than either of these: his idealism is not lost, but it is strengthened
by a more intimate acquaintance with life and nature; and both his fancy
and his power of observation are rendered gradually more efficient by an
improved technical skill, by greater ease and strength of drawing, by
greater mastery of colour as well as of light and shade, and by rapid
approaches towards that unity of conception and that breadth of design,
which ennoble his finest works.
Till we find Raphael in Rome, we must be contented to trace his progress
by his altar-pieces, and two or three portraits. Of genuine pictures
belonging to this youthful period, and still in Italy, several possess
very high merit; and one of these,--the _Borghese Entombment_,--painted
after the artist had nearly emancipated himself from the Umbrian
trammels, is equal to the best of his works both in expression and
composition.
His great frescoes cover the walls and part of the roofs, in four of
the state-rooms belonging to the old Vatican palace. The first chamber,
called that of the Segnatura, was finished in 1511; and under the reign
of the same pope, Julius II, the next apartment, named, from its main
subject, that of the Heliodorus, was partly painted. After the accession
of Leo X, the artist completed that chamber, and proceeded to the third,
that of the Incendio, which he finished in 1517. For the fourth, the hall
of Constantine, he left the designs, which were painted by his surviving
pupils. Under Leo he also designed the small frescoes in the arcade
called Raphael’s Loggie; and in the same pontificate he produced the
celebrated Cartoons.[h]
With this brief summary, and with no more than a mere mention of the
great Venetian painters, Titian and Tintoretti, and that other great
contemporary painter Correggio, we must turn from the art of the period
to catch the barest glimpse of the two or three literary figures of the
time, before we turn back to the sweep of political events. Michelangelo
himself was a poet, but we shall not attempt to deal here with this side
of the multiform genius of that extraordinary man. Instead we shall turn
to the central literary figure of the epoch, Ariosto.[a]
_Ariosto_
Lodovico Ariosto was born on the 8th of September, 1474, at Reggio,
of which place his father was governor, for the duke of Ferrara. He
was intended for the study of jurisprudence, and, like many other
distinguished poets, he experienced a long struggle between the will of
his father, who was anxious that he should pursue a profession, and his
own feelings, which prompted him to the indulgence of his genius. After
five years of unprofitable study, his father at length consented to his
devoting himself solely to literature.
The _Orlando Furioso_ of Ariosto is a poem universally known. It has been
translated into all the modern tongues; and by the sole charm of its
adventures, independently of its poetry, has long been the delight of the
youth of all countries. It may therefore be taken for granted, that all
the world is aware that Ariosto undertook to sing the Paladins and their
amours at the court of Charlemagne, during the fabulous wars of this
monarch against the Moors. If it were required to assign an historical
epoch to the events contained in this poem, we must place them before the
year 778, when Orlando was slain at the battle of Roncesvalles, in an
expedition which Charlemagne made, before he was emperor, to defend the
frontiers of Spain. But it may be conjectured, that the romance writers
have confounded the wars of Charles Martel against Abd el Rahman, with
those of Charlemagne; and have thus given rise to the traditions of the
invasion of France by the Saracens, and of those unheard-of perils,
from which the west of Europe was saved by the valour of the Paladins.
Every reader knows that Orlando, of all the heroes of Ariosto the most
renowned for his valour, became mad, through love for Angelica; and
that his madness, which is only an episode in this long poem, has given
its name to the whole of the composition, although it is not until the
twenty-third canto that Orlando is deprived of his senses.
It does not appear that Ariosto had the intention of writing a strictly
epic poem. He had rejected the advice of Bembo, who wished him to
compose his poem in Latin, the only language, in the opinion of the
cardinal, worthy of a serious subject. Ariosto thought, perhaps, that an
Italian poem should necessarily be light and sportive. He scorned the
adopted rules of poetry, and proved himself sufficiently powerful to
create new ones. His work may, indeed, be said to possess an unity of
subject; the great struggle between the Christians and the Moors, which
began with the invasion of France, and terminated with her deliverance.
This was the subject which he had proposed to himself in his argument.
The lives and adventures of his several heroes, contributed to this great
action; and were so many subordinate episodes, which may be admitted
in epic poetry, and which, in so long a work, cannot be considered as
destroying the unity.
The poem of Ariosto is, therefore, only a fragment of the history of the
knights of Charlemagne and their amours; and it has neither beginning nor
end, further than any particular detached period may be said to possess
them. This want of unity essentially injures the interest and the general
impression which we ought to derive from the work. But the avidity with
which all nations, and all ages, have read Ariosto, even when his story
is despoiled of its poetic charms by translation, sufficiently proves
that he had the art of giving to its individual parts an interest which
it does not possess as a whole.
_Machiavelli_
From Ariosto we turn to his great contemporary, the illustrious secretary
of the Florentine republic, Niccolo Machiavelli, a man of profound
thought, and the most eloquent historian and most skilful politician that
Italy has produced. But a distinction less enviable has attached his name
to the infamous principles which he developed, though probably with good
intentions, in his treatise, entitled _Il Principe_; and his name is, at
the present day, allied to everything false and perfidious in politics.
Machiavelli was born at Florence, on the 3rd of May, 1469, of a family
which had enjoyed the first offices in the republic. We are not
acquainted with the history of his youth; but at the age of thirty he
entered into public business as chancellor of the state, and from that
time he was constantly employed in public affairs, and particularly in
embassies. He was sent four times, by the republic, to the court of
France; twice to the imperial court; and twice to that of Rome. Among
his embassies to the smaller princes of Italy, the one of the longest
duration was to Cæsar Borgia, whom he narrowly observed at the very
important period when this illustrious villain was elevating himself by
his crimes, and whose diabolical policy he had thus an opportunity of
studying at leisure. In the midst of these grave occupations his satiric
gaiety did not forsake him; and it was at this period that he composed
his comedies, his novel of _Belfagor_, and some stanzas and sonnets
which are not deficient in poetical merit. He had a considerable share
in directing the councils of the republic as to arming and forming its
militia; and he assumed more pride to himself from this advice, which
liberated the state from the yoke of the _Condottieri_, than from the
fame of his literary works. The influence to which he owed his elevation
in the Florentine Republic was that of the free party which contested
the power of the Medici and at that time held them in exile. When the
latter were recalled in 1512 Machiavelli was deprived of all his employs
and banished. He then entered into a conspiracy against the usurpers,
which was discovered, and he was put to the torture, but without wresting
from him, by extreme agonies, any confession which could impeach either
himself or those who had confided in his honour. Leo X, on his elevation
to the pontificate, restored him to liberty.
Machiavelli has not, in any of his writings, testified his resentment
of the cruel treatment he experienced. He seems to have concealed it at
the bottom of his heart; but we easily perceive that torture had not
increased his love of princes, and that he took a pleasure in painting
them as he had seen them, in a work in which he feigned to instruct
them. It was, in fact, after having lost his employs that he wrote on
history and politics, with that profound knowledge of the human heart
which he had acquired in public life, and with the habit of unweaving,
in all its intricacies, the political perfidies which then prevailed in
Italy. He dedicated his treatise of the _Principe_, not to Lorenzo the
Magnificent, but to Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, the proud usurper of the
liberties of Florence, and of the estates of his benefactor, the former
duke of Urbino, of the house of Rovere. Lorenzo thought himself profound
when he was crafty, and energetic when he was cruel; and Machiavelli,
in showing, in his treatise of the _Principe_, how an able usurper, who
is not restrained by any moral principle, may consolidate his power,
gave to the duke instructions conformable to his taste. The true object,
however, of Machiavelli could not be to secure on his throne a tyrant
whom he hated, and against whom he had conspired. Nor is it probable that
he only proposed to himself to expose to the people the maxims of tyranny
in order to render them odious; for an universal experience had, at that
time, made them known throughout all Italy, and that diabolical policy
which Machiavelli reduced to a system was, in the sixteenth century, that
of all the states.
It was also at this period of his life that Machiavelli wrote his
_History of Florence_, dedicated to Pope Clement VII, and in which he
instructed the Italians in the art of uniting the eloquence of history
with depth of reflection. He has attached himself, much less than his
predecessors in the same line, to the narration of military events. But
his work, as a history of popular passions and tumults, is a masterpiece.
He was again employed in public affairs by the pope, and was charged with
the direction of the fortifications, when death deprived his country of
his further services, on the 22nd of June, 1527, three years before the
termination of the Florentine Republic.[c]
FOOTNOTES
[20] [Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452; he lived till 1519, when he
died in France at the court of Francis I.]
[Illustration: FRESCOES BY CORREGGIO]
[Illustration]