This, the Revival of Learning, includes an indefinite time in European
history. The seeds of the new movement were planted in the Middle Ages,
but they bore no fruit until the time had arrived for an apparently
“spontaneous outburst of intelligence”. Definitions of the Renaissance
will vary with the point of view. Artists and sculptors will say it was
a revolution which was created by the recovery of ancient statues;
littérateurs and philosophers look upon it as a radical change due to
the discovery of the writings of the classical authors; astronomers and
physicists will cite the names of Copernicus, Galileo, and Torricelli;
geographers will point to the discovery of a New Continent; historians
will name the extinction of feudalism and the capture of Constantinople
by the Turks; inventors will recall the changed conditions of warfare
brought about by gunpowder, the multiplication of books by the invention
of printing, and the advent of new methods of engraving; and anatomists
will sound the praises of Leonardo da Vinci and of Andreas Vesalius. All
will agree that the Renaissance meant Revolution—revolution in thought,
in conduct, in creed, and in conditions of existence. To no one fact can
the Renaissance be attributed; nor can its scope be limited to any one
field of human endeavor. The Renaissance was, and is, and will continue
to be, as long as the race progresses.
The new movement began in Italy and grew rapidly. When, toward the end
of the sixteenth century, the lamp of learning began to get dim in
Italy, it was relighted by the nations of northern Europe—the Germans,
the Hollanders, and the English—and by them was transferred to us. The
Revival consisted largely in the recovery of the buried writings of the
ancient Greek and Roman authors, together with comments on what they had
written, and the production of books which were modeled after their
works. But it was broader than this. It included all branches of
learning, although more progress was made in some lines than in others.
Italy, a country divided into numerous small States, and so-called
Republics, offered great opportunities for individual development and
became famous in those paths in which individualism has gained its
greatest triumphs. Thus in literature, in law, in medicine, in painting
and in sculpture, the Italians were preëminent. In architecture and in
the drama they reached no such heights as were attained by the French,
the Germans and the English. It was in the northwest part of Italy, in
the province of Tuscany, that the Renaissance gained its greatest
victories. Among the earliest of the leaders of the New Learning was the
Florentine poet, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). “To Dante”, says Symonds,
“in a truer sense than to any other poet, belongs the double glory of
immortalising in verse the centuries behind him, while he inaugurated
the new age”. His _Vita Nuova_ (New Life) and _Divina Commedia_ (Divine
Comedy) are essentially modern in thought, but ancient in the manner in
which the thought is expressed.
Petrarch may be said to fairly open the new era. Like Dante, he was a
Florentine. He was the apostle of Humanism, that system of philosophy
which regarded man “as a rational being apart from theological
determinations” and perceived that “classic literature alone displayed
human nature in the plenitude of intellectual and moral freedom”. To a
revolt against the despotism of the Church, it added the attempt to
unify all that had been taught and done by man. Petrarch was a poet, a
lawyer, an orator, a priest, and a philosopher. He lived between the
years 1304-1374. He was a great traveler, and visited the leading
continental cities in order to converse with learned men. Petrarch
delighted in the study of Cicero, in collecting manuscripts, and in
accumulating coins and inscriptions for historic purposes. He advocated
public libraries and preached the duty of preserving ancient monuments.
He opposed the physicians and astrologers of his day, and ridiculed the
followers of Averröes.
Boccaccio, who has been called the Father of Italian Prose, and is most
widely known as the author of the _Decameron_, did not spend all of his
time in describing the escapades of the knights and ladies of old.
Influenced potently by Petrarch, Boccaccio regretted the years he had
wasted in law and trade, when he should have been reading the classics.
Late in life he began the study of Greek that he might read the _Iliad_
and the _Odyssey_. What he lacked in genuine scholarship he made up in
industry. He continued the work begun by Petrarch of hunting for lost
manuscripts of the ancient Greek and Roman authors. Many of these
precious documents were stored in the conventual libraries, where, too
often, they were either wantonly destroyed or were mutilated, the words
of the author being erased from the parchment to make way for new
prayers. Boccaccio tells of a visit which he made to the Benedictine
Monastery of Monte Cassino near the city of Salernum. He wished to see
the books and found them in a room without door or key. Many of them
were mutilated. On making inquiry as to the cause, the monks answered
that they had sold some of the sheets, having first erased the original
words, replacing them with psalters. The margins of the old pages were
made into charms and were sold to women.
It was owing to the unselfish labors of such men as Petrarch and
Boccaccio that the works of Livy, Cicero, Quintilian, Terence, and
others of the ancient authors, were preserved. In this enterprise they
were encouraged by the rulers. Thus Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence,
Alfonso the Magnanimous in Naples, and Nicholas V. in Rome, to say
nothing of the despots of the smaller cities, rivaled one another in
their zeal in unearthing and multiplying the manuscripts of the ancient
writers. They spared neither time nor money to increase their store of
manuscript books. They surrounded themselves with learned men who lived
in high esteem, and who were supported by salaries paid by the State or
by private pensions.
The fifteenth century, which was one of the most remarkable epochs in
history, was rich in accomplishment. Almost all of the great events
which have influenced European commercial and intellectual development
can be traced to that period. The invention of printing, the discovery
of America, the fall of the Roman Empire in the East, the birth of the
Reformation, and the rise of art in Italy, all belong to this wonderful
century. In this period, when almost every city in Italy was a new
Athens, the Italian poets, historians, and artists vied with the eminent
men of the ancient world in carrying the lamp of learning. The Italian
cities—Florence, Bologna, Milan, Venice, Rome and Ferrara—fought with
one another, not for the spoils of the battlefield but for the victories
of science and of art; not so much for the profits of commerce as for
the wealth of genius and of learning. The intellectual development which
occurred in northern Italy under the rule of the house of Medici, and
particularly under the auspices of Lorenzo the Magnificent, forms one of
the most interesting periods in European history.
It is impossible in the present work to trace the steps by which the
exquisite taste of the ancients in works of art was revived in modern
times. Nevertheless, a few words may be devoted to this subject. While
much must be credited to those Greek artists who had left their country
and had settled in the Italian peninsula, it must be conceded that many
of the works of art of the native Italians were not the less
meritorious. The same circumstances which favored the revival of
letters, operated to further the cause of art; and the same individuals,
who were interested in the preservation of the manuscripts of the older
authors, also busied themselves with the collection of ancient statues,
paintings, gems and tapestry. The freedom of the Italian Republics
permitted the minds of men to expand to full fruition; and the
encouragement which was given by its rulers to artists, sculptors and
artisans, made the city of Florence, in the fifteenth century, a not
less renowned centre of culture than Athens had been in ancient times.
The revival of art dates from the time of Cimabue (1240-1300) and Giotto
(1276-1336). The former is known as the Father of Modern Painters; the
latter constructed the Campanile at Florence. To Giovanni Cimabue, scion
of a noble Florentine family, is usually given the credit of being the
restorer of art in Italy. He is thought to have been the first painter
to throw expression into the human countenance. His work, if judged by
present standards, would be called crude, rude and incomplete. Much of
the fame of this painter is to be attributed to his being the first
person whom Vasari chronicled in his _Lives of the Painters_. For more
than a century after the time of Cimabue and Giotto, painters displayed
only a smattering of anatomical knowledge.
Early in the fifteenth century two Flemish artists, Hubert van Eyck
(1365-1426) and his brother John (1385-1441), in their polyptych of the
Adoration of the Lamb, boldly struck out along new lines and committed
the unheard-of deed of painting nude figures. Italy, however, was the
real birthplace of Art-Anatomy. While the Flemings and others of the
North painted everything that they saw, including the nude, the Italians
were the first men of the Renaissance who thought of painting the nude
figure before draping it. Leo Battista Alberti (1404-1472), in his works
on painting, insists that the bony skeleton must first be drawn and then
clothed with its muscles and flesh. This was an important step in
advance, since it shows that the Florentine artists were progressing
towards realism and were breaking away from the symbolism of the early
Christian painters and mosaic-workers. The new movement in art found a
worthy champion in Antonio Pollaiuolo (1432-1498). In his knowledge of
the anatomy of the human figure he surpassed all of the artists of his
day; and as a result of his labors he may justly be named the founder of
the scientific study of the nude. His knowledge of anatomy was so
accurate, and so extensive, that it could have been gained only in the
dissecting room.
Under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici and the guiding mind of
Pollaiuolo, there occurred a revival of pseudo-paganism in Art. The old
Church subjects were largely neglected; mythological subjects again
became the fashion; draperies were either modified or were laid aside;
and the scientific study of anatomy, both as regards the nude figure and
the dissection of the individual parts, became the necessary training of
the student. Of all the masters of this period, the palm for excellence
in drawing the naked figure must be awarded to Luca Signorelli
(1442-1524), from whose work Michael Angelo is known to have profited.
The alliance between skilled anatomists and master artists was of
reciprocal benefit. The anatomical studies which were made conjointly by
Leonardo da Vinci and the celebrated teacher of anatomy, Marc Antonio
della Torre, were lost to the world by the untimely death of the latter,
before he had finished a magnificent treatise on human anatomy.
Leonardo’s anatomical sketches, if they had been published during his
lifetime, would have revolutionized anatomy both as regards discoveries
in the body and the teaching of the structure of man. These masterpieces
of anatomical illustration long remained hidden from the world; they
were published only in the year 1902. Even now their cost is so great
that only a few wealthy libraries can possess them. Leonardo’s long
unpublished drawings show him to have been a most accurate anatomist. At
the same time, he constantly kept in view the aim of fine art, which, in
so far as practical anatomy is concerned, needs a knowledge of only the
bones and the muscles.
Nor was Leonardo the only artist who made dissections. Raffaello Santi,
Michael Angelo, Bartholomaus Torre, Luigi Cardi or Civoli, Jan Stephan
van Calcar, Giuseppe Ribera, Arnold Myntens, and Pietro da Cortona
studied practical anatomy. Rubens’s long-lost sketch-book[1], which was
published one hundred and thirty-three years after his death, shows with
what care he had studied human anatomy. Albrecht Dürer’s _Treatise on
the Proportions of the Human Body_ is also worthy of mention.
In the number and fame of her Universities, Italy showed supremacy. At
the end of the fifteenth century she could boast of sixteen seats of
learning, a number equal to that of the combined institutions of
Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia and Bavaria.
This digression has led us away from the Humanists. Their list is a long
one. Among them were Poggio Bracciolini, who discovered the manuscript
of the _Institutions_ of Quintilian and the writings of Vitruvius;
Poliziano, the first poet of the fifteenth century, and the translator
of the works of Hippocrates and Galen; Pontanus, whose _De Stellis_ and
_Urania_ were much admired by Italian scholars; Sannazzaro, whose epic
on the birth of Christ cost him twenty years of labor; Vida, whose
_Christiad_ and other poems were much admired; and Fracastoro, whose
_Syphilis_ was hailed as a divine poem.
From the viewpoint of the medical historian an important event occurred
in the year 1443, when Thomas of Sarzana, later known as Pope Nicholas
V., discovered a manuscript copy of the _De Medicina_ of Aulus Cornelius
Celsus. This classic, which had been lost for many centuries, was one of
the first medical books to pass through the press. It gave physicians an
insight into Hippocratic medicine without the disadvantage of an
imperfect translation. Physicians took an active part in the
Renaissance. Thus Nicholas Leonicenus, of Ferrara, translated the
_Aphorisms_ of Hippocrates and the _Natural History_ of Pliny; and
Winter of Andernach did similar labor for the writings of Galen,
Alexander, and Paulus Aegineta. Their efforts seem insignificant in
comparison with those of Anutius Foesius, a humble practitioner of Metz,
who spent forty years of his life in preparing a complete Greek edition
of the works of Hippocrates. The New Learning was brought to England by
two physicians, Thomas Linacre and John Kaye (Caius).
Some of the Humanists were printers. The history of printing in Italy
naturally forms a part of the history of the Renaissance. In 1462,
Maintz was pillaged by Adolph of Nassau and its printers were scattered
over Europe. Two of them wandered into Italy, living in a village in the
Sabine mountains, where, in October, 1465, the first book was printed
from an Italian press. It was a Latin edition of Lactantius. Six years
later a press was established in Florence. In 1478, Mondino’s
_Anathomia_ was printed in Pavia. It has been estimated that before the
first year of the sixteenth century, five thousand books had been
printed in Italy. In those days the editions were small, 265 copies
being considered one edition. An immense amount of labor was required to
get out a new edition. First, the manuscripts of the ancient author had
to be collected, compared and corrected, this work being done by learned
men who resided in the home of the publisher. The corrections were made
without the aid of dictionaries, grammars, or book-helps of any kind.
The proof was read aloud to the assembled scholars and the final
corrections were added. In time, Venice came to be the most noted of the
Italian cities in the publishing business, owing chiefly to the family
of Aldo. This family of printers became famous for finely printed Greek
and Latin books, which are still called Aldine editions. Nine years
after the printing of the first book in Italy, the art was practiced in
England by Caxton.
Humanism in Italy began to decline toward the close of the fifteenth
century. Long before this time it had degenerated into Paganism. The
scholars influenced all life, customs and thought. Although the nation
remained Catholic, it was such only in name. Everyone bowed before the
shrine of classical literature. Even in the christening of children the
Christian name was sacrificed to paganism. The saints were forgotten,
and the names most frequently chosen were those from heathen mythology.
The polite authors described scenes, events and actions in their
writings in terms which long since have been banished from good society.
A spade was called by its true name. Bembo, the secretary of Leo X.,
could write a hymn to Saint Stephen or a monologue for Priapus with
equal ease and elegance. The amours of the high and the low were
flaunted in print. The nation degenerated into an intellectual and
sensual state which involved even the Popes. Scholars and rich men alike
vied with one another in returning to those pursuits, habits, and
methods of thought which had ruled ancient Rome in her most corrupt
days.
Such a condition could not exist forever. The turning-point came in
1527, when Charles the Fifth, engaging in war with Pope Clement VII.,
captured and sacked the city of Rome. After that event everything was
changed. Not only had the scholars lost their influence, but many of
them had lost their lives. Valeriano, who returned to Rome after the
siege, pathetically exclaims: “Good God! when first I began to enquire
for the philosophers, orators, poets and professors of Greek and Latin
literature, whose names were written on my tablets, how great, how
horrible a tragedy was offered to me! Of all those lettered men whom I
had hoped to see, how many had perished miserably, carried off by the
most cruel of all fates, overwhelmed by undeserved calamities; some dead
of plague, some brought to a slow end by penury in exile, others
slaughtered by a foeman’s sword, others worn out by daily tortures;
some, again, and these of all the most unhappy, driven by anguish to
self-murder”. Such was the end of the men who made the Italian
Renaissance. The Spaniards, the Inquisition, and the changed policy of
the Church prevented a second revival of Humanism.
While the sack of Rome marks the end of the Humanists, the Revival in
Medicine continued to grow in vigor and extent. Many of the greatest
discoveries in anatomy were made, and most of the important books on
this subject were written, in the middle and latter part of the
sixteenth century. Italian history is rich in contradictions. While
peace, ease and comfort are generally considered to be necessary to the
development of science and culture, Italy offers the strange spectacle
of the steady increase in medical knowledge in spite of wars and alarms.
The Inquisition, which had been introduced from Spain in 1224, was given
a new and horrible impetus when, in 1540, Paul III. appointed six
cardinals to add to its tortures. One of them, Caraffa, became Pope Paul
IV. in 1555, and four years later originated the _Index Expurgatorius_.
Torn by civil and foreign wars, and terrorized by the Inquisition, which
was not abolished until late in the eighteenth century, Italy gradually
lost her commercial and intellectual supremacy. That she should have
accomplished so much under such unfavorable circumstances, is now a
matter of wonderment.
The origin of the Renaissance in Italy was due to many causes. The early
Roman civilization was not entirely blotted out by the invasion of the
barbarians of the North. And in the matter of language the Italians
possessed an advantage, since the transition from Latin to Italian was
easier than from Latin to Spanish, French, English or German. The
fertility of the country; the mildness of the climate; the division into
semi-independent states; the infusion of new northern blood into the
veins of the Italians; the removal of the papal court to Avignon in
1309; and the gradual rise of a powerful middle class, whose members
included the devotees of the professions of law and medicine, were
factors which determined that Italy, rather than France or Spain, should
be the field for the Revival of Letters.
To Italy, then, belongs the glory of having been the first to free
herself from the trammels of ancient scholasticism and the fetters of
mediaeval theology. She abandoned the wordy dialectics and metaphysical
gymnastics of the philosophers of old. In place of mortification,
penance and solitary confinement in cloistered monasteries and convents,
she began to have a proper conception of the dignity of man and his
relation to nature.
Italy, in the time of her freedom, received the torch of learning from
Greece; Italy revived its brilliancy, and, when her time of adversity
and ruin arrived, she passed it on to the nations of Northern Europe.
They in turn have transferred it to America, to Australia, to India, and
to the uttermost parts of the earth.