THE RENAISSANCE (1450-1492)
The last chapter confined itself to the fine arts and omitted the main
element, humanism, which gave volume and impetus to the stream, and,
though not memorable for conspicuous achievements as the fine arts were,
flowed more directly from the classic impulse and produced the greatest
immediate effect. The humanists played a part analogous to that which
men of science play in our own time; they devoted themselves heart and
soul to the classics, as men of science do to Nature. For some time they
had had access to the Latin past through Italy, and now they also found
their way to the far greater classic world of Greece. The one
uninterrupted communication with that world was through Constantinople,
which, like a long, ill-lighted and ill-repaired corridor, led back to
the great pleasure domes of Plato and Homer, and all the wonderland of
Greek literature and thought. Aristotle, indeed, had come by way of the
Arabs, and had long been a lay Bible, but for the other Greek classics
the rising humanism of Italy was indebted to Constantinople. The glowing
young city of Florence lit its torch at the expiring embers of the
imperial city. A few Italians went to Constantinople and learned Greek,
then stray Byzantines came to Italy. The doom which hung over
Constantinople frightened scholars and drove them westward, and the fall
itself (1453) dispersed the last of them. These Greeks brought
invaluable manuscripts and firmly established Hellenic culture in the
kindred soil of Tuscany. In the list of books in Cosimo's library, there
was no mention of any Greek classic except Aristotle; but after the
immigration of Greek scholars all intellectual Florence went mad over
Plato, and Cosimo founded a Platonic Academy. The study of Greek brought
with it examination, comparison, criticism; it brought new knowledge; it
gave new ideas to all the arts, new impulses to the creative
imagination, and general intellectual freedom. Interest in the
humanities became so widespread throughout the peninsula that we get a
feeling of Italian unity stronger than any we have experienced since the
days of Theodoric.
The importance of the humanists, however, was merely as an intellectual
leaven. They need not be spoken of apart from the general intellectual
movement which expressed itself so much more fully and freely in art
than in any other way. That movement kindled enthusiasm from Lombardy to
Calabria; and Florence still maintained her primacy. All the other
cities of Italy lagged far behind her. We must therefore keep Florence
as our paradigm, only remembering that at her heels a score of cities
toil and pant in artistic eagerness to make themselves as beautiful and
famous as Florence.
There Cosimo, _Pater Patriae_, had died in fulness of years and was
succeeded by his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, though not
immediately, for there was a short-lived Piero in between. Lorenzo took
his grandfather's place, became lord of Florence in all but name, and
stood the centre of a brilliant group of artists, sculptors, poets, and
scholars. His reign, for it must be so called, lasted from 1469 to 1492,
a most notable span of time. The mere names of the famous Florentines
would fill pages. A few must be mentioned: Benedetto da Maiano, sculptor
and architect, who carved the beautiful pulpit in Santa Croce, and drew
the designs for the palace-fortress of the Strozzi; Giuliano da San
Gallo, sculptor and architect, who made the plans for Lorenzo's villa at
Poggio a Caiano; Andrea della Robbia, nephew to Luca, and almost his
equal in the tender charm of his blue and white Madonnas; Mino da
Fiesole, who made a bust of Lorenzo's father, and carved in marble the
sweetness of young mothers; Antonio Rossellino, who wrought the famous
tomb for a great Portuguese prelate in the church of San Miniato; Andrea
Verrocchio, who painted the Uffizi Annunciation, so beautiful that it
was long attributed to Leonardo, modelled the lady _dalle belle mani_ in
the Bargello, and the Colleoni at Venice, greatest of equestrian
statues; Benozzo Gozzoli, who painted the three generations of Medici in
the Riccardi palace, and in the Campo Santo at Pisa the enchanting
frescoes which turn the Old Testament into a kind of Arabian Nights;
Antonio Pollaiuolo, sculptor and painter, a leader in the new school of
realism, and notable for the feeling of movement which he conveys;
Filippino Lippi, Lippo Lippi's son, who completed the frescoes in the
chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine left unfinished by Masaccio;
Botticelli, the greatest of all the Florentine painters, except Leonardo
and Michelangelo; Domenico Ghirlandaio, whose frescoes in Santa Maria
Novella tell us more about those shrewd, capable, quick-witted
Florentines than any historian; Pulci, the poet, who wrote "Morgante
Maggiore," a gay epic, which Savonarola thought ought to be burned;
Poliziano, great embodiment of culture, who wrote the first lyrical
tragedy, and led the way towards the opera; Marsilio Ficino, the
philosopher who helped Cosimo found the Platonic Academy; Pico della
Mirandola, the charming scholar, whom Machiavelli called "a man almost
divine."
Perhaps none of these men were equal to the leaders in the group which
surrounded Cosimo, but they are more interesting to us, and touch our
sympathy more readily. They are nearer to us. The earlier problems in
architecture, sculpture, and painting were more difficult, but they had
been successfully solved; and the fresh problems, which confronted the
younger generation, though less adventurous, were more refined. The sons
have entered into a hard-earned inheritance, and live more freely. They
have more spiritual alertness than their fathers though less vigour,
more sensitiveness to passing moods though less robustness, greater
mastery of technique though less genius for principles. Less great
themselves, they have created greater works. Benedetto's Palazzo Strozzi
is more majestic and splendid than Michelozzo's Palazzo Riccardi;
Verrocchio's statue of Colleoni surpasses Donatello's Gattamelata;
Botticelli's poetry is more interesting, at least to the unlearned, than
Masaccio's puissant drawing. Nevertheless, the greater intimacy of
sympathy and interest which we feel for the later men is not accounted
for by their greater command of their crafts. There is some new element
less readily discovered. We perceive a change of attitude toward life, a
new conception of human existence. The readiest explanation and perhaps
the best, if we do not treat it as completely adequate, lies in the new
Greek thought (or rather Greek thought as the Florentines understood
it), which the humanists contributed to Italian culture; and indeed not
so much in Greek thought itself, as in the impulse it gave to a subtler
and more complicated conception of life.
Direct Greek influence is most conspicuous in Botticelli. This rare
spirit wandered about half in the world of reality which he ill
understood and depicted badly, and half in a world of fantasy which he
knew better than any other painter. The secret of this world of fantasy,
as he discovered, was motion. If a vision tarries, it becomes touched by
the blight of familiarity, soiled by the comradeship of life. The fairy
spirit of imagination must be ever on the wing. No artist ever let Sweet
Fancy loose as Botticelli did in his two great pictures, The Primavera
(Spring) and The Birth of Venus. In them this Greek influence finds its
fullest direct expression. The glory of dawn, the first unveiled fresh
beauty of the world, which the Greeks saw, Botticelli saw also. But
besides the childlike joy in pure beauty is another, more complicated,
element. Into the rapturous Greek world, beautiful with sensuous charm,
the bewildering idea of a moral order presents itself. On the
countenance of Venus and in the figure of Primavera there is a
wistfulness, as if they had a presentiment that they must leave the
rose-strewn ocean and the magic wood in which they found themselves. The
consequence is a sadness as of beholding an antagonism between two
beautiful things.
The subtler and more complicated conception of life is best expressed by
Verrocchio, the other master spirit of this generation, who displays in
his paintings and statues the joy he takes in pure beauty, but always
adds some other element. The little boy who hugs a dolphin in the court
of the Palazzo Vecchio is the incarnation of the grace and happiness of
childhood, but he has an impish, Puck-like expression. The young bronze
David, who has just conquered Goliath, has an odd, mischievous
sprightliness. Both statues intimate a sceptical attitude towards the
fine seriousness of life which had marked Puritan Florence of the older
days. His painting of the Annunciation shows a magic background,
beautiful and mystical, with enchanted cities, rivers, mountains, like
the part of Xanadu where Kubla Khan decreed his pleasure dome, or the
strange land where La belle Dame sans Merci left her knight-at-arms
alone and palely loitering. Subtle thoughts play over his statues and
paintings, and he taught his pupil Leonardo that strange and beautiful
fascination of face which expresses one knows not what. The earlier
simplicity of the _quattrocento_ has passed, the artist's attitude to
life has become complicated, although the love of beauty for beauty's
sake remains abundantly.
The lord of Florence, Lorenzo the Magnificent, the centre and patron of
this glittering ring, is the best exponent of the late _quattrocento_
taken as a whole. He touched life on every side, public and private,
intellectual and frivolous, religious and cynical, artistic, literary,
philosophical. Lorenzo had a striking, indeed a fascinating,
personality. His figure was strong and lithe, and his face among a
thousand caught the eye. His big jaws, under his lean, furrowed cheeks,
were square and grim. His long irregular nose and curving lips gave him
a somewhat sardonic expression, but his broad forehead was grave and
thoughtful, and "princely counsel" shone in his face. His whole aspect
was full of character and dignity. Every one felt his fascination. He
was a poet and wrote poems of many kinds, grave and gay, some of which
are of acknowledged merit:
Quant'e bella giovinezza
Che si fugge tuttavia,
Chi vuol essere lieto, sia,
Di doman non v'e certezza.[18]
He was a scholar, and full of the fashionable admiration for Plato,
though he probably shared the current confusion between Plato's own
thoughts and those of the Alexandrian Neoplatonists. He was a statesman
of foresight and shrewdness, and contributed more than any one else to
preserve the peace of Italy, by maintaining the balance of power among
the greater states. He was also a very charming person, and endeavoured
to make life in Florence a happy mixture of mirth and intellectual
pleasure; and it must be remembered in appreciation of the general
sobriety of his life, that a gifted company of men did all they could to
spoil him.
Lorenzo was the most remarkable prince of the _quattrocento_, but there
were many others who patronized scholars and artists as generously as
he. Alfonso of Aragon, the king who temporarily united the Two Sicilies,
was devoted to the humanities. He was wont to hear Terence and Virgil
read aloud at dinner, and took Livy with him on his campaigns. But
Naples and Sicily had almost no share in the achievements and glory of
the Italian Renaissance. Lawless, ignorant, poor, unsuccessful, they
responded feebly to the efforts of individuals, who, here and there,
strove to emulate the great Florentines. But in the North all the world
was mad for art, and its princes led the fashion. Federigo da
Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino (1422-1482), was the foremost scholar among
soldiers and the foremost soldier among scholars; he gathered together a
noble library, now lodged in the Vatican; he built a palace, unmatched
in Italy; and collected about him artists of all kinds. Yet Federigo was
a soldier by nature as well as by profession, as one may see from the
great portrait of him in the Uffizi, painted by Piero della Francesca.
His strong profile, with firm mouth and big, broken, aquiline nose,
testifies far more forcibly to his character as a warrior than as a
virtuoso. His near neighbour, the tyrant of Pesaro (a little city by the
Adriatic coast), Alessandro Sforza, passed the intervals between his
battles in buying books. Duke Ercole of Ferrara was likewise a patron of
art, and adorned his capital as well as his palaces and villas with all
sorts of beautiful things. The dukes of Milan were somewhat eclipsed,
but only for a time, by their less powerful rivals of Ferrara and
Urbino. The old ducal line of the Visconti had died out with Filippo
Maria, and Francesco Sforza (husband of Filippo's daughter), who
succeeded to the duchy (1450), was busy making good his very defective
title, and had little time to attend to art or letters. Even he kept
humanists in his pay, and continued work on the glorious Certosa of
Pavia.
Not only princes but private citizens were lovers and patrons of art. In
almost every city of the North--excepting Piedmont--there was some
artist of whom the whole city was proud. Nevertheless, throughout the
reign of Lorenzo the Magnificent Florence continued to be the most
intellectual of Italian cities, as she had been for many generations;
but on Lorenzo's death the primacy in the arts and in matters of the
mind passed from Florence to Rome. By a flattering chance that primacy
seemed to follow the fortunes of a single family. Under Cosimo, Piero,
and Lorenzo dei Medici, the Renaissance may be said to have made
Florence its home; in the later period it found its fullest expression
in Rome, and even there took its name, the Age of Leo, from another
Medici, Lorenzo's son. It was not to Pope Leo, however, but to his
predecessors, that Rome was indebted for preeminence. At the summons of
the Papacy men of genius went to Rome from all Italy, but chiefly from
Florence; and a distinguished Tuscan, almost a Florentine, who went from
Florence to Rome at the culmination of a brilliant career, fairly serves
as the personification of this intellectual migration. Tommaso
Parentucelli, who was born in a little town near Lucca, was educated in
Florence and Bologna. He took holy orders early, and, going back to
Florence, quickly became intimate with the clever set of humanists who
surrounded Cosimo. He was a great student, and won so high a reputation
for learning that it was to him Cosimo applied for advice, when he
wanted the right books for the library at Fiesole. This collection
became famous and was copied both at Rimini and Urbino. Parentucelli was
a very capable and attractive man, and embodied in its best form the
essence of Florentine humanistic culture. His character, talents, and
accomplishments were recognized in the Church; he became bishop,
cardinal, and finally Pope, as Nicholas V (1447-55).
At Rome Nicholas showed the well-marked characteristics of the
Renaissance. He fostered learning, art, and general culture, not only
because of his interest in them, but because he thought that by their
means he could overcome that rumbling spirit of reform, which was making
trouble in Bohemia and Germany, and that by giving the reformers
intellectual interests he could occupy their minds and quell their
discontent. He entertained lofty imaginings of a Papacy, resting on
learning and culture, housed in a nonpareil city, which should be the
acknowledged and admired head of Christendom. He gathered together
scholars of all kinds, collected a library of five thousand volumes, and
founded the Vatican library. He rebuilt or restored numerous churches
and other buildings in Rome, he began the new Vatican palace, and
planned a new cathedral in place of the old basilica of St. Peter's, to
be the greatest church in Christendom. He brought to Rome architects,
painters, goldsmiths, artists, and artisans of all sorts. With him began
the brilliant period of the Papacy as a secular power devoted to art and
culture, which culminated in what is known as the Age of Leo X.
FOOTNOTES:
[18]
Oh, how beautiful is youth
Ever hurrying away,
Come, let him who will be gay,
In to-morrow there's no truth.