RENAISSANCE IN ITALY THE FINE ARTS BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS AUTHOR OF "AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF DANTE", "STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS" AND "SKETCHES IN ITALY AND GREECE" * * * * * Dii Romae indigetes, Trojae tuque auctor, Apollo, Unde genus nostrum coeli se tollit ad astra, Hanc saltem auferri laudem prohibete Latinis: Artibus emineat semper, studiisque Minervae, Italia, et gentes doceat pulcherrima Roma; Quandoquidem armorum penitus fortuna recessit, Tanta Italos inter crevit discordia reges; Ipsi nos inter saevos distringimus enses, Nec patriam pudet externis aperire tyrannis VIDA, _Poetica_, lib. Ii. * * * * * LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO 1899 PREFACE[1] This third volume of my book on the "Renaissance in Italy" does notpretend to retrace the history of the Italian arts, but rather to definetheir relation to the main movement of Renaissance culture. Keeping this, the chief object of my whole work, steadily in view, I have tried toexplain the dependence of the arts on mediaeval Christianity at theircommencement, their gradual emancipation from ecclesiastical control, andtheir final attainment of freedom at the moment when the classical revivalculminated. Not to notice the mediaeval period in this evolution would be impossible;since the revival of Sculpture and Painting at the end of the thirteenthcentury was among the earliest signs of that new intellectual birth towhich we give the title of Renaissance. I have, therefore, had to deal atsome length with stages in the development of Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, which form a prelude to the proper age of my own history. In studying the architectural branch of the subject, I have had recourseto Fergusson's "Illustrated Handbook of Architecture, " to Burckhardt's"Cicerone, " to Grüner's "Terra-Cotta Buildings of North Italy, " toMilizia's "Memorie degli Architetti, " and to many illustrated works onsingle buildings in Rome, Tuscany, Lombardy, and Venice. For the historyof Sculpture I have used Burckhardt's "Cicerone, " and the two importantworks of Charles C. Perkins, entitled "Tuscan Sculptors, " and "ItalianSculptors. " Such books as "Le Tre Porte del Battistero di Firenze, "Grüner's "Cathedral of Orvieto, " and Lasinio's "Tabernacolo della Madonnad'Orsammichele" have been helpful by their illustrations. For the historyof Painting I have made use principally of Vasari's "Vite de' piùeccellenti Pittori, " &c. , in Le Monnier's edition of Crowe andCavalcaselle's "History of Painting, " of Burckhardt's "Cicerone, " ofRosini's illustrated "Storia della Pittura Italiana, " of Rio's "L'ArtChrétien, " and of Henri Beyle's "Histoire de la Peinture en Italie. " Ishould, however, far exceed the limits of a preface were I to make a listof all the books I have consulted with profit on the history of the artsin Italy. In this part of my work I feel that I owe less to reading than toobservation. I am not aware of having mentioned any important building, statue, or picture which I have not had the opportunity of studying. WhatI have written in this volume about the monuments of Italian art hasalways been first noted face to face with the originals, and afterwardscorrected, modified, or confirmed in the course of subsequent journeys toItaly. I know that this method of composition, if it has the merit offreshness, entails some inequality of style and disproportion in thedistribution of materials. In the final preparation of my work for press Ihave therefore endeavoured, as far as possible, to compensate thisdisadvantage by adhering to the main motive of my subject--theillustration of the Renaissance spirit as this was manifested in the Arts. I must add, in conclusion, that Chapters VII. And IX. And Appendix II. Arein part reprinted from the "Westminster, " the "Cornhill, " and the"Contemporary. " CLIFTON: _March_ 1877. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM FOR THE FINE ARTS Art in Italy and Greece--The Leading Phase of Culture--Æsthetic Type ofLiterature--Painting the Supreme Italian Art--Its Task in theRenaissance--Christian and Classical Traditions--Sculpture for theAncients--Painting for the Romance Nations--Mediaeval Faith andSuperstition--The Promise of Painting--How far can the Figurative Artsexpress Christian Ideas?--Greek and Christian Religion--Plastic Artincapable of solving the Problem--A more Emotional Art needed--Place ofSculpture in the Renaissance--Painting and Christian Story--Humanizationof Ecclesiastical Ideas by Art--Hostility of the Spirit of True Piety toArt--Compromises effected by the Church--Fra Bartolommeo's S. Sebastian--Irreconcilability of Art and Theology, Art andPhilosophy--Recapitulation--Art in the end Paganises--Music--The Future ofPainting after the Renaissance. CHAPTER II ARCHITECTURE Architecture of Mediaeval Italy--Milan, Genoa, Venice--The Despots asBuilders--Diversity of Styles--Local Influences--Lombard, Tuscan, Romanesque, Gothic--Italian want of feeling for Gothic--Cathedrals ofSiena and Orvieto--Secular Buildings of the Middle Ages--Florence andVenice--Private Palaces--Public Halls--Palazzo della Signoria atFlorence--Arnolfo di Cambio--S. Maria del Fiore--Brunelleschi'sDome--Classical Revival in Architecture--Roman Ruins--Three Periods inRenaissance Architecture--Their Characteristics--Brunelleschi--Alberti--Palace-building--Michellozzo--Decorative Work of theRevival--Bramante--Vitoni's Church of the Umiltà at Pistoja--Palazzo delTe--Villa Farnesina--Sansovino at Venice--Michael Angelo--The Building ofS. Peter's--Palladio--The Palazzo della Ragione at Vicenza--LombardArchitects--Theorists and Students of Vitruvius--Vignola andScamozzi--European Influence of the Palladian Style--Comparison ofScholars and Architects in relation to the Revival of Learning. CHAPTER III SCULPTURE Niccola Pisano--Obscurity of the Sources for a History of Early ItalianSculpture--Vasari's Legend of Pisano--Deposition from the Cross atLucca--Study of Nature and the Antique--Sarcophagus at Pisa--PisanPulpit--Niccola's School--Giovanni Pisano--Pulpit in S. Andrea atPistoja--Fragments of his work at Pisa--Tomb of Benedict XI. AtPerugia--Bas-reliefs at Orvieto--Andrea Pisano--Relation of Sculpture toPainting--Giotto--Subordination of Sculpture to Architecture inItaly--Pisano's Influence in Venice--Balduccio of Pisa--Orcagna--TheTabernacle of Orsammichele--The Gates of the Florentine Baptistery--Competition of Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Della Quercia--Comparisonof Ghiberti's and Brunelleschi's Trial-pieces--Comparison of Ghibertiand Della Quercia--The Bas-reliefs of S. Petronio--Ghiberti'sEducation--His Pictorial Style in Bas-relief--His Feeling for theAntique--Donatello--Early Visit to Rome--Christian Subjects--RealisticTreatment--S. George and David--Judith--Equestrian Statue ofGattamelata--Influence of Donatello's Naturalism--Andrea Verocchio--HisDavid--Statue of Colleoni--Alessandro Leopardi--Lionardo's Statue ofFrancesco Sforza--The Pollajuoli--Tombs of Sixtus IV. And InnocentVIII. --Luca della Robbia--His Treatment of Glazed Earthenware--Agostinodi Duccio--The Oratory of S. Bernardino at Perugia--AntonioRossellino--Matteo Civitali--Mino da Fiesole--Benedetto daMajano--Characteristics and Masterpieces of this Group--SepulchralMonuments--Andrea Contucci's Tombs in S. Maria del Popolo--Desiderio daSettignano--Sculpture in S. Francesco at Rimini--VenetianSculpture--Verona--Guido Mazzoni of Modena--Certosa of Pavia--ColleoniChapel at Bergamo--Sansovino at Venice--Pagan Sculpture--Michael Angelo'sScholars--Baccio Bandinelli--Bartolommeo Ammanati--Cellini--GianBologna--Survey of the History of Renaissance Sculpture. CHAPTER IV PAINTING Distribution of Artistic Gifts in Italy--Florence and Venice--Classification by Schools--Stages in the Evolution of Painting--Cimabue--The Rucellai Madonna--Giotto--His widespread Activity--The Scope of hisArt--Vitality--Composition--Colour--Naturalism--Healthiness--Frescoes atAssisi and Padua--Legend of S. Francis--The Giotteschi--Pictures of theLast Judgment--Orcagna in the Strozzi Chapel--Ambrogio Lorenzetti atPisa--Dogmatic Theology--Cappella degli Spagnuoli--Traini's "Triumph, of S. Thomas Aquinas"--Political Doctrine expressed in Fresco--Sala dellaPace at Siena--Religious Art in Siena and Perugia--The Relation of theGiottesque Painters to the Renaissance. CHAPTER V PAINTING Mediaeval Motives exhausted--New Impulse toward TechnicalPerfection--Naturalists in Painting--Intermediate Achievement neededfor the Great Age of Art--Positive Spirit of the FifteenthCentury--Masaccio--The Modern Manner--Paolo Uccello--Perspective--RealisticPainters--The Model--Piero della Francesca--His Study of Form--Resurrectionat Borgo San Sepolcro--Melozzo da Forli--Squarcione at Padua--Gentile daFabriano--Fra Angelico--Benozzo Gozzoli--His Decorative Style--LippoLippi--Frescoes at Prato and Spoleto--Filippino Lippi--SandroBotticelli--His Value for the Student of Renaissance Fancy--His Feelingfor Mythology--Piero di Cosimo--Domenico Ghirlandajo--In what sense hesums up the Age--Prosaic Spirit--Florence hitherto supreme inPainting--Extension of Art Activity throughout Italy--Medicean Patronage. CHAPTER VI PAINTING Two Periods in the True Renaissance--Andrea Mantegna--His StatuesqueDesign--His Naturalism--Roman Inspiration--Triumph of JuliusCaesar--Bas-reliefs--Luca Signorelli--The Precursor of MichaelAngelo--Anatomical Studies--Sense of Beauty--The Chapel of S. Brizio atOrvieto--Its Arabesques and Medallions--Degrees in his Ideal--Enthusiasmfor Organic Life--Mode of treating Classical Subjects--Perugino--HisPietistic Style--His Formalism--The Psychological Problem of hisLife--Perugino's Pupils--Pinturicchio--At Spello and Siena--Francia--FraBartolommeo--Transition to the Golden Age--Lionardo da Vinci--The Magicianof the Renaissance--Raphael--The Melodist--Correggio--The Faun--MichaelAngelo--The Prophet. CHAPTER VII VENETIAN PAINTING Painting bloomed late in Venice--Conditions offered by Venice toArt--Shelley and Pietro Aretino--Political Circumstances ofVenice--Comparison with Florence--The Ducal Palace--Art regarded as anadjunct to State Pageantry--Myth of Venezia--Heroic Deeds ofVenice--Tintoretto's Paradise and Guardi's Picture of a Ball--EarlyVenetian Masters of Murano--Gian Bellini--Carpaccio's Little Angels--TheMadonna of S. Zaccaria--Giorgione--Allegory, Idyll, Expression ofEmotion--The Monk at the Clavichord--Titian, Tintoret, andVeronese--Tintoretto's Attempt to dramatise Venetian Art--Veronese'sMundane Splendour--Titian's Sophoclean Harmony--Their Schools--FurtherCharacteristics of Veronese--of Tintoretto--His ImaginativeEnergy--Predominant Poetry--Titian's Perfection of Balance--Assumption ofMadonna--Spirit common to the great Venetians. CHAPTER VIII LIFE OF MICHAEL ANGELO Contrast of Michael Angelo and Cellini--Parentage and Boyhood of MichaelAngelo--Work with Ghirlandajo--Gardens of S. Marco--The MediceanCircle--Early Essays in Sculpture--Visit to Bologna--First Visit toRome--The Pietà of S. Peter's--Michael Angelo as a Patriot and a friend ofthe Medici--Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa--Michael Angelo and JuliusII. --The Tragedy of the Tomb--Design for the Pope's Mausoleum--Visit toCarrara--Flight from Rome--Michael Angelo at Bologna--Bronze Statue ofJulius--Return to Rome--Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel--Greek and ModernArt--Raphael--Michael Angelo and Leo X. --S. Lorenzo--The newSacristy--Circumstances under which it was designed and partlyfinished--Meaning of the Allegories--Incomplete state of Michael Angelo'sMarbles--Paul III. --The "Last Judgment"--Critiques of Contemporaries--TheDome of S. Peter's--Vittoria Colonna--Tommaso Cavalieri--Personal Habitsof Michael Angelo--His Emotional Nature--Last Illness. CHAPTER IX LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI His Fame--His Autobiography--Its Value for the Student of History, Manners, and Character in the Renaissance--Birth, Parentage, andBoyhood--Flute-playing--Apprenticeship to Marcone--Wanderjahr--TheGoldsmith's Trade at Florence--Torrigiani and England--Cellini leavesFlorence for Rome--Quarrel with the Guasconti--Homicidal Fury--Cellini aLaw to Himself--Three Periods in his Manhood--Life in Rome--Diego at theBanquet--Renaissance Feeling for Physical Beauty--Sack of Rome--Miraclesin Cellini's Life--His Affections--Murder of his Brother'sAssassin--Sanctuary--Pardon and Absolution--Incantation in theColosseum--First Visit to France--Adventures on the Way--Accused ofstealing Crown Jewels in Rome--Imprisonment in the Castle of S. Angelo--The Governor--Cellini's Escape--His Visions--The Nature of hisReligion--Second Visit to France--The Wandering Court--Le PetitNesle--Cellini in the French Law Courts--Scene at Fontainebleau--Return toFlorence--Cosimo de' Medici as a Patron--Intrigues of a PettyCourt--Bandinelli--The Duchess--Statue of Perseus--End of Cellini'sLife--Cellini and Machiavelli. CHAPTER X THE EPIGONI Full Development and Decline of Painting--Exhaustion of the oldMotives--Relation of Lionardo to his Pupils--His Legacy to theLombard School--Bernardino Luini--Gaudenzio Ferrari--The Devotionof the Sacri Monti--The School of Raphael--Nothing left butImitation--Unwholesome Influences of Rome--Giulio Romano--MichaelAngelesque Mannerists--Misconception of Michael Angelo--Correggio foundsno School--Parmigianino--Macchinisti--The Bolognese--After-growth of Art inFlorence--Andrea del Sarto--His Followers--Pontormo--Bronzino--Revival ofPainting in Siena--Sodoma--His Influence on Pacchia, Beccafumi, Peruzzi--Garofalo and Dosso Dossi at Ferrari--The Campi atCremona--Brescia and Bergamo--The Decadence in the second half of theSixteenth Century--The Counter-Reformation--Extinction of the RenaissanceImpulse. APPENDICES I. --The Pulpits of Pisa and Ravello II. --Michael Angelo's Sonnets III. --Chronological Tables FOOTNOTES: [1] To the original edition of this volume. CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM FOR THE FINE ARTS Art in Italy and Greece--The Leading Phase of Culture--Æsthetic Type ofLiterature--Painting the Supreme Italian Art--Its Task in theRenaissance--Christian and Classical Traditions--Sculpture for theAncients--Painting for the Romance Nations--Mediaeval Faith andSuperstition--The Promise of Painting--How far can the Figurative Artsexpress Christian Ideas?--Greek and Christian Religion--Plastic Artincapable of solving the Problem--A more Emotional Art needed--Place ofSculpture in the Renaissance--Painting and Christian Story--Humanizationof Ecclesiastical Ideas by Art--Hostility of the Spirit of True Piety toArt--Compromises effected by the Church--Fra Bartolommeo's S. Sebastian--Irreconcilability of Art and Theology, Art andPhilosophy--Recapitulation--Art in the end Paganises--Music--The Future ofPainting after the Renaissance. It has been granted only to two nations, the Greeks and the Italians, andto the latter only at the time of the Renaissance, to invest every phaseand variety of intellectual energy with the form of art. Nothing notablewas produced in Italy between the thirteenth and the seventeenth centuriesthat did not bear the stamp and character of fine art. If the methods ofscience may be truly said to regulate our modes of thinking at the presenttime, it is no less true that, during the Renaissance, art exercised alike controlling influence. Not only was each department of the fine artspractised with singular success; not only was the national genius to avery large extent absorbed in painting, sculpture, and architecture; butthe aesthetic impulse was more subtly and widely diffused than this alonewould imply. It possessed the Italians in the very centre of theirintellectual vitality, imposing its conditions on all the manifestationsof their thought and feeling, so that even their shortcomings may beascribed in a great measure to their inability to quit the aesthetic pointof view. We see this in their literature. It is probable that none but artisticnatures will ever render full justice to the poetry of the Renaissance. Critics endowed with a less lively sensibility to beauty of outline and toharmony of form than the Italians, complain that their poetry lackssubstantial qualities; nor is it except by long familiarity with theplastic arts of their contemporaries that we come to understand the groundassumed by Ariosto and Poliziano. We then perceive that these poets werenot so much unable as instinctively unwilling to go beyond a certaincircle of effects. They subordinated their work to the ideal of their age, and that ideal was one to which a painter rather than a poet mightsuccessfully aspire. A succession of pictures, harmoniously composed anddelicately toned to please the mental eye, satisfied the taste of theItalians. But, however exquisite in design, rich in colour, and completein execution this literary work may be, it strikes a Northern student aswanting in the highest elements of genius--sublimity of imagination, dramatic passion, energy and earnestness of purpose. In like manner, hefinds it hard to appreciate those didactic compositions on trifling orprosaic themes, which delighted the Italians for the very reason thattheir workmanship surpassed their matter. These defects, as we judge them, are still more apparent in the graver branches of literature. In an essayor a treatise we do not so much care for well-balanced disposition ofparts or beautifully rounded periods, though elegance may be thoughtessential to classic masterpieces, as for weighty matter and trenchantobservations. Having the latter, we can dispense at need with the former. The Italians of the Renaissance, under the sway of the fine arts, soughtafter form, and satisfied themselves with rhetoric. Therefore we condemntheir moral disquisitions and their criticisms as the flimsy playthings ofintellectual voluptuaries. Yet the right way of doing justice to thesestylistic trifles is to regard them as products of an all-embracing geniusfor art, in a people whose most serious enthusiasms were aesthetic. The speech of the Italians at that epoch, their social habits, their idealof manners, their standard of morality, the estimate they formed of men, were alike conditioned and qualified by art. It was an age of splendidceremonies and magnificent parade, when the furniture of houses, thearmour of soldiers, the dress of citizens, the pomp of war, and thepageantry of festival were invariably and inevitably beautiful. On themeanest articles of domestic utility, cups and platters, door-panels andchimney-pieces, coverlets for beds and lids of linen-chests, a wealth ofartistic invention was lavished by innumerable craftsmen, no less skilledin technical details than distinguished by rare taste. From the Pope uponS. Peter's chair to the clerks in a Florentine counting-house, everyItalian was a judge of art. Art supplied the spiritual oxygen, withoutwhich the life of the Renaissance must have been atrophied. During thatperiod of prodigious activity the entire nation seemed to be endowed withan instinct for the beautiful, and with the capacity for producing it inevery conceivable form. As we travel through Italy at the present day, when "time, war, pillage, and purchase" have done their worst to denudethe country of its treasures, we still marvel at the incomparable andcountless beauties stored in every burgh and hamlet. Pacing the picturegalleries of Northern Europe, the country seats of English nobles, and thepalaces of Spain, the same reflection is still forced upon us: how couldItaly have done what she achieved within so short a space of time? Whatmust the houses and the churches once have been, from which these spoilswere taken, but which still remain so rich in masterpieces?Psychologically to explain this universal capacity for the fine arts inthe nation at this epoch, is perhaps impossible. Yet the fact remains, that he who would comprehend the Italians of the Renaissance must studytheir art, and cling fast to that Ariadne-thread throughout thelabyrinthine windings of national character. He must learn to recognisethat herein lay the sources of their intellectual strength as well as thesecret of their intellectual weakness. It lies beyond the scope of this work to embrace in one inquiry thedifferent forms of art in Italy, or to analyse the connection of theaesthetic instinct with the manifold manifestations of the Renaissance. Even the narrower task to which I must confine myself, is too vast for thelimits I am forced to impose upon its treatment. I intend to deal withItalian painting as the one complete product which remains from theachievements of this period, touching upon sculpture and architecture moresuperficially. Not only is painting the art in which the Italians amongall the nations of the modern world stand unapproachably alone, but it isalso the one that best enables us to gauge their genius at the time whenthey impressed their culture on the rest of Europe. In the history of theItalian intellect painting takes the same rank as that of sculpture in theGreek. Before beginning, however, to trace the course of Italian art, itwill be necessary to discuss some preliminary questions, important for aright understanding of the relations assumed by painting to the thoughtsof the Renaissance, and for explaining its superiority over the sister artof sculpture in that age. This I feel the more bound to do because it ismy object in this volume to treat of art with special reference to thegeneral culture of the nation. What, let us ask in the first place, was the task appointed for the finearts on the threshold of the modern world? They had, before all things, togive form to the ideas evolved by Christianity, and to embody a class ofemotions unknown to the ancients. [2] The inheritance of the Middle Ageshad to be appropriated and expressed. In the course of performing thiswork, the painters helped to humanise religion, and revealed the dignityand beauty of the body of man. Next, in the fifteenth century, the richesof classic culture were discovered, and art was called upon to aid in theinterpretation of the ancient to the modern mind. The problem was nolonger simple. Christian and pagan traditions came into close contact, andcontended for the empire of the newly liberated intellect. During thisstruggle the arts, true to their own principles, eliminated from bothtraditions the more strictly human elements, and expressed them inbeautiful form to the imagination and the senses. The brush of the samepainter depicted Bacchus wedding Ariadne and Mary fainting on the hill ofCalvary. Careless of any peril to dogmatic orthodoxy, and undeterred bythe dread of encouraging pagan sensuality, the artists wrought out theirmodern ideal of beauty in the double field of Christian and Helleniclegend. Before the force of painting was exhausted, it had thus traversedthe whole cycle of thoughts and feelings that form the content of themodern mind. Throughout this performance, art proved itself a powerfulco-agent in the emancipation of the intellect; the impartiality wherewithits methods were applied to subjects sacred and profane, the emphasis laidupon physical strength and beauty as good things and desirable, thesubordination of classical and mediaeval myths to one aesthetic law ofloveliness, all tended to withdraw attention from the differences betweenpaganism and Christianity, and to fix it on the goodliness of thathumanity wherein both find their harmony. This being in general the task assigned to art in the Renaissance, we maynext inquire what constituted the specific quality of modern asdistinguished from antique feeling, and why painting could not fail totake the first place among modern arts. In other words, how was it that, while sculpture was the characteristic fine art of antiquity, paintingbecame the distinguishing fine art of the modern era? No true form offigurative art intervened between Greek sculpture and Italian painting. The latter took up the work of investing thought with sensible shape fromthe dead hands of the former. Nor had the tradition that connected artwith religion been interrupted, although a new cycle of religious ideashad been substituted for the old ones. The late Roman and Byzantinemanners, through which the vital energies of the Athenian genius dwindledinto barren formalism, still lingered, giving crude and lifeless form toChristian conceptions. But the thinking and feeling subject, meanwhile, had undergone a change so all-important that it now imperatively requiredfresh channels for its self-expression. It was destined to find these, notas of old in sculpture, but in painting. During the interval between the closing of the ancient and the opening ofthe modern age, the faith of Christians had attached itself to symbols andmaterial objects little better than fetishes. The host, the relic, thewonder-working shrine, things endowed with a mysterious potency, evokedthe yearning and the awe of medieval multitudes. To such concreteactualities the worshippers referred their sense of the invisibledivinity. The earth of Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, the House of Loreto, the Sudarium of Saint Veronica, aroused their deepest sentiments of awefuladoration. Like Thomas, they could not be contented with believing; theymust also touch and handle. At the same time, in apparentcontradistinction to this demand for things of sense as signs ofsuper-sensual power, the claims of dogma on the intellect grew moreimperious, and mysticism opened for the dreaming soul a realm of spiritualrapture. For the figurative arts there was no true place in either ofthese regions. Painting and sculpture were alike alien to the grossersuperstitions, the scholastic subtleties, and the ecstatic trances of theMiddle Ages; nor had they anything in common with the logic of theology. Votaries who kissed a fragment of the cross with passion, could have foundbut little to satisfy their ardour in pictures painted by a man of genius. A formless wooden idol, endowed with the virtue of curing disease, charmedthe pilgrim more than a statue noticeable only for its beauty or its truthto life. We all know that _wunderthätige Bilder sind meist nur schlechteGemälde_. In architecture alone, the mysticism of the Middle Ages, theirvague but potent feelings of infinity, their yearning towards a deityinvisible, but localised in holy things and places, found artisticoutlet. Therefore architecture was essentially a medieval art. The rise ofsculpture and painting indicated the quickening to life of new faculties, fresh intellectual interests, and a novel way of apprehending the oldsubstance of religious feeling; for comprehension of these arts impliesdelight in things of beauty for their own sake, a sympathetic attitudetowards the world of sense, a new freedom of the mind produced by theregeneration of society through love. The mediaeval faiths were still vivid when the first Italian painters begantheir work, and the sincere endeavour of these men was to set forth inbeautiful and worthy form the truths of Christianity. The eyes of theworshipper should no longer have a mere stock or stone to contemplate: hisimagination should be helped by the dramatic presentation of the scenes ofsacred history, and his devotion be quickened by lively images of thepassion of our Lord. Spirit should converse with spirit, through no veilof symbol, but through the transparent medium of art, itself instinct withinbreathed life and radiant with ideal beauty. The body and the soul, moreover, should be reconciled; and God's likeness should be once moreacknowledged in the features and the limbs of man. Such was the promise ofart; and this promise was in a great measure fulfilled by the painting ofthe fourteenth century. Men ceased to worship their God in the holiness ofugliness; and a great city called its street Glad on the birthday-festivalof the first picture investing religious emotion with aesthetic charm. Butin making good the promise they had given, it was needful for the arts onthe one hand to enter a region not wholly their own--the region ofabstractions and of mystical conceptions; and on the other to create aworld of sensuous delightfulness, wherein the spiritual element wasmaterialised to the injury of its own essential quality. Spirit, indeed, spake to spirit, so far as the religious content was concerned; but fleshspake also to flesh in the aesthetic form. The incarnation promised by thearts involved a corresponding sensuousness. Heaven was brought down toearth, but at the cost of making men believe that earth itself washeavenly. At this point the subject of our inquiry naturally divides into two mainquestions. The first concerns the form of figurative art specially adaptedto the requirements of religious thought in the fourteenth century. Thesecond treats of the effect resulting both to art and religion from theexpression of mystical and theological conceptions in plastic form. When we consider the nature of the ideas assimilated in the Middle Ages bythe human mind, it is clear that art, in order to set them forth, demandeda language the Greeks had never greatly needed, and had therefore neverfully learned. To over-estimate the difference from an aesthetic point ofview between the religious notions of the Greeks and those whichChristianity had made essential, would be difficult. Faith, hope, andcharity; humility, endurance, suffering; the Resurrection and theJudgment; the Pall and the Redemption; Heaven and Hell; the height anddepth of man's mixed nature; the drama of human destiny before the throneof God: into the sphere of thoughts like these, vivid and solemn, transcending the region of sense and corporeity, carrying the mind away toan ideal world, where the things of this earth obtained a new reality byvirtue of their relation to an invisible and infinite Beyond, the modernarts in their infancy were thrust. There was nothing finite here ortangible, no gladness in the beauty of girlish foreheads or the swiftnessof a young man's limbs, no simple idealisation of natural delightfulness. The human body, which the figurative arts must needs use as the vehicle oftheir expression, had ceased to have a value in and for itself, had ceasedto be the true and adequate investiture of thoughts demanded from theartist. At best it could be taken only as the symbol of some innermeaning, the shrine of an indwelling spirit nobler than itself; just as alamp of alabaster owes its beauty and its worth to the flame it more thanhalf conceals, the light transmitted through its scarce transparent walls. In ancient art those moral and spiritual qualities which the Greeksrecognised as truly human and therefore divine, allowed themselves to beincarnated in well-selected types of physical perfection. The deities ofthe Greek mythology were limited to the conditions of natural existence:they were men and women of a larger mould and freer personality; lesscomplex, inasmuch as each completed some one attribute; less thwarted inactivity, inasmuch as no limit was assigned to exercise of power. Thepassions and the faculties of man, analysed by unconscious psychology, anddeified by religious fancy, were invested by sculpture with appropriateforms, the tact of the artist selecting corporeal qualities fitted toimpersonate the special character of each divinity. Nor was it possiblethat, the gods and goddesses being what they were, exact analogues shouldnot be found for them in idealised humanity. In a Greek statue there wasenough soul to characterise the beauty of the body, to render her due meedof wisdom to Pallas, to distinguish the swiftness of Hermes from thestrength of Heracles, or to contrast the virginal grace of Artemis withthe abundance of Aphrodite's charms. At the same time the spiritualitythat gave its character to each Greek deity, was not such that, even inthought, it could be dissociated from corporeal form. The Greeks thoughttheir gods as incarnate persons; and all the artist had to see to, wasthat this incarnate personality should be impressive in his marble. Christianity, on the other hand, made the moral and spiritual nature ofman all-essential. It sprang from an earlier religion, that judged itimpious to give any form to God. The body and its terrestrial activityoccupied but a subordinate position in its system. It was the life of thesoul, separable from this frame of flesh, and destined to endure whenearth and all that it contains had ended--a life that upon this planet wascontinued conflict and aspiring struggle--which the arts, insofar as theybecame its instrument, were called upon to illustrate. It was the worshipof a Deity, all spirit, to be sought on no one sacred hill, to be adoredin no transcendent shape, that they were bound to heighten. The mosthighly prized among the Christian virtues had no necessary connection withbeauty of feature or strength of limb. Such beauty and such strength atany rate were accidental, not essential. A Greek faun could not but begraceful; a Greek hero was of necessity vigorous. But S. Stephen might besteadfast to the death without physical charm; S. Anthony might put toflight the devils of the flesh without muscular force. It is clear thatthe radiant physical perfection proper to the deities of Greek sculpturewas not sufficient in this sphere. Again, the most stirring episodes of the Christian mythology involved painand perturbation of the spirit; the victories of the Christian athleteswere won in conflicts carried on within their hearts and souls--"For wewrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities andpowers, " demoniac leaders of spiritual legions. It is, therefore, no lessclear that the tranquillity and serenity of the Hellenic ideal, sonecessary to consummate sculpture, was here out of place. How could theLast Judgment, that day of wrath, when every soul, however insignificanton earth, will play the first part for one moment in an awful tragedy, beproperly expressed in plastic form, harmonious and pleasing? And supposingthat the artist should abandon the attempt to exclude ugliness anddiscord, pain and confusion, from his representation of the _Dies Irae_, how could he succeed in setting forth by the sole medium of the humanbody the anxiety and anguish of the soul at such a time? The physicalform, instead of being adequate to the ideas expressed, and thereforehelpful to the artist, is a positive embarrassment, a source of weakness. The most powerful pictorial or sculpturesque delineation of the Judgment, when compared with the pangs inflicted on the spirit by a guiltyconscience, pangs whereof words may render some account, but which canfind no analogue in writhings of the limbs or face, must of necessity befound a failure. Still more impossible, if we pursue this train of thoughtinto another region, is it for the figurative arts to approach theChristian conception of God in His omnipotence and unity. Christ Himself, the central figure of the Christian universe, the desired of all nations, in whom the Deity assumed a human form and dwelt with men, is no fitsubject for such art at any rate as the Greeks had perfected. The fact ofHis incarnation brought Him indeed within the proper sphere of the finearts; but the religious idea which He represents removed Him beyond thereach of sculpture. This is an all-important consideration. It is to thisthat our whole argument is tending. Therefore to enlarge upon this pointwill not be useless. Christ is specially adored in His last act of love on Calvary; and howimpossible it is to set that forth consistently with the requirements ofstrictly plastic art, may be gathered by comparing the passion of S. Bernard's Hymn to our Lord upon the Cross with all that Winckelmann andHegel have so truly said about the restrained expression, dignifiedgenerality, and harmonious beauty essential to sculpture. It is thenegation of tranquillity, the excess of feeling, the absence ofcomeliness, the contrast between visible weakness and invisibleomnipotence, the physical humiliation voluntarily suffered by Him that"ruled over all the angels, that walked on the pavements of heaven, whosefeet were clothed with stars"--it is all this that gives their force andpathos to these stanzas: Omnis vigor atque viror Hinc recessit; non admiror: Mors apparet in inspectu, Totus pendens in defectu, Attritus aegrâ macie. Sic affectus, sic despectus, Propter me sic interfectus, Peccatori tam indigno Cum amoris in te signo Appare clarâ facie[3]. We have never heard that Pheidias or Praxiteles chose Prometheus uponCaucasus for the supreme display of his artistic skill; and even theanguish expressed in the group of the Laocoon is justly thought to violatethe laws of antique sculpture. Yet here was a greater than Prometheus--onewho had suffered more, and on whose suffering the salvation of the humanrace depended, to exclude whom from the sphere of representation in artwas the same as confessing the utter impotence of art to grasp the vitalthought of modern faith. It is clear that the muses of the new age had tohaunt Calvary instead of Helicon, slaking their thirst at no Castalianspring, but at the fount of tears outpoured by all creation for a strickenGod. What Hellas had achieved supplied no norm or method for the arts inthis new service. From what has hitherto been advanced, we may assert with confidence that, if the arts were to play an important part in Christian culture, an artwas imperatively demanded that should be at home in the sphere of intensefeeling, that should treat the body as the interpreter and symbol of thesoul, and should not shrink from pain and passion. How far the fine artswere at all qualified to express the essential thoughts of Christianity--adoubt suggested in the foregoing paragraphs--and how far, through theirproved inadequacy to perform this task completely, they weakened the holdof mediaeval faiths upon the modern mind, are questions to be raisedhereafter. For the present it is enough to affirm that, least of all thearts, could sculpture, with its essential repose and its dependence oncorporeal conditions, solve the problem. Sculpture had suited therequirements of Greek thought. It belonged by right to men who notunwillingly accepted the life of this world as final, and who worshippedin their deities the incarnate personality of man made perfect. But itcould not express the cycle of Christian ideas. The desire of a betterworld, the fear of a worse; the sense of sin referred to physicalappetites, and the corresponding mortification of the flesh; hope, ecstasy, and penitence and prayer; all these imply contempt or hatred forthe body, suggest notions too spiritual to be conveyed by the roundedcontours of beautiful limbs, too full of struggle for statuesquetranquillity. The new element needed a more elastic medium of expression. Motives more varied, gradations of sentiment more delicate, the fugitiveand transient phases of emotion, the inner depths of consciousness, hadsomehow to be seized. It was here that painting asserted its supremacy. Painting is many degrees further removed than sculpture from dependence onthe body in the fulness of its physical proportions. It touches oursensibilities by suggestions more indirect, more mobile, and moremultiform. Colour and shadow, aërial perspective and complicated grouping, denied to sculpture, but within the proper realm of painting, have theirown significance, their real relation to feelings vaguer, but not lesspotent, than those which find expression in the simple human form. Topainting, again, belongs the play of feature, indicative of internalmovement, through a whole gamut of modulations inapprehensible bysculpture. All that drapery by its partial concealment of the form itclothes, and landscape by its sympathies with human sentiment, may supplyto enhance the passion of the spectator, pertains to painting. This art, therefore, owing to the greater variety of means at its disposal, and itsgreater adequacy to express emotion, became the paramount Italian art. To sculpture in the Renaissance, shorn of the divine right to create godsand heroes, was left the narrower field of decoration, portraiture, andsepulchral monuments. In the last of these departments it found thenoblest scope for its activity; for beyond the grave, according toChristian belief, the account of the striving, hoping, and resisting soulis settled. The corpse upon the bier may bear the stamp of spiritualcharacter impressed on it in life; but the spirit, with its struggle andits passion, has escaped as from a prison-house, and flown else-whither. The body of the dead man, for whom this world is over, and who sleeps inpeace, awaiting resurrection, and thereby not wholly dead, around whosetomb watch sympathising angels or contemplative genii, was, therefore, theproper subject for the highest Christian sculpture. Here, if anywhere, theright emotion could be adequately expressed in stone, and the moulded formbe made the symbol of repose, expectant of restored activity. The greatestsculptor of the modern age was essentially a poet of Death. Painting, then, for the reasons already assigned and insisted on, was theart demanded by the modern intellect upon its emergence from the stillnessof the Middle Ages. The problem, however, even for the art of painting wasnot simple. The painters, following the masters of mosaic, began bysetting forth the history, mythology, and legends of the Christian Churchin imagery freer and more beautiful than lay within the scope of treatmentby Romanesque or Byzantine art. So far their task was comparatively easy;for the idyllic grace of maternal love in the Madonna, the patheticincidents of martyrdom, the courage of confessors, the ecstasies ofcelestial joy in redeemed souls, the loveliness of a pure life in modestvirgins, and the dramatic episodes of sacred story, furnish a multitude ofmotives admirably pictorial. There was, therefore, no great obstacle uponthe threshold, so long as artists gave their willing service to theChurch. Yet, looking back upon this phase of painting, we are able toperceive that already the adaptation of art to Christian dogma entailedconcessions on both sides. Much, on the one hand, had to be omitted fromthe programme offered to artistic treatment, for the reason that the finearts could not deal with it at all. Much, on the other hand, had to beexpressed by means which painting in a state of perfect freedom wouldrepudiate. Allegorical symbols, like Prudence with two faces, and painfulepisodes of agony and anguish, marred her work of beauty. There wasconsequently a double compromise, involving a double sacrifice ofsomething precious. The faith suffered by having its mysteries broughtinto the light of day, incarnated in form, and humanised. Art suffered bybeing forced to render intellectual abstractions to the eye throughfigured symbols. As technical skill increased, and as beauty, the proper end of art, becamemore rightly understood, the painters found that their craft was worthy ofbeing made an end in itself, and that the actualities of life observedaround them had claims upon their genius no less weighty than dogmaticmysteries. The subjects they had striven at first to realise with allsimplicity now became little better than vehicles for the display ofsensuous beauty, science, and mundane pageantry. The human body receivedseparate and independent study, as a thing in itself incomparablybeautiful, commanding more powerful emotions by its magic than aught elsethat sways the soul. At the same time the external world, with all itswealth of animal and vegetable life, together with the works of humaningenuity in costly clothing and superb buildings, was seen to be in everydetail worthy of most patient imitation. Anatomy and perspective taxed theunderstanding of the artist, whose whole force was no longer devoted tothe task of bringing religious ideas within the limits of therepresentable. Next, when the classical revival came into play, the arts, in obedience to the spirit of the age, left the sphere of sacred subjects, and employed their full-grown faculties in the domain of myths and Paganfancies. In this way painting may truly be said to have opened the new eraof culture, and to have first manifested the freedom of the modern mind. When Luca Signorelli drew naked young men for a background to his pictureof Madonna and the infant Christ, he created for the student a symbol ofthe attitude assumed by fine art in its liberty of outlook over the wholerange of human interests. Standing before this picture in the Uffizzi, wefeel that the Church, while hoping to adorn her cherished dogmas withaesthetic beauty, had encouraged a power antagonistic to her own, a powerthat liberated the spirit she sought to enthral, restoring to mankind theearthly paradise from which monasticism had expelled it. Not to diverge at this point, and to entertain the difficult problem ofthe relation of the fine arts to Christianity, would be to shrink from themost thorny question offered to the understanding by the history of theRenaissance. On the very threshold of the matter I am bound to affirm myconviction that the spiritual purists of all ages--the Jews, theiconoclasts of Byzantium, Savonarola, and our Puritan ancestors--werejustified in their mistrust of plastic art. The spirit of Christianity andthe spirit of figurative art are opposed, not because such art is immoral, but because it cannot free itself from sensuous associations[4]. It isalways bringing us back to the dear life of earth, from which the faithwould sever us. It is always reminding us of the body which piety bids usto forget. Painters and sculptors glorify that which saints and asceticshave mortified. The masterpieces of Titian and Correggio, for example, lead the soul away from compunction, away from penitence, away fromworship even, to dwell on the delight of youthful faces, blooming colour, graceful movement, delicate emotion[5]. Nor is this all: religious motivesmay be misused for what is worse than merely sensuous suggestiveness. Themasterpieces of the Bolognese and Neapolitan painters, while they pretendto quicken compassion for martyrs in their agony, pander to a bestialblood-lust lurking in the darkest chambers of the soul[6]. Therefore it isthat piety, whether the piety of monastic Italy or of Puritan England, turns from these aesthetic triumphs as from something alien to itself. Whenthe worshipper would fain ascend on wings of ecstasy to God, the infinite, ineffable, unrealised, how can he endure the contact of those splendidforms, in which the lust of the eye and the pride of life, professing tosubserve devotion, remind him rudely of the goodliness of sensualexistence? Art, by magnifying human beauty, contradicts these Paulinemaxims: "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain;" "Set youraffections on things above, not on things on earth;" "Your life is hidwith Christ in God. " The sublimity and elevation it gives to carnalloveliness are themselves hostile to the spirit that holds no truce orcompromise of traffic with the flesh. As displayed in its most perfectphases, in Greek sculpture and Venetian painting, art dignifies the actualmundane life of man; but Christ, in the language of uncompromising piety, means everything most alien to this mundane life--self-denial, abstinencefrom fleshly pleasure, the waiting for true bliss beyond the grave, seclusion even from social and domestic ties. "He that loveth father andmother more than me, is not worthy of me, " "He that taketh not his crossand followeth me, is not worthy of me. " It is needful to insist upon theseextremest sentences of the New Testament, because upon them was based thereligious practice of the Middle Ages, more sincere in their determinationto fulfil the letter and embrace the spirit of the Gospel than anysucceeding age has been. [7] If, then, there really exists this antagonism between fine art glorifyinghuman life and piety contemning it, how came it, we may ask, that even inthe Middle Ages the Church hailed art as her coadjutor? The answer lies inthis, that the Church has always compromised. The movement of the modernworld, upon the close of the Middle Ages, offered the Church a compromise, which it would have been difficult to refuse, and in which she perceivedart first no peril to her dogmas. When the conflict of the first fewcenturies of Christianity had ended in her triumph, she began to mediatebetween asceticism and the world. Intent on absorbing all existentelements of life and power, she conformed her system to the Roman type, established her service in basilicas and Pagan temples, adopted portionsof the antique ritual, and converted local genii into saints. At the sametime she utilised the spiritual forces of monasticism, and turned themystic impulse of ecstatics to account. The Orders of the Preachers andthe Begging Friars became her militia and police; the mystery of Christ'spresence in the Eucharist was made an engine of the priesthood; the dreamsof Paradise and Purgatory gave value to her pardons, interdictions, jubilees, indulgences, and curses. In the Church the spirit of thecloister and the spirit of the world found neutral ground, and to thepractical accommodation between these hostile elements she owed her widesupremacy. The Christianity she formed and propagated was different fromthat of the New Testament, inasmuch as it had taken up into itself a massof mythological anthropomorphic elements. Thus transmuted andmaterialised, thus accepted by the vivid faith of an unquestioningpopulace, Christianity offered a proper medium for artistic activity. Thewhole first period of Italian painting was occupied with the endeavour toset forth in form and colour the popular conceptions of a faith at onceunphilosophical and unspiritual, beautiful and fit for art by reason ofthe human elements it had assumed into its substance. It was natural, therefore, that the Church should show herself indulgent to the arts, which were effecting in their own sphere what she had previouslyaccomplished, though purists and ascetics, holding fast by the originalspirit of their creed, might remain irreconcilably antagonistic to theirinfluence. The Reformation, on the contrary, rejecting the whole mass ofcompromises sanctioned by the Church, and returning to the elementalprinciples of the faith, was no less naturally opposed to fine arts, which, after giving sensuous form to Catholic mythology, had recentlyattained to liberty and brought again the gods of Greece. A single illustration might be selected from the annals of Italianpainting to prove how difficult even the holiest-minded and most earnestpainter found it to effect the proper junction between plastic beauty andpious feeling. Fra Bartolommeo, the disciple of Savonarola, painted aSebastian in the cloister of S. Marco, where it remained until theDominican confessors became aware, through the avowals of femalepenitents, that this picture was a stumbling-block and snare to souls. Itwas then removed, and what became of it we do not know for certain. FraBartolommeo undoubtedly intended this ideal portrait of the martyr to beedifying. S. Sebastian was to stand before the world as the young man, strong and beautiful, who endured to the end and won the crown ofmartyrdom. No other ideas but those of heroism, constancy, or faith weremeant to be expressed; but the painter's art demanded that theirexpression should be eminently beautiful, and the beautiful body of theyoung man distracted attention from his spiritual virtues to his physicalperfections. A similar maladjustment of the means of plastic art to thepurposes of religion would have been impossible in Hellas, where thetemples of Eros and of Phoebus stood side by side; but in ChristianFlorence the craftsman's skill sowed seeds of discord in the souls of thedevout[8]. This story is but a coarse instance of the separation between piety andplastic art. In truth, the difficulty of uniting them in such a way thatthe latter shall enforce the former, lies far deeper than its powers ofillustration reach. Religion has its proper end in contemplation and inconduct. Art aims at presenting sensuous embodiment of thoughts andfeelings with a view to intellectual enjoyment. Now, many thoughts areincapable of sensuous embodiment; they appear as abstractions to thephilosophical intellect or as dogmas to the theological understanding. Toeffect an alliance between art and philosophy or art and theology in thespecific region of either religion or speculation is, therefore, animpossibility. In like manner there are many feelings which cannotproperly assume a sensuous form; and these are precisely religiousfeelings, in which the soul abandons sense, and leaves the actual worldbehind, to seek her freedom in a spiritual region. [9] Yet, while werecognise the truth of this reasoning, it would be unscientific tomaintain that, until they are brought into close and inconvenient contact, there is direct hostility between religion and the arts. The sphere of thetwo is separate; their aims are distinct; they must be allowed to perfectthemselves, each after its own fashion. In the large philosophy of humannature, represented by Goethe's famous motto, there is room for both, because those who embrace it bend their natures neither wholly to thepietism of the cloister nor to the sensuality of art. They find themeeting-point of art and of religion in their own humanity, and perceivethat the antagonism of the two begins when art is set to do work alien toits nature, and to minister to what it does not naturally serve. At the risk of repetition I must now resume the points I have attempted toestablish in this chapter. As in ancient Greece, so also in RenaissanceItaly, the fine arts assumed the first place in the intellectual cultureof the nation. But the thought and feeling of the modern world required anaesthetic medium more capable of expressing emotion in its intensity, variety, and subtlety than sculpture. Therefore painting was the art ofarts for Italy. Yet even painting, notwithstanding the range and wealth ofits resources, could not deal with the motives of Christianity sosuccessfully as sculpture with the myths of Paganism. The religion itinterpreted transcended the actual conditions of humanity, while art isbound down by its nature to the limitations of the world we live in. TheChurch imagined art would help her; and within a certain sphere ofsubjects, by vividly depicting Scripture histories and the lives ofsaints, by creating new types of serene beauty and pure joy, by givingform to angelic beings, by interpreting Mariolatry in all its charm andpathos, and by rousing deep sympathy with our Lord in His Passion, painting lent efficient aid to piety. Yet painting had to omit the verypith and kernel of Christianity as conceived by devout, uncompromisingpurists. Nor did it do what the Church would have desired. Instead ofriveting the fetters of ecclesiastical authority, instead of enforcingmysticism and asceticism, it really restored to humanity the sense of itsown dignity and beauty, and helped to proved the untenability of themediaeval standpoint; for art is essentially and uncontrollably free, and, what is more, is free precisely in that realm of sensuous delightfulnessfrom which cloistral religion turns aside to seek her own ecstatic libertyof contemplation. The first step in the emancipation of the modern mind was taken thus byart, proclaiming to men the glad tidings of their goodliness and greatnessin a world of manifold enjoyment created for their use. Whatever paintingtouched, became by that touch human; piety, at the lure of art, folded hersoaring wings and rested on the genial earth. This the Church had notforeseen. Because the freedom of the human spirit expressed itself inpainting only under visible images, and not, like heresy, in abstractsentences; because this art sufficed for Mariolatry and confirmed the cultof local saints; because its sensuousness was not at variance with acreed that had been deeply sensualised--the painters were allowed to runtheir course unchecked. Then came a second stage in their development ofart. By placing the end of their endeavour in technical excellence andanatomical accuracy, they began to make representation an object initself, independently of its spiritual significance. Next, under theinfluence of the classical revival, they brought home again the old powersof the earth--Aphrodite and Galatea and the Loves, Adonis and Narcissusand the Graces, Phoebus and Daphne and Aurora, Pan and the Fauns, and theNymphs of the woods and the waves. When these dead deities rose from their sepulchres to sway the hearts ofmen in the new age, it was found that something had been taken from theirancient bloom of innocence, something had been added of emotionalintensity. Italian art recognised their claim to stand beside Madonna andthe Saints in the Pantheon of humane culture; but the painters re-madethem in accordance with the modern spirit. This slight touch oftransformation proved that, though they were no longer objects ofreligious devotion, they still preserved a vital meaning for an alteredage. Having personified for the antique world qualities which, thoughsuppressed and ignored by militant and mediaeval Christianity, werestrictly human, the Hellenic deities still signified those qualities formodern Europe, now at length re-fortified by contact with the ancientmind. For it is needful to remember that in all movements of theRenaissance we ever find a return in all sincerity and faith to the gloryand gladness of nature, whether in the world without or in the soul ofman. To apprehend that glory and that gladness with the pure and primitiveperceptions of the early mythopoets, was not given to the men of the newworld. Yet they did what in them lay, with senses sophisticated by manycenturies of subtlest warping, to replace the first, free joy of kinshipwith primeval things. For the painters, far more than for the poets ofthe sixteenth century, it was possible to reproduce a thousand forms ofbeauty, each attesting to the delightfulness of physical existence, to theinalienable rights of natural desire, and to the participation of mankindin pleasures held in common by us with the powers of earth and sea andair. It is wonderful to watch the blending of elder and of younger forces inthis process. The old gods lent a portion of their charm even to Christianmythology, and showered their beauty-bloom on saints who died renouncingthem. Sodoma's Sebastian is but Hyacinth or Hylas, transpierced witharrows, so that pain and martyrdom add pathos to his poetry ofyouthfulness. Lionardo's S. John is a Faun of the forest, ivy-crowned andlaughing, on whose lips the word "Repent" would be a gleeful paradox. Forthe painters of the full Renaissance, Roman martyrs and Olympiandeities--the heroes of the _Acta Sanctorum_, and the heroes of Greekromance--were alike burghers of one spiritual city, the city of thebeautiful and human. What exquisite and evanescent fragrance was educedfrom these apparently diverse blossoms by their interminglement andfusion--how the high-wrought sensibilities of the Christian were added tothe clear and radiant fancies of the Greek, and how the frank sensuousnessof the Pagan gave body and fulness to the floating wraiths of an asceticfaith--remains a miracle for those who, like our master Lionardo, love toscrutinise the secrets of twin natures and of double graces. There are nota few for whom the mystery is repellent, who shrink from it as fromHermaphroditus. These will always find something to pain them in the artof the Renaissance. Having co-ordinated the Christian and Pagan traditions in its work ofbeauty, painting could advance no farther. The stock of its sustainingmotives was exhausted. A problem that preoccupied the minds of thinkingmen at this epoch was how to harmonise the two chief moments of humanculture, the classical and the ecclesiastical. Without being as consciousof their hostility as we are, men felt that the Pagan ideal was opposed tothe Christian, and at the same time that a reconciliation had to beeffected. Each had been worked out separately; but both were needed forthe modern synthesis. All that aesthetic handling, in this region moreprecocious and more immediately fruitful than pure thought, could dotowards mingling them, was done by the impartiality of the fine arts. Painting, in the work of Raphael, accomplished a more vital harmony thanphilosophy in the writings of Pico and Ficino. A new Catholicity, acosmopolitan orthodoxy of the beautiful, was manifested in his pictures. It lay outside his power, or that of any other artist, to do more than toextract from both revelations the elements of plastic beauty theycontained, and to show how freely he could use them for a common purpose. Nothing but the scientific method can in the long run enable us to reachthat further point, outside both Christianity and Paganism, at which theclassical ideal of a temperate and joyous natural life shall be restoredto the conscience educated by the Gospel. This, perchance, is thereligion, still unborn or undeveloped, whereof Joachim of Flora dimlyprophesied when he said that the kingdom of the Father was past, thekingdom of the Son was passing, and the kingdom of the Spirit was to be. The essence of it is contained in the whole growth to usward of the humanmind; and though a creed so highly intellectualised as that will be, cannever receive adequate expression from the figurative arts, still thepainting of the sixteenth century forms for it, as it were, a not unworthyvestibule. It does so, because it first succeeded in humanising thereligion of the Middle Ages, in proclaiming the true value of antiquepaganism for the modern mind, and in making both subserve the purposes offree and unimpeded art. Meanwhile, at the moment when painting was about to be exhausted, a newart had arisen, for which it remained, within the aesthetic sphere, toachieve much that painting could not do. When the cycle of Christian ideashad been accomplished by the painters, and when the first passion forantiquity had been satisfied, it was given at last to Music to express thesoul in all its manifold feeling and complexity of movement. In music wesee the point of departure where art leaves the domain of myths, Christianas well as Pagan, and occupies itself with the emotional activity of manalone, and for its own sake. Melody and harmony, disconnected from words, are capable of receiving most varied interpretations, so that the samecombinations of sound express the ecstasies of earthly and of heavenlylove, conveying to the mind of the hearer only that element of purepassion which is the primitive and natural ground-material of either. Theygive distinct form to moods of feeling as yet undetermined; or, as theItalians put it, _la musica è il lamento dell' amore o la preghiera a glidei_. This, combined with its independence of all corporeal conditions, fenders music the true exponent of the spirit in its freedom, andtherefore the essentially modern art. For Painting, after the great work accomplished during the Renaissance, when the painters ran through the whole domain of thought within the scopeof that age, there only remained portraiture, history, dramatic incident, landscape, _genre_, still life, and animals. In these spheres the art isstill exercised, and much good work, undoubtedly, is annually produced byEuropean painters. But painting has lost its hold upon the centre of ourintellectual activity. It can no longer give form to the ideas that at thepresent epoch rule the modern world. These ideas are too abstract, toomuch a matter of the understanding, to be successfully handled by thefigurative arts; and it cannot be too often or too emphatically statedthat these arts produce nothing really great and universal in relation tothe spirit of their century, except by a process analogous to themythopoetic. With conceptions incapable of being sensuously apprehended, with ideas that lose their value when they are incarnated, they have nopower to deal. As meteors become luminous by traversing the grosserelement of our terrestrial atmosphere, so the thoughts that art employsmust needs immerse themselves in sensuousness. They must be of a nature togain rather than to suffer by such immersion; and they must make a directappeal to minds habitually apt to think in metaphors and myths. Of thissort are all religious ideas at a certain stage of their development, andthis attitude at certain moments of history is adopted by the popularconsciousness. We have so far outgrown it, have so completely exchangedmythology for curiosity, and metaphor for science, that the necessaryconditions for great art are wanting. Our deepest thoughts about the worldand God are incapable of personification by any aesthetic process; theynever enter that atmosphere wherein alone they could become through fineart luminous. For the painter, who is the form-giver, they have ceased tobe shining stars, and are seen as opaque stones; and though divinity be inthem, it is a deity that refuses the investiture of form. FOOTNOTES: [2] It may fairly be questioned whether that necessary connection betweenart and religion, which is commonly taken for granted, does in truthexist; in other words, whether great art might not flourish without anyreligious content. This, however, is a speculative problem, for presentand the future rather than the past. Historically, it has always beenfound that the arts in their origin are dependent on religion. Nor is thereason far to seek. Art aims at expressing an ideal; and this ideal isthe transfiguration of human elements into something nobler, felt andapprehended by the imagination. Such an ideal, such an all-embracingglorification of humanity only exists for simple and unsophisticatedsocieties in the form of religion. Religion is the universal poetry whichall possess; and the artist, dealing with the mythology of his nationalbelief, feels himself in vital sympathy with the imagination of the menfor whom he works. More than the painter is required for the creation ofgreat painting, and more than the poet for the exhibition of immortalverse. Painters are but the hands, and poets but the voices, wherebypeoples express their accumulated thoughts and permanent emotions. Behindthem crowd the generations of the myth-makers; and around them floats thevital atmosphere of enthusiasms on which their own souls and the souls oftheir brethren have been nourished. [3] All Thy strength and bloom are faded: Who hath thus Thy state degraded? Death upon Thy form is written; See the wan worn limbs, the smitten Breast upon the cruel tree! Thus despised and desecrated, Thus in dying desolated, Slain for me, of sinners vilest, Loving Lord, on me Thou smilest: Shine, bright face, and strengthen me! [4] I am aware that many of my readers will demur that I am confoundingChristianity with ascetic or monastic Christianity; yet I cannot read theNew Testament, the _Imitatio Christi_, the _Confessions_ of S. Augustine, and the _Pilgrim's Progress_ without feeling that Christianity in itsorigin, and as understood by its chief champions, was and is ascetic. Ofthis Christianity I therefore speak, not of the philosophisedChristianity, which is reasonably regarded with suspicion by the orthodoxand the uncompromising. It was, moreover, with Christianity of thisprimitive type that the arts came first into collision. [5] Titian's "Assumption of the Virgin" at Venice, Correggio's"Coronation of the Virgin" at Parma. [6] Domenichino, Guido, Ribera, Salvator Rosa. [7] Not to quote again the _Imitatio Christi, _ it is enough to allude toS. Francis as shown in the _Fioretti_. [8] The difficulty of combining the true spirit of piety with the idealof natural beauty in art was strongly felt by Savonarola. Rio (_L'Artchrétien_, vol. Ii. Pp. 422-426) has written eloquently on this subject, but without making it plain how Savonarola's condemnation of life studiesfrom the nude could possibly have been other than an obstacle to theliberal and scientific prosecution of the art of painting. [9] See Rio, _L'Art chrétien, _ vol. Ii. Chap. Xi. Pp. 319-327, for aningenious defence of mystic art. The tales he tells of Bernardino daSiena and the blessed Umiliana will not win the sympathy of TeutonicChristians, who must believe that semi-sensuous, semi-pious raptures, like those described by S. Catherine of Siena and S. Theresa, havesomething in them psychologically morbid. CHAPTER II ARCHITECTURE Architecture of Mediaeval Italy--Milan, Genoa, Venice--The Despots asBuilders--Diversity of Styles--Local Influences--Lombard, Tuscan, Romanesque, Gothic--Italian want of feeling for Gothic--Cathedrals ofSiena and Orvieto--Secular Buildings of the Middle Ages--Florence andVenice--Private Palaces--Public Halls--Palazzo della Signoria atFlorence--Arnolfo di Cambio--S. Maria del Fiore--Brunelleschi'sDome--Classical Revival in Architecture--Roman Ruins--Three Periods inRenaissance Architecture--Their Characteristics--Brunelleschi--Alberti--Palace-building--Michellozzo--Decorative Work of theRevival--Bramante--Vitoni's Church of the Umiltà at Pistoja--Palazzo delTe--Villa Farnesina--Sansovino at Venice--Michael Angelo--The Building ofS. Peter's--Palladio--The Palazzo della Ragione at Vicenza--LombardArchitects--Theorists and Students of Vitruvius--Vignola andScamozzi--European Influence of the Palladian Style--Comparison ofScholars and Architects in relation to the Revival of Learning. Architecture is always the first of the fine arts to emerge from barbarismin the service of religion and of civic life. A house, as Hegel says, mustbe built for the god, before the image of the god, carved in stone orfigured in mosaic, can be placed there. Council chambers must be preparedfor the senate of a State before the national achievements can be paintedon the walls. Thus Italy, before the age of the Renaissance proper, foundherself provided with churches and palaces, which were destined in thefifteenth and sixteenth centuries to be adorned with frescoes and statues. It was in the middle of the thirteenth century, during the long strugglefor independence carried on by the republics of Lombardy and Tuscanyagainst the Empire and the nobles, that some of the most durable andsplendid public works were executed. The domes and towers of Florence andof Pisa were rising above the city walls, while the burghers whosubscribed for their erection were staining the waves of Meloria and thecane-brakes of the Arbia with their blood. Lombardy, at the end of herduel with Frederick Barbarossa, completed a vast undertaking, by which thefields of Milan are still rendered more productive than any otherpastureland in Europe. The Naviglio Grande, bringing the waters of theTicino through a plain of thirty miles to Milan, was begun in 1179, andwas finished in 1258. The torrents of S. Gothard and the Simplon, which, after filling the Lago Maggiore, seemed destined to run wasteful through awilderness of pebbles to the sea, were thus turned to account; and to thisgreat engineering work, as bold as it was simple, Milan owed the wealththat placed her princes on a level with the sovereigns of Europe. At thesame period she built her walls, and closed their circuit with the sixteengates that showed she loved magnificence combined with strength. Genoa, between 1276 and 1283, protected her harbours by a gigantic mole, and in1295 brought the streams of the Ligurian Alps into the city by an aqueductworthy of old Rome. Venice had to win her very footing from the sea andsand. So firmly did she drive her piles, so vigilantly watch theirpreservation, that palaces and cathedrals of marble might be safely rearedupon the bosom of the deep. Meanwhile, stone bridges began to span therivers of Italy; the streets and squares of towns were everywhere pavedwith flags. Before the first years of the fourteenth century the Italiancities presented a spectacle of solid and substantial comfort, verystartling to northerners who travelled from the unpaved lanes of Londonand the muddy labyrinths of Paris. Sismondi remarks with just pride that these great works were Republican. They were set on foot for the public use, and were constructed at theexpense of the commonwealths. It is, however, right to add that what thecommunes had begun the princes continued. To the splendid taste of theVisconti dynasty, for instance, Milan owed her wonderful Duomo and theoctagon bell-tower of S. Gottardo. The Certosas of Pavia and Chiaravalle, the palace of Pavia, and a host of minor monuments remain in Milan and itsneighbourhood to prove how much a single family performed for theadornment of the cities they had subjugated. And what is true of Milanapplies to Italy throughout its length and breadth. The Despots held theirpower at the price of magnificence in schemes of public utility. So muchat least of the free spirit of the communes survived in them, that theywere always rivalling each other in great works of architecture. Italiantyranny implied aesthetic taste and liberality of expenditure. In no way is the characteristic diversity of the Italian communities sonoticeable as in their buildings. Each district, each town, has awell-defined peculiarity, reflecting the specific qualities of theinhabitants and the conditions under which they grew in culture. In somecases we may refer this local character to nationality and geographicalposition. Thus the name of the Lombards has been given to a style ofRomanesque, which prevailed through Northern and Central Italy during theperiod of Lombard ascendency. [10] The Tuscans never forgot the domes oftheir remote ancestors; the Romans adhered closely to Latin traditions;the Southerners were affected by Byzantine and Saracenic models. In manyinstances the geology of the neighbourhood determined the picturesquefeatures of its architecture. The clay-fields of the valley of the Poproduced the brickwork of Cremona, Pavia, Crema, Chiaravalle, andVercelli. To their quarries of _mandorlato_ the Veronese builders owed thepeach-bloom colours of their columned aisles. Carrara provided the Pisanswith mellow marble for their Baptistery and Cathedral; Monte Ferratosupplied Pistoja and Prato with green serpentine; while the _pietraserena_ of the Apennines added austerity to the interior of Florentinebuildings. Again, in other instances, we detect the influence of commerceor of conquest. The intercourse of Venice with Alexandria determined theunique architecture of S. Mark's. The Arabs and the Normans leftineffaceable traces of their sojourn on Palermo. Naples and Messina stillbear marks upon their churches of French workmen. All along the coasts wehere and there find evidences of Oriental style imported into mediaevalItaly, while the impress of the Spaniard is no less manifest in edificesof a later period. Existing thus in the midst of many potent influences, and surrounded bythe ruins of past civilisations, the Italians recombined and mingledstyles of marked variety. The Roman, Byzantine, Saracenic, Lombard, andGerman traditions were blended in their architecture, as the presidinggenius of each place determined. It followed that master-works of rare andsubtle invention were produced, while no one type was fully perfected, norcan we point to any paramount Italian manner. In Italy what was gained inrichness and individuality was lost in uniformity and might. Yet we maywell wonder at the versatile appreciation of all types of beauty thatthese monuments evince. How strange, for example, it is to think of theVenetians borrowing the form and structure of their temple from themosques of Alexandria, decking its façade with the horses of Lysippus, andpanelling the sanctuary with marbles from the harem-floors of Easternemperors; while at the other end of Italy, at Palermo, close beside theruined colonnades of Greek Segesta, Norman kings were embroidering theirmassive churches with Saracenic arabesques and Byzantine mosaics, interspersing delicate Arabian tracery with rope-patterns and monsters ofthe deep, and linking Cuphic sentences with Scandinavian runes. Meanwhile, at Rome, tombs, baths, and theatres had been turned into fortresses. TheOrsini held the Mole of Hadrian; the Savelli ensconced themselves in theTheatre of Marcellus, and the Colonnesi in the Mausoleum of Augustus; theColosseum and the Arches of Constantine and Titus harboured theFrangipani; the Baths of Trajan housed the Capocci; while the Gaetani madea castle of Caecilia Metella's tomb. Under those vast resounding vaultsswarmed a brood of mediaeval _bravi_--like the wasps that hang theirpear-shaped combs along the cloisters of Pavia. There the ghost of thedead empire still sat throned and sceptred. The rites of Christianity werecarried on beneath Agrippa's dome, in Diocletian's baths, in theBasilicas. No other style but that of the imperial people struck root nearthe Eternal City. Among her three hundred churches, Rome can only show oneGothic building. Further to the north, where German influences were morepotent, the cathedrals still displayed, each after its own kind, a sunnysouthern waywardness. Glowing with marbles and mosaics, glittering withornaments, where the foliage of the Corinthian acanthus hides the symbolsof the Passion, and where birds and Cupids peep from tangled fruitsbeneath grave brows of saints and martyrs; leaning now to the long lowcolonnades of the Basilica, now to the high-built arches of the purelyPointed style; surmounting the meeting point of nave and transept withEtruscan domes; covering the façade with bas-reliefs, the roof withstatues; raising the porch-pillars upon lions and winged griffins;flanking the nave with bell-towers, or planting them apart like flowers inisolation on the open square--these wonderful buildings, the delight andjoy of all who love to trace variety in beauty, and to note the impress ofa nation's genius upon its art, seem, like Italy herself, to feel allinfluences and to assimilate all nationalities. Amid the many styles of architecture contending for mastery in Italy, three, before the age of the Revival, bid fair to win the battle. Thesewere the Lombard, the Tuscan Romanesque, and the Gothic. Chronologicallythe two former flourished nearly during the same centuries, while Gothic, coming from without, suspended their development. But chronology is oflittle help in the history of Italian architecture; its main featuresbeing, not uniformity of progression, but synchronous diversity andsalience of local type. What remained fixed through all changes in Italywas a bias toward the forms of Roman building, which eventually in theRenaissance, becoming scientifically apprehended, determined the taste ofthe whole nation. It is, perhaps, not wholly fanciful to say that, as the Lombards justfailed to mould the Italians by conquest into an united people, so theirarchitecture fell short of creating one type for the peninsula. [11] Fromsome points of view the historian might regret that Italy did not receivethat thorough subjugation in the eighth century, which would have brokendown local distinctions. Such regrets, however, are singularly idle; forthe main currents of the world's history move not by chance; and how, moreover, could Italy have fulfilled her destiny without the divers formsof political existence that made her what she was? Yet, standing beforesome of the great Lombard churches, we are inclined to speculate, perhapswith better reason, what the result would have been if that style ofarchitecture could have assumed the complete ascendency over the Italianswhich the Romanesque and Gothic of the North exerted over France andEngland?[12] The pyramidal façade common in these buildings, the campanilithat suspend aërial lanterns upon plain square towers, the domes risingtier over tier from the intersection of nave and transept to end inminarets and pinnacles, the low long colonnades of marble pilasters, theopen porches resting upon lions, the harmonious blending of baked clay androsy-tinted stone, the bold combination of round and pointed arches, andthe weird invention whereby every string-course and capital has beencarved with lions, sphinxes, serpents, mermaids, griffins, harpies, wingedhorses, lizards, and knights in armour--all these are elements that might, we fancy, have been developed into a noble national style. As it is, thechurches in question are often more bizarre than really beautiful. Theirpeculiar character, however, is inseparably associated with the longreaches of green plain, the lordly rivers, and the background of bluehills and snowy Alps that constitute the charm of Lombard landscape. If Lombard architecture, properly so-called, was partial in its influenceand confined to a comparatively narrow local sphere, the same is true ofthe Tuscan Romanesque. The church of Samminiato, near Florence [about1013], and the cathedral of Pisa [begun 1063], not to mention other lesseminent examples at Lucca and Pistoja, are sufficient evidences that inthe darkest period of the Middle Ages the Italians were aiming at anarchitectural Renaissance. The influence of classical models is apparentboth in the construction and the detail of these basilicas; while thedeeply grounded preference of the Italian genius for round arches, forcolonnades of pillars and pilasters, and for large rectangular spaces, with low roofs and shallow tribunes, finds full satisfaction in theseoriginal and noble buildings. It is impossible to refrain from deploringthat the Romanesque of Tuscany should have been checked in its developmentby the intrusion of the German Gothic. Had it run its course unthwarted, anational style suited to the temperament of the people might have beenformed, and much that was pedantic in the revival of the fifteenth centuryhave been obviated. The place of Gothic architecture in Italy demands fuller treatment. It wasdue partly to the direct influence of German emperors, partly to theimperial sympathies of the great nobles, partly to the Franciscan friars, who aimed at building large churches cheaply, and partly to the admirationexcited by the grandeur of the Pointed style as it prevailed in NorthernEurope, that Gothic--so alien to the Italian genius and climate--tookroot, spread widely, and flourished freely for a season. In thusenumerating the conditions favourable to the spread of Gottico-Tedesco, Iam far from wishing to assert that this style was purely foreign. Italy, in common with the rest of Europe, passed by a natural process ofevolution from the Romanesque to the Pointed manner, and treated thelatter with an originality that proves a certain natural assimilation. Yetthe first Gothic church, that of S. Francis at Assisi, was designed by aGerman; the most splendid, that of Our Lady at Milan, is emphaticallyGerman. [13] During the comparatively brief period of Gothic ascendency theItalians never forgot their Latin and Lombard sympathies. The mood of mindin which they Gothicised was partial and transient. The evolution of thisstyle was, therefore, neither so spontaneous and simple, nor yet souninterrupted and complete, in Italy as in the North. While it producedthe church of S. Francesco at Assisi and the cathedrals of Siena, Orvieto, Lucca, Bologna, Florence, and Milan, together with the town-halls ofPerugia, Siena, and Florence, it failed to take firm hold upon thenational taste, and died away before the growing passion for antiquitythat restored the Italians to a sense of their own intellectual greatness. It is clear that, as soon as they were conscious of their vocation torevive the culture of the classic age, they at once and for ever abandonedthe style appropriate to northern feudalism. They seem to have adopted ithalf-unwillingly and to have understood it only in the imperfect way inwhich they comprehended chivalry. The Italians never rightly apprehended the specific nature of Gothicarchitecture. They could not forget the horizontal lines, flat roofs, andblank walls of the Basilica. Like their Roman ancestors, they aimed atcovering the ground with the smallest possible expenditure ofconstruction; to enclose large spaces within simple limits was their firstobject, and the effect of beauty or sublimity was gained by theproportions given to the total area. When, therefore, they adopted theGothic style, they failed to perceive that its true merit consists in thenegation of nearly all that the Latin style holds precious. Horizontallines are as far as possible annihilated; walls are lost in windows;aisles and columns, apses and chapels, are multiplied with a view tocomplexity of architectonic effect; flat roofs become intolerable. Thewhole force employed in the construction has an upward tendency, and thespire is the completion of the edifice; for to the spire its countlesssoaring lines--lines not of stationary strength, but of ascendentgrowth--converge. All this the Italians were slow to comprehend. Thecampanile, for example, never became an integral part of their buildings. It stood alone, and was reserved for its original purpose of keeping thebells. The windows, for a reason very natural in Italy, where there israther too much than too little sunlight, were curtailed; and instead ofthe multiplied bays and clustered columns of a northern Gothic aisle, thenave of so vast a church as S. Petronio at Bologna is measured by sixarches raised on simple piers. The façade of an Italian cathedral wasstudied as a screen, quite independently of its relation to the interior;in the beautiful church of Crema, for example, the moon at night looksthrough the upper windows of a frontispiece raised far above the low roofof the nave. For the total effect of the exterior, as will be apparent toanyone who observes the Duomo of Orvieto from behind, no thought wastaken. In this way the Italians missed the point and failed to perceivethe poetry of Gothic architecture. Its symbolical significance was lostupon them; perhaps we ought to say that the Italian temperament, in art asin religion, was incapable of assimilating the vague yet powerfulmysticism of the Teutonic races. On the other hand, what they sacrificed of genuine Gothic character, wasmade good after their own fashion. Surface decoration, whether of frescoor mosaic, bronze-work or bas-relief, wood-carving or panelling in marble, baked clay or enamelled earthenware was never carried to such perfectionin Gothic buildings of the purer type; nor had sculpture in the North anequal chance of detaching itself from the niche and tabernacle, whichforced it to remain the slave of architecture. Thus the comparativedefects of Italian Gothic were directly helpful in promoting those veryarts for which the people had a genius unrivalled among modern nations. It is only necessary to contrast the two finest cathedrals of this style, those of Siena and Orvieto, with two such buildings as the cathedrals ofRheims and Salisbury, in order to perceive the structural inferiority ofthe former, as well as their superiority for all subordinate artisticpurposes. Long straight lines, low roofs, narrow windows, a façade ofsurprising splendour but without a strict relation to the structure of thenave and aisles, a cupola surmounting the intersection of nave, choir, andtransepts; simple tribunes at the east end, a detached campanile, roundcolumns instead of clustered piers, a mixture of semicircular and pointedarches; these are some of the most salient features of the Sienese Duomo. But the material is all magnificent; and the hand, obedient to thedictates of an artist's brain, has made itself felt on every square footof the building. Alternate courses of white and black marble, cornicesloaded with grave or animated portraits of the Popes, sculptured shrines, altars, pulpits, reliquaries, fonts and holy-water vases, panels of inlaidwood and pictured pavements, bronze candelabra and wrought-iron screens, gilding and colour and precious work of agate and lapis lazuli--themasterpieces of men famous each in his own line--delight the eye in alldirections. The whole church is a miracle of richness, a radiant andglowing triumph of inventive genius, the product of a hundredmaster-craftsmen toiling through successive centuries to do their best. All its countless details are so harmonised by the controlling taste, sobrought together piece by piece in obedience to artistic instinct, thatthe total effect is ravishingly beautiful. Yet it is clear that no oneparamount idea, determining and organising all these marvels, existed inthe mind of the first architect. In true Gothic work the details thatmake up the charm of this cathedral would have been subordinated to onearchitectonic thought; they would not have been suffered to assert theirindividuality, or to contribute, except as servants, to the whole effect. The northern Gothic church is like a body with several members; thesouthern Gothic church is an accretion of beautiful atoms. The northernGothic style corresponds to the national unity of federalised races, organised by a social hierarchy of mutually dependent classes. In thesouthern Gothic style we find a mirror of political diversity, independentpersonality, burgher-like equality, despotic will. Thus the specificqualities of Italy on her emergence from the Middle Ages may be traced byno undue exercise of the fancy in her monuments. They are emphatically thecreation of citizens--of men, to use Giannotti's phrase, distinguished byalternating obedience and command, not ranked beneath a monarchy, butcapable themselves of sovereign power. [14] What has been said of Siena is no less true of the Duomo of Orvieto. Though it seems to aim at a severer Gothic, and though the façade is morearchitecturally planned, a single glance at the exterior of the edificeshows that the builders had no lively sense of the requirements of thestyle they used. What can be more melancholy than those blank walls, broken by small round recesses protruding from the side chapels of thenave, those gaunt and barren angles at the east end, and those fewpinnacles appended at a venture? It is clear that the spirit of thenorthern Gothic manner has been wholly misconceived. On the other hand, the interior is noble. The feeling for space possessed by the architecthas expressed itself in proportions large and solemn; the area enclosed, though somewhat cold and vacuous to northern taste, is at least impressiveby its severe harmony. But the real attractions of the church are isolateddetails. Wherever the individual artist-mind has had occasion to emerge, there our gaze is riveted, our criticism challenged, our admiration won. The frescoes of Signorelli, the bas-reliefs of the Pisani, the statuary ofLo Scalza and Mosca, the tarsia of the choir stalls, the Alexandrine workand mosaics of the façade, the bronzes placed upon its brackets, and thewrought acanthus scrolls of its superb pilasters--these are the objectsfor inexhaustible wonder in the cathedral of Orvieto. On approaching abuilding of this type, we must abandon our conceptions of organicarchitecture: only the Greek and northern Gothic styles deserve thatepithet. We must not seek for severe discipline and architectonic design. Instead of one presiding, all-determining idea, we must be prepared towelcome a wealth of separate beauties, wrought out by men of independentgenius, whereby each part is made a masterpiece, and many diverse elementsbecome a whole of picturesque rather than architectural impressiveness. It would not be difficult to extend this kind of criticism to the Duomo ofMilan. Speaking strictly, a more unlucky combination of differentstyles--the pyramidal façade of Lombard architecture and the long thinlights of German Gothic, for example--a clumsier misuse ofill-appropriated details in the heavy piers of the nave, or a moredisastrous adjustment of the monster windows to the main lines of the naveand aisles, could scarcely be imagined. Yet no other church, perhaps, inEurope leaves the same impression of the marvellous upon the fancy. Thesplendour of its pure white marble, blushing with the rose of evening orof dawn, radiant in noonday sunlight, and fabulously fairy-like beneaththe moon and stars, the multitudes of statues sharply cut against a clearblue sky, and gazing at the Alps across that memorable tract of plain, theimmense space and light-irradiated gloom of the interior, the deep tone ofthe bells above at a vast distance, and the gorgeous colours of thepainted glass, contribute to a scenical effect unparalleled inChristendom. The two styles, Lombard and Gothic, of which I have been speaking, wereboth in a certain sense exotic. Within the great cities the pith of thepopulation was Latin; and no style of building that did not continue thetradition of the Romans, in the spirit of the Roman manner, and withstrict observance of its details, satisfied them. It was a main feature ofthe Renaissance that, when the Italians undertook the task of reunitingthemselves by study with the past, they abandoned all other forms ofarchitecture, and did their best to create one in harmony with the relicsof Latin monuments. To trace the history of this revived classicarchitecture will occupy me later in this chapter; but for the moment itis necessary to turn aside and consider briefly the secular buildings ofItaly before the date of the Renaissance proper. About the same time that the cathedrals were being built, the noblesfilled the towns with fortresses. These at first were gaunt and unsightly;how overcrowded with tall bare towers a mediaeval Italian city could be, isstill shown by San Gemignano, the only existing instance where the_torroni_ have been left untouched. [15] In course of time, when thearistocracy came to be fused with the burghers, and public order wasmaintained by law in the great cities, these forts made way for spaciouspalaces. The temper of the citizens in each place and the local characterof artistic taste determined the specific features of domestic as ofecclesiastical architecture. Though it is hard to define what are thesocial differences expressed by the large quadrangles of FrancescoSforza's hospital at Milan, and the heavy cube of the Riccardi palace atFlorence, we feel that the _genius loci_ has in each case controlled thearchitect. The sunny spaces of the one building, with its terra-cottatraceries of birds and grapes and Cupids, contrast with the stern brownmouldings and impenetrable solidity of the other. That the one was raisedby the munificence of a sovereign in his capital, while the other was thedwelling of a burgher in a city proud of its antique sobriety, goes someway to explain the difference. In like manner the court-life of a dynasticprincipality produced the castle of Urbino, so diverse in its style andadaptation from the ostentatious mansions of the Genoese merchants. It isnot fanciful to say that the civic life of a free and factious republic isrepresented by the heavy walls and narrow windows of Florentinedwelling-places. In their rings of iron, welded between rock and rockabout the basement, as though for the beginning of a barricade--in theirtorch-rests of wrought metal, gloomy portals and dimly-lighted courts, wetrace the habits of caution and reserve that marked the men who led theparties of Uberti and Albizzi. The Sienese palaces are lighter and moreelegant in style, as belonging to a people proverbially pleasure-loving;while a still more sumptuous and secure mode of life finds expression inthe open loggie and spacious staircases of Venice. The graceful buildingswhich overhang the Grand Canal are exactly fitted for an oligarchy, sureof its own authority and loved of the people. Feudal despotism, on thecontrary, reigns in the heart of Ferrara, where the Este's stronghold, moated, draw-bridged, and portcullised, casting dense shadow over thewater that protects the dungeons, still seems to threaten the publicsquare and overawe the homes of men. To the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, again, we owe the town hallsand public palaces that form so prominent a feature in the cityarchitecture of Italy. The central vitality of once powerful States issymbolised in the _broletti_ of the Lombard cities, dusty and abandonednow in spite of their clear-cut terra-cotta traceries. There is somethingstrangely melancholy in their desolation. Wandering through the vast hallof the Ragione at Padua, where the very shadows seem asleep as they glideover the wide unpeopled floor, it is not easy to remember that this wasonce the theatre of eager intrigues, ere the busy stir of the old burghwas utterly extinguished. Few of these public palaces have the goodfortune to be distinguished, like that of the Doge at Venice, byworld-historical memories and by works of art as yet unrivalled. Thespirit of the Venetian Republic still lives in that unique building. Architects may tell us that its Gothic arcades are melodramatic; sculptorsmay depreciate the decorative work of Sansovino; painters may assert thatthe genius of Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese shines elsewhere with greaterlustre. Yet the poet clings with ever-deepening admiration to the sea-bornpalace of the ancient mistress of the sea, and the historian feels thathere, as at Athens, art has made the past towards which he looks eternal. Two other great Italian houses of the Commonwealth, rearing their towersabove the town for tocsin and for ward, owe immortality to their intrinsicbeauty. These are the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena and the Palazzo Vecchio ofFlorence. Few buildings in Europe are more picturesquely fascinating thanthe palace of Siena, with its outlook over hill and dale to cloud-cappedMonte Amiata. Yet, in spite of its unparalleled position on the curved andsloping piazza, where the _contrade_ of Siena have run their _palio_ forcenturies, this palace lacks the vivid interest attaching to the homeArnolfo raised at Florence for the rulers of his native city. During theirterm of office the Priors never quitted the Palace of the Signory. Alldeliberations on state affairs took place within its walls, and its bellwas the pulse that told how the heart of Florence throbbed. The architectof this huge mass of masonry was Arnolfo del Cambio, one of the greatestbuilders of the Middle Ages, a man who may be called the Michael Angeloof the thirteenth century[16]. In 1298 he was ordered to erect adwelling-place for the Commonwealth, to the end that the people might beprotected in their fortress from the violence of the nobles. The buildingof the palace and the levelling of the square around it were attended withcircumstances that bring forcibly before our minds the stern conditions ofrepublican life in mediaeval Italy. A block of houses had to be bought fromthe family of Foraboschi; and their tower, called Torre della Vacca, wasraised and turned into the belfry of the Priors. There was not roomenough, however, to construct the palace itself with right angles, unlessit were extended into the open space where once had stood the houses ofthe Uberti, "traitors to Florence and Ghibellines. " In destroying these, the burghers had decreed that thenceforth for ever the feet of men shouldpass where the hearths of the proscribed nobles once had blazed. Arnolfobegged that he might trespass on this site; but the people refusedpermission. Where the traitors' nest had been, there the sacredfoundations of the public house should not be laid. Consequently theFlorentine Palazzo is, was, and will be cramped of its correctproportions[17]. No Italian architect has enjoyed the proud privilege of stamping his ownindividuality more strongly on his native city than Arnolfo; and for thisreason it may be permitted to enlarge upon his labours here. When we takeour stand upon the hill of Samminiato, the Florence at our feet owes herphysiognomy in a great measure to this man. The tall tower of the PalazzoVecchio, the bulk of the Duomo, and the long low oblong mass of SantaCroce are all his. His too are the walls that define the city of flowersfrom the gardens round about her. [18] Even the master-works of hissuccessors subordinate their beauty to his first conception. Giotto'scampanile, Brunelleschi's cupola, and Orcagna's church of Orsammichele, inspite of their undoubted and authentic originality, are placed where hehad planned. In 1294 the Florentines determined to rebuild their mother-church upon ascale of unexampled grandeur. The commission given to their architectdisplays so strikingly the lordly spirit in which these burghers set aboutthe work, that, though it has been often quoted, a portion of the documentshall be recited here. "Since the highest mark of prudence in a people ofnoble origin is to proceed in the management of their affairs so thattheir magnanimity and wisdom may be evinced in their outward acts, weorder Arnolfo, head-master of our commune, to make a design for therenovation of Santa Reparata in a style of magnificence which neither theindustry nor the power of man can surpass, that it may harmonise with theopinion of many wise persons in this city and state, who think that thiscommune should not engage in any enterprise unless its intention be tomake the result correspond with that noblest sort of heart which iscomposed of the united will of many citizens. "[19] From Giovanni Villaniwe learn what taxes were levied by the Wool-Guild, and set apart in 1331for the completion of the building. They were raised upon all goods boughtor sold within the city in two separate rates, the net produce amountingin the first year to 2, 000 lire. [20] The cathedral designed by Arnolfowas of vast dimensions: it covers 84, 802 feet, while that of Colognecovers 81, 461 feet; and, says Fergusson, "as far as mere conception ofplan goes, there can be little doubt but that the Florentine cathedral farsurpasses its German rival. "[21] Nothing, indeed, can be imagined morenoble than the scheme of this huge edifice. Studying its ground-plan, andnoting how the nave unfolds into a mighty octagon, which in its turndisplays three well-proportioned apses, we are induced to think that asublimer thought has never been expressed in stone. At this point, however, our admiration receives a check. In the execution of the partsthe builder dwarfed what had been conceived on so magnificent a scale;aiming at colossal simplicity, he failed to secure the multiplicity ofsubordinated members essential to the total effect of size. "Like allinexperienced architects, he seems to have thought that greatness of partswould add to the greatness of the whole, and in consequence used only fourgreat arches in the whole length of his nave, giving the central aisle awidth of fifty-five feet clear. The whole width is within ten feet of thatof Cologne, and the height about the same; and yet, in appearance, theheight is about half, and the breadth less than half, owing to the betterproportion of the parts and to the superior appropriateness in the detailson the part of the German cathedral. "[22] The truth of these remarks willbe felt by every one on whom the ponderous vacuity of the interior hasweighed. Other notable defects there are too in this building, proceedingchiefly from the Italian misconception of Gothic style. The windows arefew and narrow, so that little light even at noonday struggles throughthem; and broad barren spaces of grey walls oppress the eye. Externallythe whole church is panelled with parti-coloured marbles, according toFlorentine custom; but this panelling bears no relation to the structure:it is so much surface decoration possessing value chiefly for thecolourist. Arnolfo died before the dome, as he designed it, could beplaced upon the octagon, and nothing is known for certain about the formhe meant it to assume. It seems, however, probable that he intended toadopt something similar to the dome of Chiaravalle, which ends, after asuccession of narrowing octagons, in a slender conical pyramid. [23]Subordinate spires would then have been placed at each of the four angleswhere the nave and transepts intersect; and the whole external effect, forrichness and variety, would have outrivalled that of any Europeanbuilding. It is well known that the erection of the dome was finallyentrusted to Brunelleschi in 1420. Arnolfo's church now sustains in air anoctagonal cupola of the simplest possible design, in height and sizerivalling that of S. Peter's. It was thus that the genius of theRenaissance completed what the genius of the Middle Ages had begun. But inItaly there was no real break between the two periods. Though Arnolfoemployed the Pointed style in his design, we find nothing genuinely Gothicin the church. It has no pinnacles, flying buttresses, side chapels, orsubordinate supports. To use the phrase of Michelet, who has chosen thedramatic episode of Brunelleschi's intervention in the rearing of the domefor a parable of the Renaissance, "the colossal church stood up simply, naturally, as a strong man in the morning rises from his bed without theneed of staff or crutch. "[24] This indeed is the glory of Italian ascompared with Northern architecture. The Italians valued the strength ofsimple perspicuity: all the best works of their builders are geometricalideas of the purest kind translated into stone. It is, however, true thatthe gain of vast aërial space was hardly sufficient to compensate for theimpression of emptiness they leave upon the senses. We feel this verystrongly when we study the model prepared by Bramante's pupil, CristoforoRocchi, for the cathedral of Pavia; yet here we see the neo-Latin geniusof the Italian artist working freely in an element exactly suited to hispowers. When the same order of genius sought to express its conceptionthrough the language of the Gothic style, the result was invariablydefective. [25] The classical revival of the fifteenth century made itself immediatelyfelt in architecture; and Brunelleschi's visit to Rome in 1403 may befixed as the date of the Renaissance in this art. Gothic, as we havealready seen, was an alien in Italy. Its importation from the North hadchecked the free development of national architecture, which in theeleventh century began at Pisa by a conscious return to classic details. But the reign of Gothic was destined to be brief. Petrarch and Boccaccio, as I showed in my last volume, turned the whole intellectual energy of theFlorentines into the channels of Latin and Greek scholarship. [26] Theancient world absorbed all interests, and the Italians with one will shookthemselves free of the medieval style they never rightly understood, andwhich they henceforth stigmatised as barbarous. [27] The problem that occupied all the Renaissance architects was how torestore the manner of ancient Rome as far as possible, adapting it to themodern requirements of ecclesiastical, civic, and domestic buildings. OfGreek art they knew comparatively nothing: nor indeed could Greekarchitecture have offered for their purpose the same plastic elements asRoman--itself a derived style, admitting of easier adjustment to modernuses than the inflexibly pure art of Greece. At the same time theypossessed but imperfect fragments of Roman work. The ruins of baths, theatres, tombs, temple-fronts, and triumphal arches, were of littleimmediate assistance in the labour of designing churches and palaces. Allthat the architects could do, after familiarising themselves with theremains of ancient Rome, and assimilating the spirit of Roman art, was toclothe their own inventions with classic details. The form and structureof their edifices were modern; the parts were copied from antique models. A want of organic unity and structural sincerity is always the result ofthose necessities under which a secondary and adapted style must labour;and thus the pseudo-Roman buildings even of the best Renaissance perioddisplay faults similar to those of the Italian Gothic. While they areremarkable for grandeur of effect in all that concerns the distribution oflight and shade, the covering and enclosing of space, and the dispositionof masses, they show at best but a superficial correspondence between theborrowed forms and the construction these are used to mask. [28] Theedifices of this period abound in more or less successful shams, insurface decoration more or less pleasing to the eye; their real greatness, meanwhile, consists in the feeling for spatial proportions and for linearharmonies possessed by their architects. Three periods in the development of Renaissance architecture may beroughly marked. [29] The first, extending from 1420 to 1500, is the age ofexperiment and of luxuriant inventiveness. The second embraces the firstforty years of the sixteenth century. The most perfect buildings of theItalian Renaissance were produced within this short space of time. Thethird, again comprising about forty years, from 1540 to 1580, leads onwardto the reign of mannerism and exaggeration, called by the Italians_barocco_. In itself the third period is distinguished by a scrupulouspurism bordering upon pedantry, strict adherence to theoretical rules, andsacrifice of inventive qualities to established canons. To do more thanbriefly indicate the masterpieces of these three periods, would beimpossible in a work that does not pretend to treat of architectureexhaustively: and yet to omit all notice of the builders of this age andof their styles, would be to neglect the most important art-phase of thetime I have undertaken to illustrate. In the first period we are bewildered by the luxuriance of creative powersand by the rioting of the fancy in all forms of beauty indiscriminatelymingled. In general we detect a striving after effects not fully realised, and a tendency to indulge in superfluous ornament without regard forstrictness of design. The imperfect comprehension of classical models andthe exuberant vivacity of the imagination in the fifteenth century accountfor the florid work of this time. Something too is left of mediaeval fancy;the details borrowed from the antique undergo fantastic transmutation atthe hands of men accustomed to the vehement emotion of the romantic ages. Whatever the Renaissance took from antique art, it was at first unable toassimilate either the moderation of the Greeks or the practical sobrietyof the Romans. Christianity had deepened and intensified the sources ofimaginative life; and just as reminiscences of classic style impairedItalian Gothic, so now a trace of Gothic is perceptible in the would-beclassic work of the Revival. The result of these combined influences was awonderful and many-featured hybrid, best represented in one monument bythe façade of the Certosa at Pavia. While characterising the work of theearlier Renaissance as fused of divers manners, we must not forget that itwas truly living, full of purpose, and according to its own standardsincere. It was a new birth; no mere repetition of something dead andgone, but the product of vivid forces stirred to original creativeness byadmiration for the past. It corresponded, moreover, with exquisiteexactitude to the halting of the conscience between Christianity andPaganism, and to the blent beauty that the poets loved. On reeds droppedfrom the hands of dead Pan the artists of this period, each in his, ownsphere, piped ditties of romance. To these general remarks upon the style of the first period the Florentinearchitects offer an exception; and yet the first marked sign of a new erain the art of building was given at Florence. Purity of taste and firmnessof judgment, combined with scientific accuracy, were always distinctive ofFlorentines. To such an extent did these qualities determine theirtreatment of the arts that acute critics have been found to tax them--andin my opinion justly--with hardness and frigidity. [30] Brunelleschi in1425 designed the basilica of S. Lorenzo after an original but trulyclassic type, remarkable for its sobriety and correctness. What he hadlearned from the ruins of Rome he here applied in obedience to his ownartistic instinct. S. Lorenzo is a columnar edifice with round arches andsemicircular apses. Not a form or detail in the whole church is strictlyspeaking at variance with Roman precedent; and yet the general effectresembles nothing we possess of antique work. It is a masterpiece ofintelligent Renaissance adaptation. The same is true of S. Spirito, builtin 1470, after Brunelleschi's death, according to his plans. Theextraordinary capacity of this great architect will, however, win morehomage from ordinary observers when they contemplate the Pitti Palace andthe cupola of the cathedral. Both of these are master-works of personaloriginality. What is Roman in the Pitti Palace, is the robust simplicityof massive strength; but it is certain that no patrician of the republicor the empire inhabited a house at all resembling this. The domestichabits of the Middle Ages, armed for self-defence, and on guard againstinvasion from without, still find expression in the solid bulk of thisforbidding dwelling-place, although its majesty and largeness show thatthe reign of milder and more courtly manners has begun. To speak of thecupola of the Duomo in connection with a simple revival of Roman taste, would be equally inappropriate. It remains a tour de force of individualgenius, cultivated by the experience of Gothic vault-building, andpenetrated with the greatness of imperial Rome. Its spirit of dauntlessaudacity and severe concentration alone is antique. Almost contemporary with Brunelleschi was Leo Battista Alberti, aFlorentine, who, working upon somewhat different principles, sought moreclosely to reproduce the actual elements of Roman architecture. [31] Inhis remodelling of S. Francesco at Rimini the type he followed was that ofthe triumphal arch, and what was finished of that wonderful façade, remains to prove how much might have been made of well-proportionedpilasters and nobly curved arcades. [32] The same principle is carried outin S. Andrea at Mantua. The frontispiece of this church is a gigantic archof triumph; the interior is noticeable for its simple harmony of parts, adopted from the vaulted baths of Rome. The combination of these antiquedetails in an imposing structure implied a high imaginative faculty at amoment when the rules of classic architecture had not been as yet reducedto method. Yet the weakness of Alberti's principle is revealed when weconsider that here the lofty central arch of the façade serves only for adecoration. Too high and spacious even for the chariots of a Romantriumph, it forms an inappropriate entrance to the modest vestibule of aChristian church. Like Brunelleschi, Alberti applied his talents to the building of a palacein Florence that became a model to subsequent architects. The PalazzoRucellai retains many details of the mediaeval Tuscan style, especially inthe windows divided by slender pilasters. But the three orders introducedby way of surface decoration, the doorways, and the cornices, aretranscripts from Roman ruins. This building, one of the most beautiful inItaly, was copied by Francesco di Giorgio and Bernardo Fiorentino for thepalaces they constructed at Pienza. This was the age of sumptuous palace-building; and for no purpose was theearly Renaissance style better adapted than for the erection ofdwelling-houses that should match the free and worldly splendour of thosetimes. The just medium between mediaeval massiveness and classic simplicitywas attained in countless buildings beautiful and various beyonddescription. Bologna is full of them; and Urbino, in the Ducal Palace, contains one specimen unexampled in extent and unique in interest. Yethere, as in all departments of fine art, Florence takes the lead. AfterBrunelleschi and Alberti came Michellozzo, the favourite architect ofCosimo de' Medici; Benedetto da Majano; Giuliano and Antonio di San Gallo;and Il Cronaca. Cosimo de' Medici, having said that "envy is a plant noman should water, " denied himself the monumental house designed byBrunelleschi, and chose instead the modest plan of Michellozzo. Brunelleschi had meant to build the Casa Medici along one side of thePiazza di S. Lorenzo; but when Cosimo refused his project, he broke up themodel he had made, to the great loss of students of this age ofarchitecture. Michellozzo was then commissioned to raise the mighty, butcomparatively humble, Riccardi Palace at the corner of the Via Larga, which continued to be the residence of the Medici through all theirchequered history, until at last they took possession of the PalazzoPitti. [33] The most beautiful of all Florentine dwelling-houses designedat this period is that which Benedetto da Majano built for FilippoStrozzi. Combining the burgher-like austerity of antecedent ages with agrandeur and a breadth of style peculiar to the Renaissance, the PalazzoStrozzi may be chosen as the perfect type of Florentine domesticarchitecture. [34] Other cities were supplied by Florence with builders, and Milan owed her fanciful Ospedale Maggiore at this epoch to AntonioFilarete, a Florentine. This great edifice illustrates the emancipationfrom fixed rule that distinguishes much of the architecture of the earlierRenaissance. The detail is not unfrequently Gothic, especially in thepointed windows; but the feeling of the whole structure, in its airy spaceand lightness, delicate terra-cotta mouldings, and open loggie, is trulyCinque Cento. [35] In no other style than this of the earlier Renaissance is the builder moreinseparably connected with the decorator. The labours of the stone-carver, who provided altars chased with Scripture histories in high relief, pulpits hung against a column of the nave, tombs with canopies and floralgarlands, organ galleries enriched with bas-reliefs of singing boys, ciboria with kneeling and adoring angels, marble tabernacles for relics, vases for holy water, fonts and fountains, and all the indescribablewealth of scrolls and friezes around doors and screens and balustradesthat fence the choir, are added to those of the bronze-founder, with hismighty doors and pendent lamps, his candelabra sustained by angels, torch-rests and rings, embossed basements for banners of state, andportraits of recumbent senators or prelates. [36] The wood carvercontributes _tarsia_ like that of Fra Giovanni da Verona. [37] The workerin wrought iron welds such screens as guard the chapel of the SacraCintola at Prato. The Robbias prepare their delicately-toned reliefs forthe lunettes above the doorways. Modellers in clay produce the terra-cottawork of the Certosa, or the carola of angels who surround the littlecupola behind the church of S. Eustorgio at Milan. [38] Meanwhile mosaicsare provided for the dome or let into the floor;[39] agates and marblesand lapis lazuli are pieced together for altar fronts and panellings;[40]stalls are carved into fantastic patterns, and heavy roofs are embossedwith figures of the saints and armorial emblems. [41] Tapestry is wovenfrom the designs of excellent masters;[42] great painters contributearabesques of fresco or of stucco mixed with gilding, and glass iscoloured from the outlines of such draughtsmen as Ghiberti. Some of the decorative elements I have hastily enumerated, will be treatedin connection with the respective arts of sculpture and painting. Thefact, meanwhile, deserves notice that they received a new development inrelation to architecture during the first period of the Renaissance, andthat they formed, as it were, an integral part of its main aestheticalpurpose. Strip a chapel of the fifteenth century of ornamental adjuncts, and an uninteresting shell is left: what, for instance, would the façadesof the Certosa and the Cappella Colleoni be without their sculptured andinlaid marbles? The genius of the age found scope in subordinate details, and the most successful architect was the man who combined in himself afeeling for the capacities of the greatest number of associated arts. Asthe consequence of this profuse expenditure of loving care on everydetail, the monuments of architecture belonging to the earlier Renaissancehave a poetry that compensates for structural defects; just as its wildestliterary extravagances--the _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_, forinstance--have a charm of wanton fancy and young joy that atones tosympathetic students for intolerable pedantries. In the second period the faults of the first group of Renaissance builderswere in a large measure overcome, and their striving after the productionof new yet classic form was more completely realised. The recklessemployment of luxuriant decoration yielded to a chastened taste, withoutthe sacrifice of beauty or magnificence. Style was refined; theconstruction of large buildings was better understood, and the instinctfor what lies within the means of a revived and secondary manner was moretrue. To Bramante must be assigned the foremost place among the architects ofthe golden age. [43] Though little of his work survives entire andunspoiled, it is clear that he exercised the profoundest influence overboth successors and contemporaries. What they chiefly owed to him, was theproper subordination of beauty in details to the grandeur of simplicityand to unity of effect. He came at a moment when constructive problems hadbeen solved, when mechanical means were perfected, and when the sisterarts had reached their highest point. His early training in Lombardyaccustomed him to the adoption of clustered piers instead of singlecolumns, to semicircular apses and niches, and to the free use of minorcupolas--elements of design introduced neither by Brunelleschi nor byAlberti into the Renaissance style of Florence, but which were destined todetermine the future of architecture for all Italy. Nature had giftedBramante with calm judgment and refined taste; his sense of the rightlimitations of the pseudo-Roman style was exquisite, and his feeling forstructural symmetry was just. If his manner strikes us as somewhat coldand abstract when compared with the more genial audacities of the earlierRenaissance, we must remember how salutary was the example of a rigorousand modest manner in an age which required above all things to bepreserved from its own luxuriant waywardness of fancy. It is hard to sayhow much of the work ascribed to Bramante in Northern Italy is genuine;most of it, at any rate, belongs to the manner of his youth. The Church ofS. Maria della Consolazione at Todi, the palace of the Cancelleria atRome, and the unfinished cathedral of Pavia, enable us to comprehend thegeneral character of this great architect's refined and noble manner. S. Peter's, it may be said in passing, retains, in spite of all subsequentmodifications, many essentially Bramantesque features--especially in thedistribution of the piers and rounded niches. Bramante formed no school strictly so called, though his pupils, Cristoforo Rocchi and Ventura Vitoni, carried out his principles ofbuilding at Pavia and Pistoja. Vitoni's church of the Umiltà in the lattercity is a pure example of conscientious neo-Roman architecture. Itconsists of a large octagon surmounted by a dome and preceded by a loftyvaulted atrium or vestibule. The single round arch of this vestibulerepeats the _testudo_ of a Roman bath, and the decorative details areaccurately reproduced from similar monuments. Unfortunately, GiorgioVasari, who was employed to finish the cupola, spoiled its effect byraising it upon an ugly attic; it is probable that the church, as designedby Vitoni, would have presented the appearance of a miniature Pantheon. AtRome the influence of Bramante was propagated through Raphael, GiulioRomano, and Baldassare Peruzzi. Raphael's claim to consideration as anarchitect rests upon the Palazzi Vidoni and Pandolfini, the Cappella Chigiin S. Maria del Popolo, and the Villa Madama. The last-named building, executed by Giulio Romano after Raphael's design, is carried out in astyle so forcible as to make us fancy that the pupil had a larger share inits creation than his teacher. These works, however, sink intoinsignificance before the Palazzo del Te at Mantua, the masterpiece ofGiulio's genius. This most noble of Italian pleasure-houses remains toshow what the imagination of a poet-artist could recover from thesplendour of old Rome and adapt to the use of his own age. The vaults ofthe Thermae of Titus, with their cameos of stucco and frescoed arabesques, are here repeated on a scale and with an exuberance of invention thatsurpass the model. Open loggie yield fair prospect over what were oncetrim gardens; spacious halls, adorned with frescoes in the vehement andgorgeous style of the Roman school, form a fit theatre for the grandparade-life of an Italian prince. The whole is Pagan in its pride andsensuality, its prodigality of strength and insolence of freedom. Havingseen this palace, we do not wonder that the fame of Giulio flew across theAlps and lived upon the lips of Shakspere: for in his master-work atMantua he collected, as it were, and epitomised in one building all thatenthralled the fancy of the Northern nations when they thought of Italy. A pendant to the Palazzo del Te is the Villa Farnesina, raised on thebanks of the Tiber by Baldassare Peruzzi for his fellow townsman AgostinoChigi of Siena. It is an idyll placed beside a lyric ode, gentler andquieter in style, yet full of grace, breathing the large and liberalspirit of enjoyment that characterised the age of Leo. The frescoes ofGalatea and Psyche, executed by Raphael and his pupils, have made thisvilla famous in the annals of Italian painting. The memory of the Romanbanker's splendid style of living marks it out as no less noteworthy inthe history of Renaissance manners. [44] Among the great edifices of this second period we may reckon JacopoSansovino's buildings at Venice, though they approximate rather to thestyle of the earlier Renaissance in all that concerns exuberance ofdecorative detail. The Venetians, somewhat behind the rest of Italy in thedevelopment of the fine arts, were at the height of prosperity and wealthduring the middle period of the Renaissance; and no city is more rich inmonuments of the florid style. Something of their own delight in sensuousmagnificence they communicated even to the foreigners who dwelt amongthem. The court of the Ducal Palace, the Scuola di S. Rocco, the PalazzoCorner, and the Palazzo Vendramini-Calergi, illustrate the, strong yetfanciful _bravura_ style that pleased the aristocracy of Venice. Nowhereelse does the architecture of the Middle Ages melt by more imperceptibledegrees into that of the Revival, retaining through all changes theimpress of a people splendour-loving in the highest sense. The Library ofS. Mark, built by Sansovino in 1536, remains, however, the crowningtriumph of Venetian art. It is impossible to contemplate its noble doublerow of open arches without feeling the eloquence of rhetoric so brilliant, without echoing the judgment of Palladio, that nothing more sumptuous orbeautiful had been invented since the age of ancient Rome. Time would fail to tell of all the architects who crowd the first half ofthe sixteenth century--of Antonio di San Gallo, famous for fortifications;of Baccio d'Agnolo, who raised the Campanile of S. Spirito at Florence; ofGiovanni Maria Falconetto, to whose genius Padua owed so many princelyedifices; of Michele Sanmicheli, the military architect of Verona, and thebuilder of five mighty palaces for the nobles of his native city. Yet thegreatest name of all this period cannot be omitted: Michael Angelo must beadded to the list of builders in the golden age. In architecture, as insculpture, he not only bequeathed to posterity masterpieces of individualenergy and original invention, in their kind unrivalled; but he alsoprepared for his successors a false way of working, and justified by hisexample the extravagances of the decadence. Without noticing the façadedesigned for S. Lorenzo at Florence, the transformation of the Baths ofDiocletian into a church, the remodelling of the Capitoline buildings, andthe continuation of the Palazzo Farnese--works that either exist only indrawings or have been confused by later alterations--it is enough here tomention the Sagrestia Nuova of S. Lorenzo and the cupola of S. Peter's. The sacristy may be looked on either as the masterpiece of a sculptor whorequired fit setting for his statues, or of an architect who designedstatues to enhance the structure he had planned. Both arts are used withequal ease, nor has the genius of Michael Angelo dealt more masterfullywith the human frame than with the forms of Roman architecture in thischapel. He seems to have paid no heed to classic precedent, and to havetaken no pains to adapt the parts to the structural purpose of thebuilding. It was enough for him to create a wholly novel framework for themodern miracle of sculpture it enshrines, attending to such rules ofcomposition as determine light and shade, and seeking by the slightness ofmouldings and pilasters to enhance the terrible and massive forms thatbrood above the Medicean tombs. The result is a product of picturesque andplastic art, as true to the Michaelangelesque spirit as the Temple of theWingless Victory to that of Pheidias. But where Michael Angelo achieved atriumph of boldness, lesser natures were betrayed into bizarrerie; andthis chapel of the Medici, in spite of its grandiose simplicity, proved astumbling-block to subsequent architects by encouraging them to despisepropriety and violate the laws of structure. The same may be said witheven greater truth of the Laurentian Library and its staircase. The falsewindows, repeated pillars, and barefaced aiming at effect, that mark theinsincerity of the _barocco_ style, are found here almost for the firsttime. What S. Peter's would have been, if Michael Angelo had lived to finish it, can be imagined from his plans and elevations still preserved. It mustalways remain a matter of profound regret that his project was so faraltered as to sacrifice the effect of the dome from the piazza. This domeis Michael Angelo's supreme achievement as an architect. It not onlypreserves all that is majestic in the cupola of Brunelleschi; but it alsoavoids the defects of its avowed model, by securing the entrance ofabundant light, and dilating the imagination with the sense of space tosoar and float in. It is the dome that makes S. Peter's what it is--theadequate symbol of the Church in an age that had abandoned mediaevalism andproduced a new type of civility for the modern nations. On the connectionbetween the building of S. Peter's and the Reformation I have touchedalready. [45] This mighty temple is the shrine of Catholicity, no longercosmopolitan by right of spiritual empire, but secularised and limited toLatin races. At the same time it represents the spirit of a period whenthe Popes still led the world as intellectual chiefs. As the decree forits erection was the last act of the Papacy before the schism of the Northhad driven it into blind conflict with advancing culture, so S. Peter'sremains the monument to after ages of a moment when the Roman Church, unterrified as yet by German rebels, dared to share the mundane impulse ofthe classical revival. She had forgotten the catacombs and ruthlesslydestroyed the Basilica of Constantine. By rebuilding the mother church ofWestern Christianity upon a new plan, she broke with tradition; and ifRome has not ceased to be the Eternal City, if all ways are still leadingto Rome, we may even hazard a conjecture that in the last days of theiruniversal monarchy the Popes reared this fane to be the temple of a spiritalien to their own. It is at any rate certain that S. Peter's produces animpression less ecclesiastical, and less strictly Christian, than almostany of the elder and far humbler churches of Europe. Raised by proud andsecular pontiffs in the heyday of renascent humanism, it seems to wait thetime when the high priests of a religion no longer hostile to science orantagonistic to the inevitable force of progress will chaunt their hymnsbeneath its spacious dome. The building of S. Peter's was so momentous in modern history, and sodecisive for Italian architecture, that it may be permitted me to describethe vicissitudes through which the structure passed before reachingcompletion. Nicholas V. , founder of the secular papacy and chief patron ofthe humanistic movement in Rome, had approved a scheme for thoroughlyrebuilding and refortifying the pontifical city. [46] Part of this planinvolved the reconstruction of S. Peter's. The old basilica was to beremoved, and on its site was to rise a mighty church, shaped like a Latincross, with a central dome and two high towers flanking the vestibule. Nicholas died before his project could be carried into effect. Beyonddestroying the old temple of Probus and marking out foundations for thetribune of the new church, nothing had been accomplished;[47] nor did hissuccessors until the reign of Julius think of continuing what he hadbegun. In 1506, on the 18th of April, Julius laid the first stone of S. Peter's according to the plans provided by Bramante. The basilica wasdesigned in the shape of a Greek cross, surmounted by a colossal dome, andapproached by a vestibule fronted with six columns. As in all the works ofBramante, simplicity and dignity distinguished this first scheme. [48] Foreight years, until his death in 1514, Bramante laboured on the building. Julius, the most impatient of masters, urged him to work rapidly. Inconsequence of this haste, the substructures of the new church provedinsecure, and the huge piers raised to support the cupola were imperfect, while the venerable monuments contained in the old church were ruthlesslydestroyed. [49] After Bramante's death Giuliano di S. Gallo, Fra Giocondo, and Raphael successively superintended the construction, each for a shortperiod. Raphael, under Leo X. , was appointed sole architect, and went sofar as to alter the design of Bramante by substituting the Latin for theGreek cross. Upon his death, Baldassare Peruzzi continued the work, andsupplied a series of new designs, restoring the ground-plan of the churchto its original shape. He was succeeded in the reign of Paul III. ByAntonio di S. Gallo, who once more reverted to the Latin cross, andproposed a novel form of cupola with flanking towers for the façade, ofbizarre rather than beautiful proportions. After a short interregnum, during which Giulio Romano superintended the building and did nothingremarkable, Michael Angelo was called in 1535 to undertake the sole chargeof the edifice. He declared that wherever subsequent architects haddeparted from Bramante's project, they had erred. "It is impossible todeny that Bramante was as great in architecture as any man has been sincethe days of the ancients. When he first laid the plan of S. Peter's, hemade it not a mass of confusion, but clear and simple, well lighted, andso thoroughly detached that it in no way interfered with any portion ofthe palace. "[50] Having thus pronounced himself in general for Bramante'sscheme, Michael Angelo proceeded to develop it in accordance with his owncanons of taste. He retained the Greek cross; but the dome, as heconceived it, and the details designed for each section of the building, differed essentially from what the earlier master would have sanctioned. Not the placid and pure taste of Bramante, but the masterful and fierygenius of Buonarroti, is responsible for the colossal scale of thesubordinate parts and variously broken lineaments of the existing church. In spite of all changes of direction, the fabric of S. Peter's had beensteadily advancing. Michael Angelo was, therefore, able to raise thecentral structure as far as the drum of the cupola before his death. Hisplans and models were carefully preserved, and a special papal ordinancedecreed that henceforth there should be no deviation from the scheme hehad laid down. Unhappily this rule was not observed. Under Pius V. , Vignola and Piero Ligorio did indeed continue his tradition; under GregoryXIII. , Sixtus V. , and Clement VIII. , Giacomo della Porta made nosubstantial alterations; and in 1590 Domenico Fontana finished the dome. But during the pontificate of Paul V. , Carlo Maderno resumed the form ofthe Latin cross, and completed the nave and vestibule, as they now stand, upon this altered plan (1614). The consequence is what has been alreadynoted--at a moderate distance from the church the dome is lost to view; itonly takes its true position of predominance when seen from far. In theyear 1626, S. Peter's was consecrated by Urban VIII. , and the mighty workwas finished. It remained for Bernini to add the colonnades of the piazza, no less picturesque in their effect than admirably fitted for thepageantry of world-important ceremonial. At the end of the eighteenthcentury it was reckoned that the church had cost but little less thanfifty million scudi. Michael Angelo forms the link between the second and third periods of theRenaissance. Among the architects of the latter age we have to reckonthose who based their practice upon minute study of antique writers, andwho, more than any of their predecessors, realised the long-soughtrestitution of the classic style according to precise scholasticcanons. [51] A new age had now begun for Italy. The glory and the grace ofthe Renaissance, its blooming time of beauty, and its springtide of youngstrength, were over. Strangers held the reins of power, and theReformation had begun to make itself felt in the Northern provinces ofChristendom. A colder and more formal spirit everywhere prevailed. Thesources of invention in the art of painting were dried up. Scholarship hadpined away into pedantic purism. Correct taste was coming to be prizedmore highly than originality of genius in literature. Nor did architecturefail to manifest the operation of this change. The greatest builder of theperiod was Andrea Palladio of Vicenza, who combined a more completeanalytical knowledge of antiquity with a firmer adherence to rule andprecedent than even the most imitative of his forerunners. It is uselessto seek for decorative fancy, wealth of detail, or sallies of inventivegenius in the Palladian style. All is cold and calculated in the manypalaces and churches of this master which adorn both Venice and Vicenza;they make us feel that creative inspiration has been superseded by thelabour of the calculating reason. One great public building of Palladio's, however--the Palazzo della Ragione at Vicenza--may be cited as, perhaps, the culminating point of pure Renaissance architecture. In its simple andheroical arcades, its solid columns, and noble open spaces, the strengthof Rome is realised to the eyes of those who do not penetrate too farinside the building. [52] Here, and here only, the architectural problem ofthe epoch--how to bring the art of the ancients back to life and useagain--was solved according to the spirit and the letter of the past. Palladio never equalled this, the earliest of all his many works. In the first half of the sixteenth century the dictatorship of art hadbeen already transferred from Florence and Rome to Lombardy. [53] Thepainters who carried on the great traditions were Venetian. Among thearchitects, Palladio was a native of Vicenza; Giacomo Barozzi, the authorof the "Treatise on the Orders, " took the name by which he is known fromhis birthplace, Vignola; Vincenzo Scamozzi was a fellow-townsman ofPalladio; Galeazzo Alessi, though born at Perugia, spent his life anddeveloped his talents in Genoa; Andrea Formigine, the palace-builder, wasa Bolognese; Bartolommeo Ammanati alone at Florence exercised the arts ofsculpture and architecture in their old conjunction. Vignola, Palladio'selder by a few years, displays in his work even more of the scholasticallyfrigid spirit of the late Renaissance, the narrowing of poetic impulse, and the dwindling of vitality, that sadden the second half of thesixteenth century in Italy. Scamozzi, labouring at Venice on works thatSansovino left unfinished, caught the genial spirit of the old Venetianstyle. Alessi, in like manner, at Genoa, felt the influences of a rich andsplendour-loving aristocracy. His church of S. Maria di Carignano is oneof the most successful ecclesiastical buildings of the late Renaissance, combining the principles of Bramante and Michael Angelo in close imitationof S. Peter's, and adhering in detail to the canons of the new taste. These canons were based upon a close study of Vitruvius. Palladio, Vignola, and Scamozzi were no less ambitious as authors than asarchitects;[54] their minute analysis of antique treatises on the art ofconstruction led to the formation of exact rules for the treatment of thefive classic orders, the proportions of the chief parts used in building, and the correct method of designing theatres and palaces, church-frontsand cupolas. Thus architecture in its third Renaissance period passed intoscholasticism. The masters of this age, chiefly through the weight of their authority aswriters, exercised a wider European influence than any of theirpredecessors. We English, for example, have given Palladio's name to theItalian style adopted by us in the seventeenth century. This selection ofone man to represent an epoch was due partly no doubt to the prestige ofPalladio's great buildings in the South, but more, I think, to thefacility with which his principles could be assimilated. Depending butlittle for effect upon the arts of decoration, his style was easilyimitated in countries where painting and sculpture were unknown, and wherea genius like Jean Goujon, the Sansovino of the French, has never beendeveloped. To have rivalled the façade of the Certosa would have beenimpossible in London. Yet here Wren produced a cathedral worthy ofcomparison with the proudest of the late Italian edifices. Moreover, theprinciples of taste that governed Europe in the seventeenth century weresuch as found fitter architectural expression in this style than in themore genial and capricious manner of the earlier periods. After reviewing the rise and development of Renaissance architecture, itis almost irresistible to compare the process whereby the builders of thisage learned to use dead forms for the expression of their thoughts, withthe similar process by which the scholars accustomed themselves to Latinmetres and the cadences of Ciceronian periods. [55] The object in each casewas the same--to be as true to the antique as possible, and withoutactually sacrificing the independence of the modern mind, to impose uponit the limitations of a bygone civilisation. At first the enthusiasm forantiquity inspired architects and scholars alike with a desire to imitate_per saltum_, and many works of fervid sympathy and pure artisticintuition were produced. In course of time the laws both of language andconstruction were more accurately studied; invention was superseded bypedantry; after Poliziano and Alberti came Bembo and Palladio. Inproportion as architects learned more about Vitruvius, and scholarsnarrowed their taste to Virgil, the style of both became more cramped andformal. It ceased at last to be possible to express modern ideas freely inthe correct Latinity required by cultivated ears, while no room fororiginality, no scope for poetry of invention, remained in the elaboratedmethod of the architects. Neo-Latin literature dwindled away to nothing, and Palladio was followed by the violent reactionaries of the _barocco_mannerism. In one all-important respect this parallel breaks down. While the laboursof the Latinists subserved the simple process of instruction, by purifyingliterary taste and familiarising the modern mind with the masterpieces ofthe classic authors, the architects created a new common style for Europe. With all its defects, it is not likely that the neo-Roman architecture, soprofoundly studied by the Italians, and so anxiously refined by theirchief masters, will ever wholly cease to be employed. In all cases where agrand and massive edifice, no less suited to purposes of practicalutility than imposing by its splendour, is required, this style ofbuilding will be found the best. Changes of taste and fashion, localcircumstances, and the personal proclivities of modern architects maydetermine the choice of one type rather than another among the numerousexamples furnished by Italian masters. But it is not possible that eitherGreek or Gothic should permanently take the place assigned to neo-Romanarchitecture in the public buildings of European capitals. FOOTNOTES: [10] The question of the genesis of the Lombard style is one of the mostdifficult in Italian art-history. I would not willingly be understood tospeak of Lombard architecture in any sense different from that in whichit is usual to speak of Norman. To suppose that either the Lombards orthe Normans had a style of their own, prior to their occupation ofdistricts from the monuments of which they learned rudely to use thedecayed Roman manner, would be incorrect. Yet it seems impossible to denythat both Normans and Lombards in adapting antecedent models addedsomething of their own, specific to themselves as Northerners. TheLombard, like the Norman or the Rhenish Romanesque, is the first stage inthe progressive mediaeval architecture of its own district. [11] I use the term Lombard architecture here, as defined above (p. 31, note), for the style of building prevalent in Italy during the Lombardoccupation, or just after. [12] The essential difference between Italy and either Northern France orEngland, was that in Italy there existed monuments of Roman greatness, which could never be forgotten by her architects. They always worked withat least half of their attention turned to the past: nor had they theexhilarating sense of free, spontaneous, and progressive invention. Thispoint has been well worked out by Mr. Street in the last chapter of hishook on the _Architecture of North Italy_. [13] Even though it be now proved that not Heinrich von Gmunden, butMarco Frisone da Campione, not a German, but a Milanese, was the firstarchitect, this is none the less true about its style. [14] See Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, p. 153. [15] Pavia, it may be mentioned, has still many towers standing, and thetwo at Bologna are famous. [16] Arnolfo was born in 1232 at Colle, in the Val d'Elsa. He was asculptor as well as architect, the assistant of Niccola Pisano at Siena, and the maker of the tomb of Cardinal de Braye at Orvieto. This tomb isremarkable as the earliest instance of the canopy withdrawn by attendantangels from the dead man's form, afterwards so frequently adopted by thePisan school. [17] Giov. Villani, viii. 26. [18] See Milizia, vol. I. P. 135. These walls were not finished tillsome, time after Arnolfo's death. They lost their ornament of towers inthe siege of 1529, and they are now being rapidly destroyed. [19] From Perkins's _Tuscan Sculptors_, vol. I. P. 54. A recent work bySignor G. J. Cavallucci, entitled _S. Maria del Fiore_, Firenze, 1881, hascreated a revolution in our knowledge regarding this church. [20] Giov. Villani, x. 192. [21] _Illustrated Handbook of Architecture_, book vi. Chap. I. [22] _Ib. _ [23] See Grüner's _Terra Cotta Architecture of North Italy_, plates 3 and4. [24] Compare what Alberti says in his preface to the Treatise onPainting, _Opere_, vol. Iv. P. 12. "Chi mai sì duro e sì invido nonlodasse Pippo architetto vedendo quì struttura si grande, erta sopra icieli, ampla da coprire con sua ombra tutti i popoli toscani, fatta sanzaalcuno aiuto di travamenti o di copia di legname, quale artificio certo, se io ben giudico, come a questi tempi era incredibile potersi, cosìforse appresso gli antiqui fu non saputo nè conosciuto?" [25] What the church of S. Petronio at Bologna would have been, if it hadbeen completed on the scale contemplated, can hardly be imagined. As itstands, it is immense, and coldly bare in its immensity. Yet the presentchurch is but the nave of a temple designed with transepts and choir. Thelength was to have been 800 feet, the width of the transepts 625, thedome 183 feet in diameter. A building so colossal in extent, and somonotonously meagre in conception, could not but have been a failure. [26] Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning_, chap, 1. [27] The following passage quoted from Milizia, _Memorie degliArchitetti_, Parma, 1781, vol. I. P. 135, illustrates the contemptuousattitude of Italian critics to Gothic architecture. After describingArnolfo's building of the Florentine Duomo, he proceeds: "In questoArchitetto si vide qualche leggiero barlume di buona Architettura, comedi Pittura in Cimabue suo contemporaneo. Ma in tutte le cose e fisiche emorali i passaggi si fanno per insensibili gradagioni; onde per lungotempo ancora si mantenne il corrotto gusto, che si può chiamareArabo-Tedesco. " [28] Observe, for example, the casing of a Gothic church at Rimini byAlberti with a series of Roman arches; or the façade of S. Andrea atMantua, where the vast and lofty central arch leads, not into the naveitself, but into a shallow vestibule. [29] See Burckhardt, _Cicerone_, vol. I. P. 167. [30] See De Stendhal, _Histoire de la Peinture en Italie_, p. 122. [31] For a notice of his life, see Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning_, p. 247. [32] The Arch of Augustus at Rimini was the model followed by Alberti inthis façade. He intended to cover the church with a cupola, as may beseen from the design on a medal of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta. See toothe letter written by him to Matteo da Bastia, Alberti, _Opere_, vol. Iv. P. 397. [33] This ancestral palace of the Medici passed in 1659 to the MarcheseGabriele Riccardi, from the Duke Francesco II. [34] Von Reumont, _Lorenzo de' Medici_, vol. Ii. Pp. 187-191, may beconsulted for an interesting account of the building of this Casa Grandeby Filippo Strozzi. The preparations were made with great caution, lestit should seem that a work too magnificent for a simple citizen was beingundertaken; in particular, Filippo so contrived that the costly _opusrusticum_ employed in the construction of the basement should appear tohave been forced upon him. This is characteristic of Florence in the daysof Cosimo. The foundation stone was laid in the morning of August 16, 1489, at the moment when the sun arose above the summits of theCasentino. The hour, prescribed by astrologers as propitious, had beensettled by the horoscope; masses meanwhile were said in several churches, and alms distributed. [35] Antonio Filarete, or Averulino, architect and sculptor, was authorof a treatise on the building of the ideal city, one of the most curiousspecimens of Renaissance fancy, to judge from the account rendered of themanuscript by Rio, vol. Iii. Pp. 321-328. [36] Matteo Civitale, Benedetto da Majano, Mino da Fiesole, Luca dellaRobbia, Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia, Lo Scalza, Omodeo, and theSansovini, not to mention less illustrious sculptors, filled the churchesof Italy with this elaborate stone-work. Among the bronze-founders it isenough to name Ghiberti, Antonio Filarete, Antonio Pollajuolo, Donatelloand his pupil Bertoldo, Andrea Riccio, the master of the candelabrum inS. Antonio at Padua, Jacopo Sansovino, the master of the door of thesacristy in S. Mark's at Venice, Alessandro Leopardi, the master of thestandard-pedestals of the Piazza of S. Mark's. I do not mean these liststo be in any sense exhaustive, but simply to remind the reader of therare and many-sided men of genius who devoted their abilities to thiskind of work. Some of their masterpieces will be noticed in detail in thechapter on Sculpture. [37] Especially his work at Monte Oliveto, near Siena, and in the churchof Monte Oliveto at Naples. The Sala del Cambio at Perugia may also becited as rich in tarsia-work designed by Perugino, while the church of S. Pietro de' Cassinensi outside the city is a museum of masterpiecesexecuted by Fra Damiano da Bergamo and Stefano da Bergamo from designs ofRaphael. Not less beautiful are the inlaid wood panels in the Palace ofUrbino, by Maestro Giacomo of Florence. [38] The churches and palaces of Lombardy are peculiarly rich in thiskind of decoration. The façade of the Oratory of S. Bernardino atPerugia, designed and executed by Agostino di Duccio, is a masterpiece ofrare beauty in this style. [39] Not to mention the Renaissance mosaics of S. Mark's at Venice, thecupola of S. Maria del Popolo at Rome, executed in mosaic by Raphael, deserves special mention. A work illustrative of this cupola is one ofLudwig Grüner's best publications. [40] South Italy and Florence are distinguished by two marked styles inthis decoration of inlaid marbles or _opera di commesso_. Compare theMedicean chapel in S. Lorenzo, for instance, with the high altar of thecathedral of Messina. [41] The roof of the Duomo at Volterra is a fine specimen. [42] It will not be forgotten that Raphael's cartoons were made fortapestry. [43] Bramante Lazzari was born at Castel Durante, near Urbino, in 1444. He spent the early years of his architect's life in Lombardy, in theservice of Lodovico Sforza, and came probably to Rome upon his patron'sdownfall in 1499. [44] See Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, p. 342. [45] See Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, p. 344. See Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_, vol. Viii. P. 127, and the quotation theretranslated from Pallavicini's _History of the Council of Trent_. [46] See Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, pp. 296-298. Vol. II. , _Revivalof Learning_, pp. 161-166. For his architectural designs see his Life, byManetti, book ii. , in Muratori, vol. Iii. Part ii. [47] Gregorovius, vol. Vii. P. 638. [48] Besides the great work of Bonanni, _Templi Vaticani Historia_, I mayrefer my readers to the atlas volume of _Illustrations, Architectural andPictorial, of the Genius of Michael Angelo Buonarroti_, compiled by Mr. Harford (Colnaghi, 1857). Plates 1 to 7 of that work are devoted to theplans of S. Peter's. Plate 4 is specially interesting, since itrepresents in one view the old basilica and the design of Bramante, together with those of Antonio di S. Gallo and Michael Angelo. [49] The subterranean vaults of S. Peter's contain mere fragments oftombs, some precious as historical records, some valuable as works ofart, swept together pell-mell from the ruins of the old basilica. [50] See the original letter to Ammanati, published from the ArchivioBuonarroti, by Signor Milanesi, p. 535. [51] I am far from meaning that the earlier architects had not beenguided by ancient authors. Alberti's _Treatise on the Art of Building_ isa sufficient proof of their study of Vitruvius, and we know that FabioCalvi translated that writer into Italian for Raphael. In the laterRenaissance this study passed into purism. [52] It must be confessed that this grandiose and picturesque structureis but a shell to mask an earlier Gothic edifice. [53] Compare Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning_, p. 370, for the sametransference of power in literature from Central to Northern Italy atthis time. [54] Palladio's _Four Books of Architecture_, first published at Venicein 1570, and Vignola's _Treatise on the Five Orders_, have beentranslated into all the modern languages. Scamozzi projected, and partlyfinished, a comprehensive work on _Universal Architecture_, which wasprinted in 1685 at Venice. [55] See Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning_, chap. Viii. CHAPTER III SCULPTURE Niccola Pisano--Obscurity of the Sources for a History of Early ItalianSculpture--Vasari's Legend of Pisano--Deposition from the Cross atLucca--Study of Nature and the Antique--Sarcophagus at Pisa--PisanPulpit--Niccola's School--Giovanni Pisano--Pulpit in S. Andrea atPistoja--Fragments of his work at Pisa--Tomb of Benedict XI. AtPerugia--Bas-reliefs at Orvieto--Andrea Pisano--Relation of Sculpture toPainting--Giotto--Subordination of Sculpture to Architecture inItaly--Pisano's Influence in Venice--Balduccio of Pisa--Orcagna--TheTabernacle of Orsammichele--The Gates of the Florentine Baptistery--Competition of Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Della Quercia--Comparisonof Ghiberti's and Brunelleschi's Trial-pieces--Comparison of Ghibertiand Della Quercia--The Bas-reliefs of S. Petronio--Ghiberti'sEducation--His Pictorial Style in Bas-relief--His Feeling for theAntique--Donatello--Early Visit to Rome--Christian Subjects--RealisticTreatment--S. George and David--Judith--Equestrian Statue ofGattamelata--Influence of Donatello's Naturalism--Andrea Verocchio--HisDavid--Statue of Colleoni--Alessandro Leopardi--Lionardo's Statue ofFrancesco Sforza--The Pollajuoli--Tombs of Sixtus IV. And InnocentVIII. --Luca della Robbia--His Treatment of Glazed Earthenware--Agostinodi Duccio--The Oratory of S. Bernardino at Perugia--AntonioRossellino--Matteo Civitali--Mino da Fiesole--Benedetto daMajano--Characteristics and Masterpieces of this Group--SepulchralMonuments--Andrea Contucci's Tombs in S. Maria del Popolo--Desiderio daSettignano--Sculpture in S. Francesco at Rimini--VenetianSculpture--Verona--Guido Mazzoni of Modena--Certosa of Pavia--ColleoniChapel at Bergamo--Sansovino at Venice--Pagan Sculpture--Michael Angelo'sScholars--Baccio Bandinelli--Bartolommeo Ammanati--Cellini--GianBologna--Survey of the History of Renaissance Sculpture. In the procession of the fine arts, sculpture always follows close uponthe steps of architecture, and at first appears in some sense as herhandmaid. Mediaeval Italy found her Pheidias in a great man of Pisanorigin, born during the first decade of the thirteenth century. It wasNiccola Pisano, architect and sculptor, who first breathed with the breathof genius life into the dead forms of plastic art. From him we date thedawn of the aesthetical Renaissance with the same certainty as fromPetrarch that of humanism; for he determined the direction not only ofsculpture but also of painting in Italy. To quote the language of LordLindsay's panegyric: "Neither Dante nor Shakspere can boast such extentand durability of influence; for whatever of highest excellence has beenachieved in sculpture and painting, not in Italy only but throughoutEurope, has been in obedience to the impulse he primarily gave, and infollowing up the principle which he first struck out. "[56] In truth, Niccola Pisano put the artist on the right track of combining the study ofantiquity with the study of nature; and to him belongs the credit notmerely of his own achievement, considerable as that may be, but also ofthe work of his immediate scholars and of all who learned from him toportray life. From Niccola Pisano onward to Michael Angelo and Cellini wetrace one genealogy of sculptors, who, though they carried art beyond thesphere of his invention, looked back to him as their progenitor. The manwho first emancipated sculpture from servile bondage, and opened a way forthe attainment of true beauty, would by the Greeks have been honoured witha special cultas as the Hero Eponym of art. It remains for us after ourown fashion to pay some such homage to Pisano. The chief difficulty with which the student of early art and literaturehas to deal, is the insufficiency of positive information. Instead ofaccurate dates and well-established facts he finds a legend, richapparently in detail, but liable at every point to doubt, and subject toattack by plausible conjecture. In the absence of contemporary documentsand other trustworthy sources of instruction, he is tempted to substitutehis own hypotheses for tradition and to reconstruct the faulty outlines offorgotten history according to his own ideas of fitness. The Germans havebeen our masters in this species of destructive, dubitative, restorativecriticism; and it is undoubtedly flattering to the historian's vanity toconstitute himself a judge and arbiter in cases where tact and ingenuitymay claim to sift the scattered fragment of confused narration. Yet toresist this temptation is in many cases a plain and simple duty. Tradition, when not positively disproved, should be allowed to have itsfull value; and a sounder historic sense is exercised in adopting itstestimony with due caution, than in recklessly rejecting it andsubstituting guesses which the lack of knowledge renders unsubstantial. Tradition may err about dates, details, and names. It is just here thatantiquarian research can render valuable help. But there are occasionswhen the perusal of documents and the exercise of what is called thehigher criticism afford no surer basis for opinion. If in such cases alegend has been formed and recorded, the student will advance furthertoward comprehending the spirit of his subject by patiently consideringwhat he knows to be in part perhaps a mythus, than by starting with theforegone conclusion that the legend must of necessity be worthless, andthat his cunning will suffice to supply the missing clue. [57] Thus much I have said by way of preface to what follows upon NiccolaPisano. Almost all we know about him is derived from a couple ofinscriptions, a few contracts, and his Life by Giorgio Vasari. It is clearthat Vasari often wrote with carelessness, confusing dates and places, andtaking no pains to verify the truth of his assertions. Much of Niccola'sbiography reads like a legend in his pages--the popular and oral traditionof a great man, whose panegyric it was more easy in the sixteenth centuryto adorn with rhetoric than to chronicle the details of his life withscrupulous fidelity. A well-founded conviction of Vasari's frequentinaccuracy has induced recent critics to call in question many hithertoaccepted points about the nationality and training of Pisano. Thediscussion, of their arguments I leave for the appendix, contenting myselfat present with relating so much of Vasari's legend as cannot, I think, reasonably be rejected. [58] Before the sculptor appeared in Niccola Pisano, he was already a famousarchitect; and it must always be remembered that he and his schoolsubordinated the plastic to the constructive arts. It was not until theyear 1233, or 1237, according to different modern calculations, that heexecuted his first masterpiece in sculpture. [59] This was a "Depositionfrom the Cross, " in high relief, placed in a lunette over one of the sidedoors of S. Martino at Lucca. The noble forms of this group, the largenessof its style, the breadth of drapery and freedom of action it displays, but, above all, the unity of its design, proclaimed that a new era hadbegun for art. In order to appreciate the importance of this relief, itis only necessary to compare it with the processional treatment of similarsubjects upon early Christian sarcophagi, where each figure stands upstiff and separate, nor can the controlling and combining artist's thoughtbe traced in any effort after composition. Ever since the silver age ofHadrian, when a Bithynian slave by his beauty gave a final impulse to theGenius of Greece, sculpture had been gradually declining until nothing wasleft but a formal repetition of conventional outlines. The so-calledRomanesque and Byzantine styles were but the dotage of second childhood, fumbling with the methods and materials of an irrecoverable past. It istrue, indeed, that unknown mediaeval carvers had shown an instinct for thebeautiful as well as great fertility of grotesque invention. The façadesof Lombard churches are covered with fanciful and sometimes forciblydramatic groups of animals and men in combat; and contemporaneously withNiccola Pisano, many Gothic sculptors of the North were adorning thefaçades and porches of cathedrals with statuary unrivalled in one style ofloveliness. [60] Yet the founder of a line of progressive artists had notarisen, and, except in Italy, the conditions were still wanting underwhich alone the plastic arts could attain to independence. A fresh start, at once conscious and scientific, was imperatively demanded. This newbeginning sculpture took in the brain of Niccola Pisano, who returned fromthe bye-paths of his predecessors to the free field of nature, and wholearned precious lessons from the fragments of classical sculptureexisting in his native town. As though to prove the essential dependenceof the modern revival upon the recovery of antique culture, we find thathis genius, in spite of its powerful originality and profoundly Christianbias, required the confirmation which could only be derived fromGraeco-Roman precedent. In the Campo Santo at Pisa may still be seen asarcophagus representing the story of Hippolytus and Phaedra, where oncereposed the dust of Beatrice, the mother of the pious Countess Matilda ofTuscany. Studying the heroic nudities and noble attitudes of thisbas-relief, Niccola rediscovered the right way of art--not by merelycopying his model, but by divining the secret of the grand style. His workat Pisa contains abundant evidence that, while he could not wholly freehimself from the defects of the later Romanesque manner, betrayed by hischoice of short and square-set types, he nevertheless learned from theantique how to aim at beauty and freedom in his imitation of the livinghuman form. A marble vase, sculptured with Indian Bacchus and his train ofMaenads, gave him further help. From these grave or graceful classic forms, satisfied with their own goodliness, and void of inner symbolism, theChristian sculptor drank the inspiration of Renaissance art. In the"Adoration of the Magi, " carved upon his Pisan pulpit, Madonna assumes thehaughty pose of Theseus' wife; while the high priest, in the"Circumcision, " displays the majesty of Dionysus leaning on the neck ofAmpelus. Nor again is the naked vigour of Hippolytus without its echo inthe figure of the young man--Hercules or Fortitude--upon a bracket of thesame pulpit. These sculptures of Pisano are thus for us a symbol of whathappened in the age of the Revival. The old world and the new shook hands;Christianity and Hellenism kissed each other. And yet they still remainedantagonistic--fused externally by art, but severed in the consciousnessthat, during those strange years of dubious impulse, felt the might ofboth. Monks leaning from Pisano's pulpit preached the sinfulness ofnatural pleasure to women whose eyes were fixed on the adolescent beautyof an athlete. Not far off was the time when Filarete should cast inbronze the legends of Ganymede and Leda for the portals of S. Peter's, when Raphael should mingle a carnival of more than pagan sensuality withBible subjects in Leo's Loggie, when Guglielmo della Porta should placethe naked portrait of Giulia Bella in marble at the feet of Paul III. Uponhis sepulchre. [61] Niccola, meanwhile, did not follow his Roman models in any slavish spirit. They were neither numerous nor excellent enough to compel blind imitationor to paralyse inventive impulse. The thoughts to be expressed in marbleby the first modern artist were not Greek. This in itself saved him fromthat tendency to idle reproduction which proved the ruin of the laterneo-pagan sculptors. Yet the fragments of antique work he found within hisreach, helped him to struggle after a higher quality of style, andestablished standards of successful treatment. For the rest, his choice ofform and the proportions of his figures show that Niccola resorted tonative Tuscan models. If nothing of his handiwork were left but thebas-relief of the "Inferno" on the Pisan pulpit, the torsos of the menstruggling with demons in that composition would prove this point. Itremains his crowning merit to have first expressed the mythology ofChristianity and the sentiment of the Middle Ages with the conscious aimof a real artist. And here it may be noticed that, a true Italian, heinfused but little of intense or mystical emotion into his art. Niccola ismore of a humanist, if this word may be applied to a sculptor, than someof his immediate successors. The hexagonal pulpit in the Baptistery ofPisa, the octagonal pulpit in the cathedral of Siena, the fountain in themarketplace of Perugia, and the shrine of S. Dominic at Bologna, all ofthem designed and partly finished between 1260 and 1274 by Niccola and hisscholars, display his mastery over the art of sculpture in the maturity ofhis genius. So highly did the Pisans prize their fellow-townsman's pulpitthat a law was passed and guardians were appointed for itspreservation--much in the same way as the Zeus of Pheidias was consignedto the care of the Phaidruntai. Niccola Pisano founded a school. His son Giovanni, and the numerous pupilsemployed upon the monuments just mentioned at Siena, Bologna, and Perugia, carried on the tradition of their master, and spread his style abroadthrough Italy. Giovanni Pisano, to whom we owe the Spina Chapel and theCampo Santo at Pisa, the façade of the Sienese Duomo, and the altar-shrineof S. Donato at Arezzo--four of the purest works of Gothic art inItaly--showed a very decided leaning to the vehement and mystic style ofthe Transalpine sculptors. We trace a dramatic intensity in Giovanni'swork, not derived from his father, not caught from study of the antique, and curiously blended with the general characteristics of the Pisanschool. In spite of the Gothic cusps introduced by Niccola into hispulpits, the spirit of his work remained classical. The young Herculesholding the lion's cub in his right hand upon his shoulder, while with hisleft he tames the raging lioness, has the true Italian instinct for areturn to Latin style. The same sympathy with the past is observable inthe self-restraint and comparative coldness of the bas-reliefs at Pisa. The Junonian attitude of Madonna, the senatorial dignity of Simeon, theponderous folding of the drapery, and the massive carriage of the neckthroughout, denote an effort to revivify an antique manner. What, therefore, Niccola effected for sculpture was a classical revival in thevery depth of the Middle Ages. The case is different with his sonGiovanni. Profiting by the labours of his father, and following in hisfootsteps, he carried the new art into another region, and brought agenius of more picturesque and forcible temper into play. The value ofthis new direction given to sculpture for the arts of Italy, especiallyfor painting, cannot be exaggerated. Without Giovanni's intervention, theachievement of Niccola might possibly have been as unproductive ofimmediate results as the Tuscan Romanesque, that mediaeval effort after theRenaissance, was in architecture. [62] The Gothic element, so cautiously adopted by Niccola, is used withsympathy and freedom by his son, whose masterpiece, the pulpit of S. Andrea at Pistoja, might be selected as the supreme triumph of ItalianGothic sculpture. The superiority of that complex and consummate work ofplastic art over the pulpit of the Pisan Baptistery, in all the mostimportant qualities of style and composition, can scarcely be called inquestion. Its only serious fault is an exaggeration of the height of thepillars in proportion to the size of the hexagon they support. Like thepulpits of the Baptistery, of the Duomo of Pisa, and of the Duomo ofSiena, it combines bas-reliefs and detached statues, carved capitals, andsculptured lions, in a maze of marvellous invention; but it has no rivalin the architectonic effect of harmony, and the masterly feeling forbalanced masses it displays. The five subjects chosen by Giovanni for hisbas-reliefs are the "Nativity, " the "Adoration of the Magi, " the "Massacreof the Innocents, " the "Crucifixion, " and the "Last Judgment. " In the"Nativity" our Lady is no longer the Roman matron of Niccola's conception, but a graceful mother, young in years, and bending with the weakness ofchildbirth. Her attitude, exquisite by the suggestion of tenderness anddelicacy, is one that often reappears in the later work of the Pisanschool--for example, in the rough _abozzamento_ in the Campo Santo atPisa, above the north door of the Duomo at Lucca, and at Orvieto on thefaçade of the cathedral; but it has nowhere else been treated with thesame sense of beauty. The "Massacre of the Innocents, " compared with thisrelief, is a tragedy beside an idyll. Here the whole force of Giovanni'seminently dramatic genius comes into full play. Not only has he treatedthe usual incidents of mothers struggling with soldiers and bewailingtheir dead darlings, but he has also introduced a motive, which might wellhave been used by subsequent artists in dealing with the same subjects. Herod is throned in one corner of the composition; before him stand agroup of men and women, some imploring the tyrant for mercy, some defyinghim in impotent despair, and some invoking the curse of God upon his head. In the "Adoration of the Magi, " again, Giovanni shows originality by thedouble action he has chosen to develop. On one side the kings aresleeping, while an angel comes to wake them, pointing out the star. On theother side they fall at the feet of the Madonna. It will be gathered evenfrom these bare descriptions that Giovanni introduced a stir of life andmovement, and felt his subjects with a poetic intensity, alien to theideal of Graeco-Roman sculpture. He effected a fusion between the grandstyle revived by Niccola and the romantic fervour of the modernimagination. It was in this way that the tradition handed down by himproved inestimably serviceable to the painters. The bas-reliefs, however, by no means form the chief attraction of thispulpit. At each of its six angles stand saints, evangelists, and angels, whose symbolism it is not now so easy to decipher. The most beautifulgroups are a company of angels blowing the judgment trumpets, and a wingedyouth standing above a winged lion and bull. These groups separate theseveral compartments of the bas-reliefs, and help to form the body of thepulpit. Beneath, on capital's of the supporting pillars, stand the Sibyls, each with her attendant genius, while prophets lean or crouch within thespandrils of the arches. Thus every portion of this master-work is crowdedwith figures--some detached, some executed in relief; and yet, amid sogreat a multitude, the eye is not confused; the total effect is nowheredissipated. The whole seems governed by one constructive thought, projected as a perfect unity of composition. [63] A later work of Giovanni Pisano was the pulpit executed for the cathedralof Pisa, now unfortunately broken up. An interesting fragment, one of thesupporting columns of the octagon which formed the body of this structure, still exists in the museum of the Campo Santo. It is an allegorical statueof Pisa. The Ghibelline city is personified as a crowned woman, sucklingchildren at her breast, and standing on a pedestal supported by the eagleof the Empire. She wears a girdle of rope seven times knotted, to betokenthe rule of Pisa over seven subject islands. At the four corners of herthrone stand the four human virtues, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, andFortitude, distinguished less by beauty of shape than by determined energyof symbolism. Temperance is a naked woman, with hair twisted in the knotsand curls of a Greek Aphrodite. Justice is old and wrinkled, clothed withmassive drapery, and holding in her hand the scales. Throughout thisgroup there is no attempt to realise forms pleasing to the eye; thesculptor has aimed at suggesting to the mind as many points ofintellectual significance as possible. In spite of ugliness and hardness, the "Allegory of Pisa" commands respect by vigour of conception, andrivets attention by force of execution. A more popular and pleasing monument by Giovanni Pisano is the tomb ofBenedict XI. In the church of S. Domenico at Perugia. The Pope, whose lifewas so obnoxious to the ambition of Philip le Bel that his timely deatharoused suspicion of poison, lies asleep upon his marble bier with handscrossed in an attitude of peaceful expectation. [64] At his head and feetstand angels drawing back the curtains that would else have shrouded thislast slumber of a good man from the eyes of the living. [65] A contrast isthus established between the repose of the dead and the ever-watchfulactivity of celestial ministers. Sleep so guarded, the sculptor seeks totell us, must have glorious waking; and when those hands unfold upon theResurrection morning, the hushed sympathy of the attendant angels willbreak into smiles and singing, as they lead the just man to the Lord heserved in life. Whether Giovanni Pisano had any share in the sculpture on the façade ofthe cathedral at Orvieto, is not known for certain. Vasari asserts thatNiccola and his pupils worked upon this series of bas-reliefs, settingforth the whole Biblical history and the cycle of Christian beliefs fromthe creation of the world to the last judgment. Yet we know that Niccolahimself died at least twelve years before the foundation of the church in1290; nor is there any proof that his immediate scholars were engaged uponthe fabric. The Orvietan archives are singularly silent with regard to amonument of so large extent and vast importance, which must have taxed tothe uttermost the resources of the ablest stone-carvers in Italy. [66]Meanwhile, what Vasari says is valuable only as a witness to the fame ofNiccola Pisano. His manner, as continued and developed by his school, isunmistakable at Orvieto: but in the absence of direct information, we areleft to conjecture the conditions under which this, the closing if not thecrowning achievement of thirteenth-century sculpture, was produced. When the great founder of Italian art visited Siena in 1266 for thecompletion of his pulpit in the Duomo, he found a guild of sculptors, or_taglia-pietri_, in that city, numbering some sixty members, and governedby a rector and three chamberlains. Instead of regarding Niccola withjealousy, these craftsmen only sought to learn his method. Accordingly itseems that a new impulse was given to sculpture in Siena; and famousworkmen arose who combined this art with that of building. The chief ofthese was Lorenzo Maitani, who died in 1330, having designed and carriedto completion the Duomo of Orvieto during his lifetime. [67] While engagedin this great undertaking, Maitani directed a body of architects, stone-carvers, bronze-founders, mosaists, and painters, gathered togetherinto a guild from the chief cities of Tuscany. It cannot be proved thatany of the Pisani, properly so called, were among their number. Lackingevidence to the contrary, we must give to Maitani, the master-spirit ofthe company, full credit for the sculpture carried out in obedience to hisgeneral plan. As the church of S. Francis at Assisi formed an epoch in thehistory of painting, by concentrating the genius of Giotto on a series ofmasterpieces, so the Duomo of Orvieto, by giving free scope to the schoolof Pisa, marked a point in the history of sculpture. It would be difficultto find elsewhere even separate works of greater force and beautybelonging to this, the first or architectural, period of Italiansculpture; and nowhere has the whole body of Christian belief been setforth with method more earnest and with vigour more sustained. [68] Thesubjects selected by these unknown craftsmen for illustration in marble, are in many instances the same as those afterwards painted in fresco byMichael Angelo and Raphael at Borne. Their treatment, for example, of thecreation of Adam and Eve, adopted in all probability from still earlierand ruder workmen, after being refined by the improvements of successivegenerations, may still be observed in the triumphs of the Sistine Chapeland the Loggie. [69] It was the practice of Italian artists not to seekoriginality by diverging from the traditional modes of presentation, butto prove their mastery by rendering these as perfect and effective as thematurity of art could make them. For the Italians, as before them for theGreeks, plagiarism was a word unknown, in all cases where it was possibleto improve upon the invention of less fortunate predecessors. The studentof art may, therefore, now enjoy the pleasure of tracing sculpturesque orpictorial motives from their genesis in some rude fragment to their finaldevelopment in the master-works of a Lionardo or a Raphael, wherescientific grouping of figures, higher idealisation of style, thesuggestion of freer movement, and more varied dramatic expression yield atlast the full flower that the simple germ enfolded. Among the most distinguished scholars of Niccola Pisano's tradition mustnow be mentioned Andrea da Pontadera, called Andrea Pisano, who carriedthe manner of his master to Florence, and helped to fulfil the destiny ofItalian sculpture by submitting it to the rising art of painting. Underthe direction of Giotto he carved statues for the Campanile and the façadeof S. Maria del Fiore; and in the first gate of the Baptistery, hebequeathed a model of bas-relief in bronze, which largely influenced thestyle of masters in the fifteenth century. To overpraise the simplicityand beauty of design, the purity of feeling, and the technical excellenceof Andrea's bronze-work, would be difficult. Many students will always befound to prefer his self-restraint and delicacy to the more florid mannerof Ghiberti. [70] What we chiefly observe in this gate is the controlexercised by the sister art of painting over his mode of conception andtreatment. If Giovanni Pisano developed the dramatic and emphaticqualities of Gothic sculpture, Andrea was attracted to its allegories; ifGiovanni infused romantic vehemence of feeling into the frigid classicismof his father, Andrea diverged upon another track of picturesquedelineation. A new sun had now arisen in the heavens of art. This was thesun of Giotto, whose genius, eminently pictorial, brought the Italians toa true sense of their aesthetical vocation, illuminating with itsbrightness the elder and more technically finished craft of thestone-carver. Sculpture, which in the school of Niccola Pisano had beensubordinate to architecture, became a sub-species of painting in the handsof Andrea. It was thus, as I have elsewhere stated, that the twofold doom of plasticart in Italy was accomplished. In order to embody the ideas ofChristianity, art had to think more of expression than of pure form. Expression is the special sphere of painting; and therefore sculpturefollowed the lead of the sister art, as soon as painting was strong enoughto give that lead, instead of remaining, as in Greece, the mistress of herown domain. On the deeper reasons for this subordination of sculpture topainting I have dwelt already, while showing that a large class ofsubjects, where physical qualities are comparatively indifferent and of noaccount, were forced upon the artist by Christianity. [71] Humility andcharity may be found alike in blooming youth or in ascetic age; nor is itpossible to characterize saints and martyrs by those corporealcharacteristics which distinguish a runner from a boxer, or a chastehuntress from a voluptuous queen of love. Italian sculpture abandoned thepresentation of the naked human body as useless. The emotions written onthe face became of more importance than the modelling of the limbs, andrecourse was had to allegorical symbols or emblematic attitudes for theinterpretation of the artist's thought. Andrea Pisano's figure of Hope, raising hands and eyes toward an offered crown, seems but a repetition ofthe motive expressed by Giotto in the chiaroscuro frescoes of the Arenachapel. [72] Owing to similar causes, drapery, which in Greece had servedto illustrate the structure or the movement of the body it clothed, wasused by the Italian sculptors to conceal the limbs, and to enhance byflowing skirt or sinuous fold or agitated scarf some quality of theemotions. The result was that sculpture assumed a place subordinate topainting, and that the masterpieces of the early Italian carvers arechiefly bas-reliefs--pictures in bronze or marble. [73] In a like degree, though not for the same reason, sculpture in Italyremained subordinate to architecture, until such time as the neo-Hellenismof the full Renaissance produced a crowd of pseudo-classic statues, destined to take their places--not in churches, but in the courtyards ofpalaces and on the open squares of cities. The cause of this fact is notfar to seek. In ancient Greece the temple had been erected for the god, and the statue dwelt within the cella like a master in his house. Christianity forbade an image of the living God; consequently the Churchhad another object than to roof the statue of a deity. It was themeeting-place of a congregation bent on worshipping Him who dwells not inhouses made with hands, and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain. Thevast spaces and aërial arcades of mediaeval architecture had their meaningin relation to the mystic apprehension of an unseen power. It followed ofnecessity that the carved work destined to decorate a Christian templecould never be the main feature of the building. It existed for theChurch, and not the Church for it. [74] Through Andrea Pisano the style of Niccola was extended to Venice. Thereis reason to believe that he instructed Filippo Calendario, to whom weshould ascribe the sculptured corners of the Ducal Palace. Venice, however, invariably exercised her own controlling influence over the artsof aliens; so we find a larger, freer, richer, and more mundane treatmentin these splendid carvings than in aught produced by Pisan workmen fortheir native towns of Tuscany. Nino, the sculptor of the "Madonna della Rosa, " the chief ornament of theSpina chapel, and Tommaso, both sons of Andrea da Pontadera, together withGiovanni Balduccio of Pisa, continued the traditions of the school foundedby Niccola. Balduccio, invited by Azzo Visconti to Milan, carved theshrine of S. Peter Martyr in the church of S. Eustorgio, and impressed hisstyle on Matteo da Campione, the sculptor of the shrine of S. Augustine atPavia. [75] These facts, though briefly stated, are not withoutsignificance. Travellers who have visited the churches of Pavia and Milan, after studying the shrine, or _arca_ as Italians call it, of S. Dominic atBologna, must have noticed the ascendency of Pisan style in these threeLombard towns, and have felt how widely Niccola's creative genius wasexercised. Traces of the same influence may perhaps be observed in thetombs of the Scaligers at Verona. [76] The most eminent pupil of Andrea Pisano, however, was a Florentine--thegreat Andrea Arcagnuolo di Cione, commonly known as Orcagna. This man, like the more illustrious Giotto, was one among the earliest of thosecomprehensive, many-sided natures produced by Florence for her everlastingglory. He studied the goldsmith's craft under his father, Cione, passingthe years of his apprenticeship, like other Tuscan artists, in thetechnical details of an industry that then supplied the strictest methodof design. With his brother, Bernardo, he practised painting. Like Giotto, he was no mean poet;[77] and like all the higher craftsmen of his age, hewas an architect. Though the church of Orsammichele owes its present formto Taddeo Gaddi, Orcagna, as _capo maëstro_ after Gaddi's death, completedthe structure; and though the Loggia de' Lanzi, long ascribed to him bywriters upon architecture, is now known to be the work of Benci di Cione, yet Orcagna's Loggia del Bigallo, more modest but not less beautiful, prepared the way for its construction. Of his genius as a painter, provedby the frescoes in the Strozzi chapel, I shall have to speak hereafter. Asa sculptor he is best known through the tabernacle of Orsammichele, builtto enshrine the picture of the Madonna by Ugolino da Siena. [78] In this monument Orcagna employed carved bas-reliefs and statuettes, intaglios and mosaics, incrustations of agates, enamels, and gilded glasspatterns, with a sense of harmony so refined, and a mastery over each kindof workmanship so perfect, that the whole tabernacle is an epitome of theminor arts of mediaeval Italy. The subordination of sculpture toarchitectural effect is noticeable; and the Giottesque influence appearseven more strongly here than in the gate of Andrea Pisano. This influenceOrcagna received indirectly through his master in stone carving; itformed, indeed, the motive force of figurative art during his lifetime. The subjects of the "Annunciation, " the "Nativity, " the "Marriage of theVirgin, " and the "Adoration of the Three Kings, " framed in octagonalmouldings at the base of the tabernacle, illustrate the domination of aspirit distinct both from the neo-Romanism of Niccola and the Gothicism ofGiovanni Pisano. That spirit is Florentine in a general sense, andspecifically Giottesque. Charity, again, with a flaming heart in her hand, crowned with a flaming brazier, and suckling a child, is Giottesque notonly in allegorical conception but also in choice of type and treatment ofdrapery. While admiring the tabernacle of Orsammichele, we are reminded thatOrcagna was a goldsmith to begin with, and a painter. Sculpture hepractised as an accessory. What the artists of Florence gained in delicacyof execution, accuracy of modelling, and precision of design by theirapprenticeship to the goldsmith's trade, was hardly perhaps sufficient tocompensate for loss of training in a larger style. It was difficult, wefancy, for men so educated to conceive the higher purposes of sculpture. Contented with elaborate workmanship and beauty of detail, they failed toattain to such independence of treatment as may be reached by sculptorswho do not carry to their work the preconceptions of a narrowerhandicraft. Thus even Orcagna's masterpiece may strike us not as theplaything of a Pheidian genius condescending for once to "breathe throughsilver, " but of a consummate goldsmith taxing the resources of his craftto form a monumental jewel. [79] The façade of Orvieto was the final achievement of the first orarchitectural period of Italian sculpture. Giotto, Andrea Pisano, andOrcagna, formed the transition to the second period. To find onecharacteristic title for the style of the fifteenth century is not easy, since it was marked by many distinct peculiarities. If, however, wechoose to call it pictorial, we shall sufficiently mark the quality ofsome eminent masters, and keep in view the supremacy of painting at thisepoch. A great public enterprise at Florence brings together in honourablerivalry the chief craftsmen of the new age, and marks the advent of theRenaissance. When the Signory, in concert with the Arte de' Mercanti, decided to complete the bronze gates of the Baptistery in the first yearof the fifteenth century, they issued a manifesto inviting the sculptorsof Italy to prepare designs for competition. Their call was answered byGiacomo della Quercia of Siena, by Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo diCino Ghiberti of Florence, and by two other Tuscan artists of less note. The young Donatello, aged sixteen, is said to have been consulted as tothe rival merits of the proofs submitted to the judges. Thus the fourgreat masters of Tuscan art in its prime met before the FlorentineBaptistery. [80] Giacomo della Quercia was excluded from the competition atan early stage; but the umpires wavered long between Ghiberti andBrunelleschi, until the latter, with notable generosity, feeling thesuperiority of his rival, and conscious perhaps that his own laurels wereto be gathered in the field of architecture, withdrew his claim. In 1403, Ghiberti received the commission for the first of the two remaining gates. He afterwards obtained the second; and as they were not finished until1452, the better part of his lifetime was spent upon them. He received inall a sum of 30, 798 golden florins for his labour and the cost of thematerial employed. The trial-pieces prepared by Brunelleschi and Ghiberti are now preservedin the Bargello. [81] Their subject is the "Sacrifice of Isaac;" and acomparison of the two leaves no doubt of Ghiberti's superiority. Thefaults of Brunelleschi's model are want of repose and absence ofcomposition. Abraham rushes in a frenzy of murderous agitation at his son, who writhes beneath the knife already at his throat. The angel swoops fromheaven with extended arms, reaching forth one hand to show the ram toAbraham, and clasping the patriarch's wrist with the other. The rammeanwhile is scratching his nose with his near hind leg; one of theservants is taking a thorn from his foot, while the other fills a cup fromthe stream at which the ass is drinking. Thus each figure has a separateuneasy action. Those critics who contend that the unrest ofsixteenth-century sculpture was due to changes in artistic and religiousfeeling wrought by the Renaissance, would do well to examine this plate, and see how much account must be taken of the artist's temperament informing their opinion. Brunelleschi adhered to the style and taste of thefifteenth century at its commencement; but the too fervid quality of hischaracter impaired his work as a sculptor. Ghiberti, on the other hand, translated the calm of his harmonious nature into his composition. Theangel leans from heaven and points to the ram, which is seated quietly andout of sight of the main actors. Isaac kneels in the attitude of asubmissive victim, though his head is turned aside, as if attracted by therush of pinions through the air; while Abraham has but just lifted hishand, and the sacrifice is only suggested as a possibility by the nakedknife. The two servants are grouped below in conversation, one on eachside of the browsing ass. This power of telling a story plainly, butwithout dramatic vehemence; of eliminating the painful details of thesubject, and combining its chief motives into one agreeable whole, gavepeculiar charm to Ghiberti's manner. It marked him as an artistdistinguished by good taste. How Delia Quercia treated the "Sacrifice of Isaac" we do not know. Hisbas-reliefs upon the façade of S. Petronio at Bologna, and round the fontof S. John's Chapel in the cathedral of Siena, enable us, however, tocompare his style with that of Ghiberti in the handling of a subjectcommon to both, the "Creation of Eve. "[82] There is no doubt but thatDella Quercia was a formidable rival. Had the gates of the Baptistery beenentrusted to his execution, we might have possessed a masterpiece of moreheroic style. While smoothness and an almost voluptuous suavity of outlinedistinguish Ghiberti's naked Eve, gliding upheld by angels from the sideof Adam at her Maker's bidding, Della Quercia's group, by theconcentration of robust and rugged power, anticipates the style of MichaelAngelo. Ghiberti treats the subject pictorially, placing his figures in alandscape, and lavishing attendant angels. Della Quercia, in obedience tothe stricter laws of sculpture, restrains his composition to the threechief persons, and brings them into close connection. While Adam reclinesasleep in a beautiful and highly studied attitude, Eve has just steppedforth behind him, and God stands robed in massive drapery, raising Hishand as though to draw her into life. There is, perhaps, an excess ofdramatic action in the lifted right leg of Eve, and too much of pantomimiclanguage in the expressive hands of Eve and her Creator. The robe, again, in its voluminous and snaky coils, and the triangular nimbus of the Deity, convey an effect of heaviness rather than of majesty. Yet we feel, whilestudying this composition, that it is a noble and original attempt, falling but little short of supreme accomplishment. Without thisantecedent sketch, Michael Angelo might not have matured the most completeof all his designs in the Sistine Chapel. The similarity between DeliaQuercia's bas-relief and Buonarroti's fresco of Eve is incontestable. Theyoung Florentine, while an exile in Bologna, and engaged upon the shrineof S. Dominic, must have spent hours of study before the sculptures of S. Petronio; so that this seed of Della Quercia's sowing bore after manyyears the fruit of world-renowned achievement in Rome. Two other memorable works of Della Quercia must be parentheticallymentioned. These are the Fonte Gaja on the public square of Siena, nowunhappily restored, and the portrait of Ilaria del Carretto on her tomb inthe cathedral of Lucca. The latter has long been dear to English studentsof Italian art through words inimitable for their strength of sympatheticcriticism. [83] Ghiberti was brought up as a goldsmith by his stepfather, and it is saidthat while a youth he spent much of his leisure in modelling portraits andcasting imitations of antique gems and coins for his friends. At the sametime he practised painting. We find him employed in decorating a palace atRimini for Carlo Malatesta, when his stepfather recalled him to Florence, in order that he might compete for the gate of the Baptistery. It isprobable that from this early training Ghiberti derived the delicacy ofstyle and smoothness of execution that are reckoned among the chief meritsof his work. He also developed a manner more pictorial than sculpturesque, which justifies our calling him a painter in bronze. When Sir JoshuaReynolds remarked, "Ghiberti's landscape and buildings occupied so large aportion of the compartments, that the figures remained but secondaryobjects, "[84] his criticism might fairly have been taxed with someinjustice even to the second of the two gates. Yet, though exaggerated inseverity, his words convey a truth important for the understanding of thisperiod of Italian art. The first gate may be cited as the supreme achievement of bronze-castingin the Tuscan prime. In the second, by the introduction of elaboratelandscapes and the massing together of figures arranged in multitudes atthree and sometimes four distances, Ghiberti overstepped the limits thatseparate sculpture from painting. Having learned perspective fromBrunelleschi, he was eager to apply this new science to his own craft, notdiscerning that it has no place in noble bas-relief. He thereforeabandoned the classical and the early Tuscan tradition, whereby reliefs, whether high or low, are strictly restrained to figures arranged in lineor grouped together without accessories. Instead of painting frescoes, heset himself to model in bronze whole compositions that might have beenexpressed with propriety in colour. The point of Sir Joshua's criticism, therefore, is that Ghiberti's practice of distributing figures on a smallscale in spacious landscape framework was at variance with the severity ofsculptural treatment. The pernicious effect of his example may be tracedin much Florentine work of the mid Renaissance period which passed forsupremely clever when it was produced. What the unique genius of Ghibertimade not merely pardonable but even admirable, became under other hands noless repulsive than the transference of pictorial effects to paintedglass. [85] That Ghiberti was not a great sculptor of statues is proved by his work atOrsammichele. He was no architect, as we know from his incompetence to domore than impede Brunelleschi in the building of the dome. He came intothe world to create a new and inimitable style of hybrid beauty in thosegates of Paradise. His susceptibility to the first influences of theclassical revival deserves notice here, since it shows to what an extent adevotee of Greek art in the fifteenth century could worship the relics ofantiquity without passing over into imitation. When the "Hermaphrodite"was discovered in the vineyard of S. Celso, Ghiberti's admiration foundvent in exclamations like the following: "No tongue could describe thelearning and art displayed in it, or do justice to its masterly style. "Another antique, found near Florence, must, he conjectures, have beenhidden out of harm's way by "some gentle spirit in the early days ofChristianity. " "The touch only, " he adds, "can discover its beauties, which escape the sense of sight in any light. "[86] It would be impossibleto express a reverential love of ancient art more tenderly than is done inthese sentences. So intense was Ghiberti's passion for the Greeks, that herejected Christian chronology and reckoned by Olympiads--a system that hasthrown obscurity over his otherwise precious notes of Tuscan artists. Inspite of this devotion, he never appears to have set himself consciouslyto reproduce the style of Greek sculpture, or to have set forth Hellenicideas. He remained unaffectedly natural, and in a true sense Christian. The paganism of the Renaissance is a phrase with no more meaning for himthan for that still more delicate Florentine spirit, Luca della Robbia;and if his works are classical, they are so only in Goethe's sense, whenhe pronounced, "the point is for a work to be thoroughly good, and then itis sure to be classical. " One great advantage of the early days of the Renaissance over the latterwas this, that pseudo-paganism and pedantry had not as yet distorted thejudgment or misdirected the aims of artists. Contact with the antiqueworld served only to stimulate original endeavour, by leading the studentback to the fountain of all excellence in nature, and by exhibiting typesof perfection in technical processes. To ape the sculptors of Antinous, orto bring to life again the gods who died with Pan, was not yet longed for. Of the impunity with which a sculptor in that period could submit hisgenius to the service and the study of ancient art without sacrificingindividuality, Donatello furnishes a still more illustrious example thanGhiberti. Early in his youth Donatello journeyed with Brunelleschi toRome, in order to acquaint himself with the monuments then extant. Howthoroughly he comprehended the classic spirit is proved by the bronzepatera wrought for his patron Ruberto Martelli, and by the frieze of thetriumphant Bacchus. [87] Yet the great achievements of his genius wereChristian in their sentiment and realistic in their style. The bronze"Magdalen" of the Florentine Baptistery and the bronze "Baptist" of theDuomo at Siena[88] are executed with an unrelenting materialism, not alienindeed to the sincerity of classic art, but divergent from antiquetradition, inasmuch as the ideas of repentant and prophetic asceticism hadno place in Greek mythology. Donatello, with the uncompromising candour of an artist bent on markingcharacter, felt that he was bound to seize the very pith and kernel of hissubject. If a Magdalen were demanded of him, he would not condescend tomodel a Venus and then place a book and skull upon a rock beside her; nordid he imagine that the bloom and beauty of a laughing Faun were fittingattributes for the preacher of repentance. It remained for later artists, intoxicated with antique loveliness and corroded with worldly scepticism, to reproduce the outward semblance of Greek deities under the pretence ofsetting forth the myths of Christianity. Such compromise had not occurredto Donatello. The motive of his art was clearly apprehended, his methodwas sincere; certain phases of profound emotion had to be represented withthe physical characteristics proper to them. The result, ugly and painfulas it may sometimes be, was really more concordant with the spirit ofGreek method than Lionardo's "John" or Correggio's "Magdalen. " That is tosay, it was straightforward and truthful; whereas the strange caprices ofthe later Renaissance too often betrayed a double mind, disloyal alike topaganism and to Christianity, in their effort to combine divergent forces. It may still be argued that such conceptions as sorrow for sin andmortification of the flesh, unflinchingly portrayed by haggard gauntnessin the saints of Donatello, are unfit for sculpturesque expression. A more felicitous embodiment of modern feeling was achieved by Donatelloin "S. George" and "David. " The former is a marble statue placed upon thenorth wall of Orsammichele; the latter is a bronze, cast for Cosimo de'Medici, and now exhibited in the Bargello. [89] Without striving toidealise his models, the sculptor has expressed in both the Christianconception of heroism, fearless in the face of danger, and sustained byfaith. The naked beauty of the boy David and the mailed manhood of S. George are raised to a spiritual region by the type of feature and thepose of body selected to interpret their animating impulse. These are nomere portraits of wrestlers, such, as peopled the groves of Altis atOlympia, no ideals of physical strength translated into brass and marble, like the "Hercules" of Naples or the Vatican. The one is a Christiansoldier ready to engage Apollyon in battle to the death; the other theboy-hero of a marvellous romance. The body in both is but the shrine of anindwelling soul, the instrument and agent of a faith-directed will; andthe crown of their conflict is no wreath of laurel or of parsley. In otherwords, the value of S. George and David to the sculptor lay not in theirstrength and youthful beauty--though he has endowed them with theseexcellent gifts--so much as in their significance for the eternal struggleof the soul with evil. The same power of expressing Christian sentiment ina form of perfect beauty, transcending the Greek type by profoundersuggestion of feeling, is illustrated in the well-known low-relief of anangel's head in profile, technically one of Donatello's most masterlyproductions. [90] It is no part of my present purpose to enumerate the many works ofDonatello in marble and bronze; yet some allusion to their number andvariety is necessary in order to show how widely his influence wasdiffused through Italy. In the monuments of Pope John XXIII. , of CardinalBrancacci, and of Bartolommeo Aragazzi, he subordinated his genius to thetreatment of sepulchral and biographical subjects according totime-honoured Tuscan usage. They were severally placed in Florence, Naples, and Montepulciano. For the cathedral of Prato he executedbas-reliefs of dancing boys; a similar series, intended for thebalustrades of the organ in S. Maria del Fiore, is now preserved in theBargello museum. The exultation of movement has never been expressed instone with more fidelity to the strict rules of plastic art. For hisfriend and patron, Cosimo de' Medici, he cast in bronze the group of"Judith and Holofernes"--a work that illustrates the clumsiness ofrealistic treatment, and deserves to be remembered chiefly for its strangefortunes. When the Medici fled from Florence in 1494, their palace wassacked; the new republic took possession of Donatello's "Judith, " andplaced it on a pedestal before the gate of the Palazzo Vecchio, with thisinscription, ominous to would-be despots: _Exemplum salutis publicae civesposuere. MCCCCXCV_. It now stands near Cellini's "Perseus" under theLoggia de' Lanzi. For the pulpits of S. Lorenzo, Donatello made designs ofintricate bronze bas-reliefs, which were afterwards completed by his pupilBertoldo. These, though better known to travellers, are less excellentthan the reliefs in bronze wrought by Donatello's own hand for the churchof S. Anthony at Padua. [91] To that city he was called in 1451, in orderthat he might model the equestrian statue of Gattamelata. It still standson the Piazza, a masterpiece of scientific bronze-founding, the firstgreat portrait of a general on horseback since the days of Rome. [92] AtPadua, in the hall of the Palazzo della Ragione, is also preserved thewooden horse, which is said to have been constructed by the sculptor forthe noble house of Capodilista. These two examples of equestrian modellingmarked an epoch in Italian statuary. When Donato di Nicolo di Betto Bardi, called Donatello because men lovedhis sweet and cheerful temper, died in 1466 at the age of eighty, thebrightest light of Italian sculpture in its most promising period wasextinguished. Donatello's influence, felt far and wide through Italy, wasof inestimable value in correcting the false direction toward pictorialsculpture which Ghiberti, had he flourished alone at Florence, might havegiven to the art. His style was always eminently masculine. However tastesmay differ about the positive merits of his several works, there can be nodoubt that the principles of sincerity, truth to nature, and technicalaccuracy they illustrate, were all-important in an age that lent itselftoo readily to the caprices of the fancy and the puerilities of floridtaste. To regret that Donatello lacked Ghiberti's exquisite sense ofbeauty, is tantamount to wishing that two of the greatest artists of theworld had made one man between them. Donatello did not, in the strict sense of the term, found a school. [93]Andrea Verocchio, goldsmith, painter, and worker in bronze, was the mostdistinguished of his pupils. To all the arts he practised, Verocchioapplied limited powers, a meagre manner, and a prosaic mind. Yet few menhave exercised at a very critical moment a more decided influence. Themere fact that he numbered Lionardo da Vinci, Lorenzo di Credi, and PietroPerugino among his scholars, proves the esteem of his contemporaries; andwhen we have observed that the type of face selected by Lionardo andtransmitted to his followers, appears also in the pictures of Lorenzo diCredi and is first found in the "David" of Verocchio, we have a right toaffirm that the master of these men was an artist of creative genius aswell as a careful workman. Florence still points with pride to the"Incredulity of Thomas" on the eastern wall of Orsammichele, to the "Boyand Dolphin" in the court of the Palazzo Vecchio, and to the "David" ofthis sculptor: but the first is spoiled by heaviness and angularity ofdrapery; the second, though fanciful and marked by fluttering movement, isbut a caprice; the third outdoes the hardest work of Donatello by itsrealism. Verocchio's "David, " a lad of some seventeen years, has the lean, veined arms of a stone-hewer or gold-beater. As a faithful portrait of thefirst Florentine prentice who came to hand, this statue might have meritbut for the awkward cuirass and kilt that partly drape the figure. The name of Verocchio is best known to the world through the equestrianstatue of Bartolommeo Colleoni. When this great Condottiere, the lastsurviving general trained by Braccio da Montone, died in 1475, hebequeathed a large portion of his wealth to Venice, on condition that hisstatue on horseback should be erected in the Piazza di S. Marco. Colleoni, having long held the bâton of the Republic, desired that after death hisportrait, in his habit as he lived, should continue to look down on thescene of his old splendour. By an ingenious quibble the Senators adheredto the letter of his will without infringing a law that forbade them tocharge the square of S. Mark with monuments. They ruled that the piazza infront of the Scuola di S. Marco, better known as the Campo di S. Zanipolo, might be chosen as the site of Colleoni's statue, and to Andrea Verocchiowas given the commission for its erection. Andrea died in 1488 before the model for the horse was finished. The workwas completed, and the pedestal was supplied by Alessandro Leopardi. ToVerocchio, profiting by the example of Donatello's "Gattamelata, " must beassigned the general conception of this statue; but the breath of lifethat animates both horse and rider, the richness of detail that enhancesthe massive grandeur of the group, and the fiery spirit of its style ofexecution were due to the Venetian genius of Leopardi. Verocchio aloneproduced nothing so truly magnificent. This joint creation of Florentinescience and Venetian fervour is one of the most precious monuments of theRenaissance. From it we learn what the men who fought the bloodlessbattles of the commonwealths, and who aspired to principality, were like. "He was tall, " writes a biographer of Colleoni, [94] "of erect andwell-knit figure, and of well-proportioned limbs. His complexion tendedrather to brown, marked withal by bright and sanguine flesh-tints. He hadblack eyes; their brilliancy was vivid, their gaze terrible andpenetrating. In the outline of his nose and in all his features hedisplayed a manly nobleness combined with goodness and prudence. " Betterphrases cannot be chosen to describe his statue. While admiring this masterpiece and dwelling on its royal style, we areled to deplore most bitterly the loss of the third equestrian statue ofthe Renaissance. Nothing now remains but a few technical studies made byLionardo da Vinci for his portrait of Francesco Sforza. The two elaboratemodels he constructed and the majority of his minute designs have beendestroyed. He intended, we are told, to represent the first Duke of theSforza dynasty on his charger, trampling the body of a prostrate and justconquered enemy. Rubens' transcript from the "Battle of the Standard, "enables us to comprehend to some extent how Lionardo might have treatedthis motive. The severe and cautious style of Donatello, after gainingfreedom and fervour from Leopardi, was adapted to the ideal presentationof dramatic passion by Lionardo. Thus Gattamelata, Colleoni, and FrancescoSforza would, through their statues, have marked three distinct phases inthe growth of art. The final effort of Italian sculpture to express humanactivity in the person of a mounted warrior has perished. In this spherewe possess nothing which, like the tombs of S. Lorenzo in relation tosepulchral statuary, completes a series of development. If Donatello founded no school, this was far more the case with Ghiberti. His supposed pupil, Antonio del Pollajuolo, showed no sign of Ghiberti'sinfluence, but struck out for himself a style distinguished by almostbrutal energy and bizarre realism--characteristics the very opposite tothose of his master. If the bronze relief of the "Crucifixion" in theBargello be really Pollajuolo's, we may even trace a leaning to Verocchioin his manner. The emphatic passion of the women recalls the group ofmourners round the death-bed of Selvaggia Tornabuoni in Verocchio'scelebrated bas-relief. Pollajuolo, like so many Florentine artists, was agoldsmith, a painter, and a worker in niello, before he took to sculpture. As a goldsmith he is said to have surpassed all his contemporaries, andhis mastery over this art influenced his style in general. What we chieflynotice, however, in his choice of subjects is a frenzy of murderousenthusiasm, a grimness of imagination, rare among Italian artists. Thepicture in the Uffizzi of "Hercules and Antaeus" and the well-knownengraving of naked men fighting a series of savage duels in a wood, mightbe chosen as emphatic illustrations of his favourite motives. The fiercestemotions of the Renaissance find expression in the clenched teeth, strained muscles, knotted brows, and tense nerves, depicted by Pollajuolowith eccentric energy. We seem to be assisting at some of those combats _asteccato chiuso_ wherein Sixtus IV. Delighted, or to have before our eyesa fray between Crocensi and Vallensi in the streets of Rome. [95] The sameremarks apply to the terra-cotta relief by Pollajuolo in the SouthKensington Museum. This piece displays the struggles of twelve naked men, divided into six pairs of combatants. Two of the couples hold short chainswith the left hand, and seek to stab each other with the right. In thecase of another two couples the fight is over, and the victor is insultinghis fallen foe. In each of the remaining pairs one gladiator is on thepoint of yielding to his adversary. There are thus three several momentsof duel to the death, each illustrated by two couples. The mathematicaldistribution of these dreadful groups gives an effect of frozen passion;while the vigorous workmanship displays not only an enthusiasm formuscular anatomy, but a real sympathy with blood-fury in the artist. There was, therefore, a certain propriety in the choice of Pollajuolo tocast the sepulchre of Sixtus IV. In bronze at Rome. The best judgescomplain, not without reason, that the allegories surrounding this tombare exaggerated and affected in style; yet the dead Pope, stretched inpomp upon his bier, commands more than merely historical interest; whilethe figures, seated as guardians round the old man, terrible in death, communicate an impression of monumental majesty. Criticised in detail, each separate figure may be faulty. The composition, as a whole, ispicturesque and grandiose. The same can scarcely be said about the tomb ofInnocent VIII. , erected by Antonio and his brother Piero del Pollajuolo. While it perpetuates the memory of an uninteresting Pontiff, it has butlittle, as a work of art, to recommend it. The Pollajuoli were not greatsculptors. In the history of Italian art they deserve a place, because ofthe vivid personality impressed upon some portions of their work. Fewdraughtsmen carried the study of muscular anatomy so far as Antonio. [96] Luca della Robbia, whose life embraced the first eighty years of thefifteenth century, offers in many important respects a contrast to hiscontemporaries Ghiberti and Donatello, and still more to their immediatefollowers. He made his art as true to life as it is possible to be, without the rugged realism of Donatello or the somewhat effeminate gracesof Ghiberti. The charm of his work is never impaired by scientificmannerism--that stumbling-block to critics like De Stendhal in the art ofFlorence; nor does it suffer from the picturesqueness of a sentimentalstyle. How to render the beauty of nature in her most delightfulmoments--taking us with him into the holiest of holies, and handling thesacred vessels with a child's confiding boldness--was a secret known toLuca della Robbia alone. We may well find food for meditation in theinnocent and cheerful inspiration of this man, whose lifetime coincidedwith a period of sordid passions and debased ambition in the Church andStates of Italy. Luca was apprenticed in his youth to a goldsmith; but of what he wroughtbefore the age of forty-five, we know but little. [97] At that time hisfaculty had attained full maturity, and he produced the groups of dancingchildren and choristers intended for the organ gallery of the Duomo. Wholly free from affectation, and depending for effect upon no merelydecorative detail, these bas-reliefs deserve the praise bestowed by Danteon the sculpture seen in Purgatory:[98]-- Dinanzi a noi pareva si verace, Quivi intagliato in un atto soave, Che non sembrava immagine che tace. Movement has never been suggested in stone with less exaggeration, norhave marble lips been made to utter sweeter and more varied music. Luca'strue perception of the limits to be observed in sculpture, appears mosteminently in the glazed terra-cotta work by which he is best known. Anordinary artist might have found the temptation to aim at showy andpictorial effects in this material overwhelming. Luca restrained himselfto pure white on pale blue, and preserved an exquisite simplicity of linein all his compositions. There is an almost unearthly beauty in theprofiles of his Madonnas, a tempered sweetness in the modulation of theirdrapery and attitude, that prove complete mastery in the art of renderingevanescent moments of expression, the most fragile subtleties of theemotions that can stir a tranquil spirit. Andrea della Robbia, the nephewof Luca, with his four sons, Giovanni, Luca, Ambrogio, and Girolamo, continued to manufacture the glazed earthenware of Luca's invention. Thesemen, though excellent artificers, lacked the fine taste of their teacher. Coarser colours were introduced; the eye was dazzled with variety; but thepower of speaking to the soul as Luca spoke was lost. [99] After the Della Robbias, this is the place to mention Agostino di Gucci ordi Duccio, [100] a sculptor who handled terra-cotta somewhat in the mannerof Donatello's flat-relief, introducing more richness of detail and aimingat more passion than Luca's taste permitted. For the oratory of S. Bernardino at Perugia he designed the façade partly in stone and partly inbaked clay--crowded with figures, flying, singing, playing uponinstruments of music, with waving draperies and windy hair and the ecstasyof movement in their delicately modelled limbs. If nothing else remainedof Agostino's workmanship, this façade alone would place him in the firstrank of contemporary artists. He owed something, perhaps, to his material;for terra-cotta has the charm of improvisation. The hand, obedient to thebrain, has made it in one moment what it is, and no slow hours of labourat the stone have dulled the first caprice of the creative fancy. Work, therefore, which, if translated into marble, might have left our sympathyunstirred, affects us with keen pleasure in the mould of plastic clay. What prodigality of thought and invention has been lavished on theterra-cotta models of unknown Italian artists! What forms and faces, beautiful as shapes of dreams, and, like dreams, so airy that we thinkthey will take flight and vanish, lean to greet us from cloisters andpalace fronts in Lombardy! To catalogue their multitude would beimpossible. It is enough to select one instance out of many; this shall betaken from the chapel of S. Peter Martyr in S. Eustorgio at Milan. High uparound the cupola runs a frieze of angels, singing together and dancingwith joined hands, while bells composed of fruits and flowers hang downbetween them. Each angel is an individual shape of joy; the soul in eachmoves to its own deep melody, but the music made of all is one. Theirraiment flutters, the bells chime; the chorus of their gladness falls likevoices through a star-lit heaven, half-heard in dreams and everlastinglyremembered. Four sculptors, the younger contemporaries of Luca della Robbia, andmarked by certain common qualities, demand attention next. All the work ofAntonio Rossellino, Matteo Civitali, Mino da Fiesole, and Benedetto daMajano, is distinguished by sweetness, grace, tranquillity, andself-restraint--as though these artists had voluntarily imposed limits ontheir genius, refusing to trespass beyond a traced circle of religioussubjects, or to aim at effects unrealisable by purity of outline, suavityof expression, delicacy of feeling, and urbanity of style. The charm ofmanner they possess in common, can scarcely he defined except by similes. The innocence of childhood, the melody of a lute or song-bird asdistinguished from the music of an orchestra, the rathe tints of earlydawn, cheerful light on shallow streams, the serenity of a simple anduntainted nature that has never known the world--many such images occurto the mind while thinking of the sculpture of these men. To charge themwith insipidity, immaturity, and monotony, would be to mistake the forceof genius and skill displayed by them. We should rather assume that theyconfined themselves to certain types of tranquil beauty, without caring torealise more obviously striking effects, and that this was their way ofmeeting the requirements of sculpture considered as a Christian art. Themelody of their design, meanwhile, is like the purest song-music ofPergolese or Salvator Rosa, unapproachably perfect in simple outline, andinexhaustibly refreshing. Though it is possible to characterise the style of these sculptors by somecommon qualities observable in their work, it should rather be the aim ofcriticism to point out their differences. Antonio Rossellino, for example, might be distinguished by his leaning toward the manner of Ghiberti, whoselandscape backgrounds he has adopted in the circular medallions of hismonumental sculpture. A fine perception of the poetic capabilities ofChristian art is displayed in Rossellino's idyllic treatment of theNativity--the adoration of the shepherds, the hush of reverentialstillness in the worship Mary pays her infant son. [101] To the qualitiesof sweetness and tranquillity rare dignity is added in the monument of theyoung Cardinal di Portogallo. [102] The sublimity of the slumber that isdeath has never been more nobly and feelingly portrayed than in the supinefigure and sleeping features of this most beautiful young man, who lieswatched by angels beneath a heavy-curtained canopy. The genii of eternalrepose modelled by Greek sculptors are twin-brothers of Love, on whomperpetual slumber has descended amid poppy-fields by Lethe's stream. Theturmoil of the world is over for them; they will never wake again; they donot even dream. Sleep is the only power that still has life in them. Butthe Christian cannot thus conceive the mystery of the soul "fallen onsleep. " His art must suggest a time of waiting and a time of waking; andthis it does partly through the ministration of attendant angels, whowould not be standing there on guard if the clay-cold corpse had nofuturity, partly by breathing upon the limbs and visage of the dead aspirit as of life suspended for a while. Thus the soul herself is imagedin the marble "most sweetly slumbering in the gates of dreams. " What Vespasiano tells us of this cardinal, born of the royal house ofPortugal, adds the virtue of sincerity to Rossellino's work, proving thereis no flattery of the dead man in his sculpture. [103] "Among his otheradmirable virtues, " says the biographer, "Messer Jacopo di Portogallodetermined to preserve his virginity, though he was beautiful above allothers of his age. Consequently he avoided all things that might proveimpediments to his vow, such as free discourse, the society of women, balls, and songs. In this mortal flesh he lived as though he had been freefrom it--the life, we may say, rather of an angel than a man. And if hisbiography were written from his childhood to his death, it would be notonly an ensample, but confusion to the world. Upon his monument the handwas modelled from his own, and the face is very like him, for he was mostlovely in his person, but still more in his soul. " While contemplating this monument of the young cardinal, we feel that theItalians of that age understood sepulchral sculpture far better than theirimmediate successors. They knew how to carve the very soul, according tothe lines which our Webster, a keen observer of all things relating tothe grave and death, has put into Jolenta's lips:-- But indeed, If ever I would have mine drawn to the life, I would have a painter steal it at such time I were devoutly kneeling at my prayers; There is then a heavenly beauty in't; _the soul Moves in the superficies_. The same Webster condemns that evil custom of aping life and movement onthe monuments of dead men, which began to obtain when the motives of purerepose had been exhausted. "Why, " asks the Duchess of Malfi, "do we growfantastical in our death-bed? Do we affect fashion in the grave?" "Mostambitiously, " answers Bosola; "princes' images on their tombs do not lieas they were wont, seeming to pray up to heaven; but with their handsunder their cheeks (as if they died of the toothache): they are not carvedwith their eyes fixed upon the stars; but, as their minds were wholly bentupon the world, the self-same way they seem to turn their faces. " A moretrenchant criticism than this could hardly have been pronounced uponAndrea Contucci di Monte Sansavino's tombs of Ascanio Sforza and Girolamodella Rovere, if Bosola had been standing before them in the church of S. Maria del Popolo when he spoke. Were it the function of monumentalsculpture to satirise the dead, or to point out their characteristicfaults for the warning of posterity, then the sepulchres of these worldlycardinals of Sixtus IV. 's creation would be artistically justified. Butthe object of art is not this. The idea of death, as conceived byChristians, has to be portrayed. The repose of the just, the resurrectionof the body, and the coming judgment, afford sufficient scope fortreatment of good men and bad alike. Or if the sculptor have sublimeimagination, he may, like Michael Angelo, suggest the alternations of theday and night, slumber and waking, whereby "our little life is roundedwith a sleep. " This digression will hardly be thought superfluous when we reflect howlarge a part of the sculptor's energy was spent on tombs in Italy. MatteoCivitali of Lucca was at least Rossellino's equal in the sculpturesquedelineation of spiritual qualities; but the motives he chose for treatmentwere more varied. All his work is penetrated with deep, prayerful, intensefeeling; as though the artist's soul, poured forth in ecstasy andadoration, had been given to the marble. This is especially true of twoangels kneeling upon the altar of the Chapel of the Sacrament in LuccaCathedral. Civitali, by singular good fortune, was chosen in the bestyears of his life to adorn the cathedral of his native city; and it ishere, rather than at Genoa, where much of his sculpture may also be seen, that he deserves to be studied. For the people of Lucca he designed theChapel of the Santo Volto--a gem of the purest Renaissancearchitecture--and a pulpit in the same style. His most remarkablesculpture is to be found in three monuments: the tombs of Domenico Bertiniand Pietro da Noceto, and the altar of S. Regulus. The last might bechosen as an epitome of all that is most characteristic in Tuscansculpture of the earlier Renaissance. It is built against the wall, andarchitecturally designed so as to comprehend a full-length figure of thebishop stretched upon his bier and watched by angels, a group of Madonnaand her child seated above him, a row of standing saints below, and apredella composed of four delicately finished bas-reliefs. Every part ofthis complex work is conceived with spirit and executed with care; and thevarious elements are so combined as to make one composition, the body ofthe saint on his sarcophagus forming the central object of the whole. To do more than briefly mention the minor sculptors of this group would beimpossible. Mino di Giovanni, called Da Fiesole, was characterised bygrace that tended to degenerate into formality. The tombs in the Abbey ofFlorence have an almost infantine sweetness of style, which might beextremely piquant, were it not that Mino pushed this quality in otherworks to the verge of mannerism. [104] Their architectural features are thesame as those of similar monuments in Tuscany:--a shallow recess, flankedby Renaissance pilasters, and roofed with a semicircular arch; within therecess, the full-length figure of the dead man on a marble coffin ofantique design; in the lunette above, a Madonna carved in low relief. [105]Mino's bust of Bishop Salutati in the cathedral church of Fiesole is apowerful portrait, no less distinguished for vigorous individuality thanconsummate workmanship. The waxlike finish of the finely chiselled marblealone betrays that delicacy which with Mino verged on insipidity. The samefaculty of character delineation is seen in three profiles, now in theBargello Museum, attributed to Mino. They represent Frederick Duke ofUrbino, Battista Sforza, and Galeazzo Sforza. The relief is very low, rising at no point more than half an inch above the surface of the ground, but so carefully modulated as to present a wonderful variety of light andshade, and to render the facial expression with great vividness. Desiderio da Settignano, one of Donatello's few scholars, was endowed withthe same gift of exquisite taste as his friend Mino da Fiesole;[106] buthis inventive faculty was bolder, and his genius more robust, in spite ofthe profuse ornamentation and elaborate finish of his masterpiece, thetomb of Carlo Marsuppini in S. Croce. The bust he made of Marietta diPalla degli Strozzi enables us to compare his style in portraiture withthat of Mino. [107] It would be hard to find elsewhere a more captivatingcombination of womanly sweetness and dignity. We feel, in looking at theseproducts of the best age of Italian sculpture, that the artists whoconceived them were, in the truest sense of the word, gentle. None but mencourteous and unaffected could have carved a face like that of MariettaStrozzi, breathing the very spirit of urbanity. To express the mostamiable qualities of a living person in a work of art that should suggestemotional tranquillity by harmonious treatment, and indicate thetemperance of a disciplined nature by self-restraint and moderation ofstyle, and to do this with the highest technical perfection, was thetriumph of fifteenth-century sculpture. An artist who claims a third place beside Mino and his friend, "il bravoDesider si dolce e bello, "[108] is Benedetto da Majano. In Benedetto'sbas-reliefs at San Gemignano, carved for the altars of those unlovelyTuscan worthies, S. Fina and S. Bartolo, we find a pictorial treatment oflegendary subjects, proving that he had studied Ghirlandajo's frescoes. The same is true about his pulpit in S. Croce at Florence, his treatmentof the story of S. Savino at Faenza, and his "Annunciation" in the churchof Monte Oliveto at Naples. Benedetto, indeed, may be said to illustratethe working of Ghiberti's influence by his liberal use of landscape andarchitectural backgrounds; but the style is rather Ghirlandajo's thanGhiberti's. If it was a mistake in the sculptors of that period tosubordinate their art to painting, the error, we feel, was aggravated bythe imitation of a manner so prosaic as that of Ghirlandajo. ThatBenedetto began life as a _tarsiatore_ may perhaps help to account for hispictorial style in bas-relief. [109] In estimating his total claim as anartist, we must not forget that he designed the formidable and splendidStrozzi Palace. It will be observed that all the sculptors hitherto mentioned have beenTuscans; and this is due to no mere accident--nor yet to caprice on thepart of their historian. Though the other districts of Italy producedadmirable workmen, the direction given to this art proceeded from Tuscany. Florence, the metropolis of modern culture, determined the course of theaesthetical Renaissance. Even at Rimini we cannot account for the carvingsin low relief, so fanciful, so delicately wrought, and so profuselyscattered over the side chapels of S. Francesco, without the interventionof two Florentines, Bernardo Ciuffagni and Donatello's pupil Simone; whilein the palace of Urbino we trace some hand not unlike that of Mino daFiesole at work upon the mouldings of door and architrave, cornice andhigh-built chimney. [110] Not only do we thus find Tuscan craftsmen ortheir scholars employed on all the great public buildings throughoutItaly; but it also happens that, except in Tuscany, the decoration ofchurches and palaces is not unfrequently anonymous. This does not, however, interfere with the truth that sculpture, like allthe arts, assumed a somewhat different character in each Italian city. TheVenetian stone-carvers leaned from the first to a richer and morepassionate style than the Florentine, reproducing the types of Cima's andBellini's paintings. [111] Whole families, like the Bregni--classes, likethe Lombardi--schools, like that of Alessandro Leopardi, worked togetheron the monumental sculpture of S. Zanipolo. In the tombs of the Doges theold Pisan motive of the curtains (first used by Arnolfo di Cambio atOrvieto, and afterwards with grand effect by Giovanni Pisano at Perugia)is expanded into a sumptuous tent-canopy. Pages and genii and mailedheroes take the place of angels, and the marine details of Roman reliefsare copied in the subordinate decoration. At Verona the mediaeval tombs ofthe Scaligers, with their vast chest-like sarcophagi and mounted warriors, exhibit features markedly different from the monuments of Tuscany; whilethe mixture of fresco with sculpture, in monuments like that of theCavalli in S. Anastasia, and in many altar-pieces, is at variance withFlorentine usage. On the terra-cotta mouldings, so frequent in Lombardcities, I have already had occasion to touch briefly. They almostinvariably display a feeling for beauty more sensuous, with less ofscientific purpose in their naturalism, than is common in the Tuscanstyle. Guido Mazzoni of Modena, called Il Modanino, may be mentioned asthe sculptor who freed terra-cotta from its dependence upon architecture, and who modelled groups of overpowering dramatic realism. His "Pietà, " inthe Church of Monte Oliveto at Naples, is valuable, less for itspassionate intensity of expression than for the portraits of Pontano, Sannazzaro, and Alfonso of Aragon. [112] This sub-species of sculpture wasfreely employed in North Italy to stimulate devotion, and to impress thepeople with lively pictures of the Passion. The Sacro Monte at Varallo, for example, is covered with a multitude of chapels, each one of whichpresents some chapter of Bible history dramatically rendered by life-sizegroups of terra-cotta figures. Some of these were designed by eminentpainters, and executed by clever modellers in clay. Even now they arescarcely less stirring to the mind of a devout spectator than the scenesof a mediaeval Mystery may have been. The Certosa of Pavia, lastly, is the centre of a school of sculpture thathas little in common with the Florentine tradition. Antonio Amadeo[113]and Andrea Fusina, acting in concert with Ambrogio Borgognone thepainter, gave it in the fifteenth century that character of rich andcomplex decorative beauty which many generations of artists were destinedto continue and complete. Among the countless sculptors employed upon itsmarvellous façade Amadeo asserts an individuality above the rest, which isfurther manifested in his work in the Cappella Colleoni at Bergamo. Wethere learn to know him, not only as an enthusiastic cultivator of themingled Christian and pagan manner of the _quattrocento_, but as an artistin the truest sense of the word sympathetic. The sepulchral portrait ofMedea, daughter of the great Condottiere, has a grace almost beyond thatof Della Quercia's "Ilaria. "[114] Much, no doubt, is due to the peculiarlyfragile beauty of the girl herself, who lies asleep with little crispcurls clustering upon her forehead, and with a string of pearls around herslender throat. But the sensibility to loveliness so delicate, and thepower to render it in marble with so ethereal a touch upon the rigidstone, belong to the sculptor, and win for him our worship. The list of fifteenth-century sculptors is almost ended; and already, onthe threshold of the sixteenth, stands the mighty form of Michael Angelo. Andrea Contucci da Sansavino and his pupil Jacopo Tatti, called alsoSansovino, after his master, must, however, next be mentioned ascontinuing the Florentine tradition without subservience to the style ofBuonarroti. Andrea da Sansavino was a sculptor in whom for the first timethe faults of the mid-Renaissance period are glaringly apparent. Hepersistently sacrificed simplicity of composition to decorativeostentation, and tranquillity of feeling to theatrical effect. The truthof this will be acknowledged by all who have studied the tombs of thecardinals in S. Maria del Popolo already mentioned, [115] and thebas-reliefs upon the Santa Casa at Loreto. In technical workmanship Andreaproved himself an able craftsman, modelling marble with the plasticity ofwax, and lavishing patterns of the most refined invention. Yet thedecorative prodigality of this master corresponded to the frigid andstylistic graces of the neo-Latin poets. It was so much mannerism--adoptedwithout real passion from the antique, and applied with a rhetoricalintention. Those acanthus scrolls and honeysuckle borders, in spite oftheir consummate finish, fail to arrest attention, leaving the soul asunstirred as the Ovidian cadences of Bembo. Jacopo Tatti was a genius of more distinction. Together with San Gallo andBramante he studied the science of architecture in Rome, where he alsoworked at the restoration of newly discovered antiques, and cast in bronzea copy of the "Laocoon. " Thus equipped with the artistic learning of hisage, he was called in 1523 by the Doge, Andrea Gritti, to Venice. Thematerial pomp of Venice at this epoch, and the pride of her unrivalledluxury, affected his imagination so powerfully that his genius, tutored byFlorentine and Umbrian masters among the ruins of old Rome, became at onceVenetian. In the history of the Renaissance the names of Titian andAretino, themselves acclimatised aliens, are inseparably connected withthat of their friend Sansovino. At Venice he lived until his death in1570, building the Zecca, the Library, the Scala d'Oro in the DucalPalace, and the Loggietta beneath the bell-tower of S. Mark. In all hiswork he subordinated sculpture to architecture, and his statuary isconceived in the _bravura_, manner of Renaissance paganism. Whatever maybe the faults of Sansovino in both arts, it cannot be denied that heexpressed, in a style peculiar to himself, the large voluptuous externallife of Venice at a moment when this city was the Paris or the Corinth ofRenaissance Europe. At the same time, the shallowness of Sansovino'sinspiration as a sculptor is patent in his masterpieces of parade--the"Neptune" and the "Mars, " guarding the Scala d'Oro. Separated from thearchitecture of the court and staircase, they are insignificant in spiteof their colossal scale. In their place they add a haughty grandeur, bythe contrast which their flowing forms and arrogant attitudes present tothe severer lines of the construction. But they are devoid of artisticsincerity, and occupy the same relation to true sculpture as flourishes ofrhetoric, however brilliant, to poetry embodying deep thought or passion. At first sight they impose: on further acquaintance we find them chieflyinteresting as illustrations of a potent civic life upon the wane, gorgeous in its decay. Sansovino was a first-rate craftsman. The most finished specimen of hisskill is the bronze door of the Sacristy of S. Marco, upon which he issaid to have worked through twenty years. Portraits of the sculptor, Titian, and Pietro Aretino are introduced into the decorative border. These heads start from the surface of the gate with astonishing vivacity. That Aretino should thus daily assist in effigy at the procession ofpriests bearing the sacred emblems from the sacristy to the high altar ofS. Mark, is one of the most characteristic proofs of sixteenth-centuryindifference to things holy and things profane. Jacopo Sansovino marks the final intrusion of paganism into modern art. The classical revival had worked but partially and indirectly uponGhiberti and Donatello--not because they did not feel it most intensely, but because they clung to nature far more closely than to antiqueprecedent. This enthusiasm inspired Sansovino with the best and strongestqualities that he can boast; and if his genius had been powerful enough toresist the fascination of merely rhetorical effects, he might haveproduced a perfect restoration of the classic style. His was no lifelessor pedantic imitation of antique fragments, but a real expression of thefervour with which the modern world hailed the discoveries revealed to itby scholarship. This is said advisedly. The most beautiful and spiritedpagan statue of the Renaissance period, justifying the estimate here madeof Sansovino's genius, is the "Bacchus" exhibited in the Bargello Museum. Both the Bacchus and the Satyriscus at his side are triumphs of realism, irradiated and idealised by the sculptor's vivid sense of naturalgladness. Considered as a restitution of the antique manner, this statueis decidedly superior to the "Bacchus" of Michael Angelo. While themundane splendour of Venice gave body and fulness to Sansovino's paganism, he missed the self-restraint and purity of taste peculiar to the studiousshades of Florence. In his style, both architectural and sculptural, theneo-pagan sensuality of Italy expanded all its bloom. For the artist at this period a Greek myth and a Christian legend were allone. Both afforded the occasion for displaying technical skill in fluentforms, devoid of any but voluptuous feeling; while both might besubordinated to rich effects of decoration. [116] To this point theintellectual culture of the fifteenth century had brought the plastic artsof Italy, by a process similar to that which ended in the "PartusVirginis" of Sannazzaro. They were still indisputably vigorous, andworking in accordance with the movement of the modern spirit. Yet thesynthesis they attempted to effect between heathenism and Christianity, bya sheer effort of style, and by indifferentism, strikes us from the pointof view of art alone, not reckoning religion or morality, asunsuccessful. Still, if it be childish on the one hand to deplore that theChristian earnestness of the earlier masters had failed, it would be evenmore ridiculous to complain that paganism had not been more entirelyrecovered. The double-mind of the Renaissance, the source of its weaknessin art as in thought, could not be avoided, because humanity at thismoment had to lose the mediaeval sincerity of faith, and to assimilate thespirit of a bygone civilisation. This, for better or for worse, was thephase through which the intellect of modern Europe was obliged to pass;and those who have confidence in the destinies of the human race, will notspend their strength in moaning over such shortcomings as the periods oftransition bring inevitably with them. The student of Italian history mayindeed more reasonably be allowed to question whether the arts, if left tofollow their own development unchecked, might not have recovered from theconfusion of the Renaissance and have entered on a stage of nobleractivity through earnest and unaffected study of nature. But theenslavement of the country, together with the counter-Reformation, suspended the Renaissance in mid-career; and what remains of Italian artis incomplete. Besides, it must be borne in mind that the confusion ofopinions consequent upon the clash of the modern with the ancient world, left no body of generally accepted beliefs to express; nor has the timeeven yet arrived for a settlement and synthesis that shall be favourableto the activity of the figurative arts. Sansovino himself was neither original nor powerful enough, to elevate themixed motives of Renaissance sculpture by any lofty idealisation. To dothat remained for Michael Angelo. The greatness of Michael Angelo consistsin this--that while literature was sinking into the frivolity of Academiesand the filth of the Bernesque "Capitoli, " while the barefaced villaniesof Aretino won him credit, while sensual magnificence formed the ideal ofartists who were neither Greeks nor Christians, while Ariosto found nosubject fitter for his genius than a glittering romance, he and he alonemaintained the Dantesque dignity of the Italian intellect in hissculpture. Michael Angelo stands so far apart from other men, and is sogigantic a force for good and evil in the history of art, that to estimatehis life and labour in relation to the Renaissance must form the subjectof a separate chapter. For the present it is enough to observe that hisimmediate scholars, Raffaello da Montelupo, and Gian Angelo Montorsoli, caught little from their master but the mannerism of contorted form andagitated action. This mannerism, a blemish even in the strong work ofBuonarroti, became ridiculous when adopted by men of feeble powers andpassionless imagination. By straining the art of sculpture to its utmostlimits, Michael Angelo expressed vehement emotions in marble; and theforced attitudes affected in his work had their value as significant ofspiritual struggle. His imitators showed none of their master's sublimeforce, none of that _terribilità_ which made him unapproachable in socialintercourse and inimitable in art. They merely fancied that dignity andbeauty were to be achieved by placing figures in difficult postures, exaggerated muscular anatomy, and twisting the limbs of their models uponsections of ellipses in uncomfortable attitudes, till the whole of theirwork was writhen into uncouth lines. Buonarroti himself was notresponsible for these results. He wrought out his own ideal with thefirmness of a genius that obeys the law of its own nature, doing alwayswhat it must. That the decadence of sculpture into truculent bravado wasindependent of his direct influence, is further proved by the inefficiencyof his contemporaries. Baccio Bandinelli and Bartolommeo Ammanati filled the squares of theItalian cities with statues of Hercules and Satyrs, Neptune andRiver-gods. We know not whether to select the vulgarity, the feebleness, or the pretentiousness of these pseudo-classical colossi for condemnation. They have nothing Greek about them but their names, their nakedness, andtheir association with myths, the significance whereof was never reallyfelt by the sculptors. Some of Bandinelli's designs, it is true, arevigorous; but they are mere drawings from undraped peasants, life studiesdepicting the human animal. His "Hercules and Cacus, " while it deservesall the sarcasm hurled at it by Cellini, proves that Bandinelli could notrise above the wrestling bout of a porter and a coal-heaver. Nor would itbe possible to invent a motive less in accordance with Greek taste thanthe conceit of Ammanati's fountain at Castello, where Hercules bysqueezing the body of Antaeus makes the drinking water of a city spoutfrom a giant's mouth. Such pitiful misapplications of an art which isdesigned to elevate the commonplace of human form, and to render permanentthe nobler qualities of physical existence, show how superficially andwrongly the antique spirit had been apprehended. Some years before his death Ammanati expressed in public his regret thathe had made so many giants and satyrs, feeling that, by exhibiting formsof lust, brutality, and animalism to the gaze of his fellow-countrymen, hehad sinned against the higher law revealed by Christianity. For a Greekartist to have spoken thus would have been impossible. The Faun, theTitan, and the Satyr had a meaning for him, which he sought to set forthin accordance with the semi-religious, semi-poetical traditions of hisrace; and when he was at work upon a myth of nature-forces, he well knewthat at the other end of the scale, separated by no spiritual barrier, butremoved to an almost infinite distance of refinement, Zeus, Phoebus, andPallas claimed his loftier artistic inspiration. Ammanati's confession, onthe contrary, betrays that schism between the conscience of Christianityand the lusts let loose by ill-assimilated sympathy with antiqueheathenism, which was a marked characteristic of the Renaissance. Thecoarser passions, held in check by ecclesiastical discipline, dared toemerge into the light of day under the supposed sanction of classicalexamples. What the Visconti and the Borgias practised in their secretchambers, the sculptors exposed in marble and the poets in verse. Allalike, however, were mistaken in supposing that antique precedentsanctioned this efflorescence of immorality. No amount of Greek epigramsby Strato and Meleager, nor all the Hermaphrodites and Priapi of Rome, hadpower to annul the law of conduct established by the founders ofChristianity, and ratified by the higher instincts of the Middle Ages. Noragain were artists justified before the bar of conscience in selecting thebaser elements of Paganism for imitation, instead of aiming at Greekself-restraint and Roman strength of character. All this the men of theRenaissance felt when they listened to the voice within them. Their work, therefore, in so far as it pretended to be a reconstruction of the antiquewas false. The sensuality it shared in common with many Greek and Romanmasterpieces, had ceased to be frank and in the true sense pagan. To shakeoff Christianity, and to revert with an untroubled conscience to themanners of a bygone age, was what they could not do. The errors I have attempted to characterise did not, however, prevent thebetter and more careful works of sculpture, executed in illustration ofclassical mythology, from having a true value. The "Perseus" of Celliniand some of Gian Bologna's statues belong to a class of aestheticproductions which show how much that is both original and excellent may beraised in the hotbed of culture. [117] They express a genuine moment of theRenaissance with vigour, and deserve to be ranked with the Latin poetryof Poliziano, Bembo, and Pontano. The worst that can be said of them isthat their inspiration was factitious, and that their motives had beenhandled better in the age of Greek sincerity. Gian Bologna, born at Douai, but a Florentine by education, devotedhimself almost exclusively to mythological sculpture. That he was agreater sculptor than his immediate predecessors will be affirmed by allwho have studied his bronze "Mercury, " the "Venus of Petraja, " and the"Neptune" on the fountain of Bologna. Something of the genuine classicfeeling had passed into his nature. The "Mercury" is not a reminiscence ofany antique statue. It gives in bronze a faithful and spirited reading ofVirgil's lines, and is conceived with artistic purity not unworthy of agood Greek period. The "Neptune" is something more than a muscular oldman; and, in its place, it forms one of the most striking ornaments ofItaly. It is worthy of remark that sculpture, in this stage, continued tobe decorative. Fountains are among the most successful monuments of thelate Renaissance. Even Montorsoli's fountain at Messina is in a high sensepicturesquely beautiful. Casting a glance backward over the foregoing sketch of Italian sculpture, it will be seen that three distinct stages were traversed in the evolutionof this art. The first may be called architectural, the second pictorial, the third neo-pagan. Defined by their artistic purposes, the firstidealises Christian motives; the second is naturalistic; the thirdattempts an idealisation inspired by revived paganism. As far as theRenaissance is concerned, all three are moments in its history; though itwas only during the third that the influences of the classical revivalmade themselves overwhelmingly felt. Niccola Pisano in the first stagemarked a fresh point of departure for his art by a return to Graeco-Romanstandards of the purest type then attainable, in combination with thestudy of nature. Giovanni Pisano effected a fusion between his father'smanner and the Gothic style. The Pisan sculpture was wholly Christian; nordid it attempt to free itself from the service of architecture. Giottoopened the second stage by introducing new motives, employed by him withparamount mastery in painting. Under his influence the sculptors inclinedto picturesque effects, and the direction thus given to sculpture lastedthrough the fifteenth century. For the rest, the style of these masterswas distinguished by a fresh and charming naturalism and by rapid growthin technical processes. While assimilating much of the classical spirit, they remained on the whole Christian; and herein they were confirmed bythe subjects they were chiefly called upon to treat, in the decoration ofaltars, pulpits, church façades, and tombs. The revived interest inantique literature widened their sympathies and supplied their fancy withnew material; but there is no imitative formalism in their work. Itsbeauty consists in a certain immature blending of motives chosen almostindiscriminately from Christian and pagan mythology, vitalised by theimagination of the artist, and presented with the originality of truecreative instinct. During the third stage the results of prolonged andalmost exclusive attention to the classics, on the part of the Italians asa people, make themselves manifest. Collections of antiquities andlibraries had been formed in the fifteenth century; the literary energiesof the nation were devoted to the interpretation of Greek and Latin texts, and the manners of society affected paganism. At the same time a worldlyChurch and a corrupt hierarchy had done their utmost to enfeeble thespirit of Christianity. That art should prove itself sensitive to thisphase of intellectual and social life was natural. Religious subjects werenow treated by the sculptors with superficial formalism and cynicalindifference, while all their ingenuity was bestowed upon providing paganmyths with new forms. How far they succeeded has been already made thematter of inquiry. The most serious condemnation of art in this thirdperiod is that it halted between two opinions, that it could not besincere. But this double-mindedness, as I have tried to show, wasnecessary; and therefore to lament over it is weak. What the Renaissanceachieved for the modern world was the liberation of the reason, the powerof starting on a new career of progress. The false direction given to theart of sculpture at one moment of this intellectual revival may bedeplored; and still more deplorable is the corresponding sensualdebasement of the race who won for us the possibility of freedom. But thelife of humanity is long and vigorous, and the philosopher of historyknows well that the sum total of accomplishment at any time must bediminished by an unavoidable discount. The Renaissance, like a man ofgenius, had the defects of its qualities. FOOTNOTES: [56] _Sketches of the History of Christian Art_, vol. Ii. P. 102. [57] Since I wrote the paragraph above, I have chanced to read Mr. Buskin's eloquent tirade against the modern sceptical school of criticsin his "Mornings in Florence, " _The Vaulted Book_, pp. 105, 106. With thespirit of it I thoroughly agree; feeling that, in the absence of solidevidence to the contrary, I would always rather accept sixteenth-centuryItalian tradition with Vasari, than reject it with German or Englishspeculators of to-day. This does not mean that I wish to swear by Vasari, when he can be proved to have been wrong, but that I regard the presenttendency to mistrust tradition, only because it is tradition, as in thehighest sense uncritical. [58] See Appendix I. , on the Pulpits of Pisa and Ravello. [59] The data is extremely doubtful. Were we to trust internalevidence--the evidence of style and handling--we should be inclined toname this not the earliest but the latest and ripest of Pisano's works. It may be suggested in passing that the form of the lunette wasfavourable to the composition by forcing a gradation in the figures fromthe centre to either side. There is an engraving of this bas-relief inOttley's _Italian School of Design. _ [60] Rheims Cathedral, for example, was begun in 1211. Upon its westernportals is the loveliest of Northern Gothic sculpture. [61] Antonio Filarete was commissioned, soon after 1431, by Eugenius IV. , to make the great gates of S. Peter's. The decorative frameworkrepresents a multitude of living creatures--snails, snakes, lizards, mice, butterflies, and birds--half hidden in foliage, together with thebest known among Greek myths, the Rape of Proserpine, Diana and Actaeon, Europa and the Bull, the Labours of Hercules, &c. Such fables as the Foxand the Stork, the Fox and the Crow, and old stories like that of thedeath of Æschylus, are included in this medley. The monument of Paul III. Is placed in the choir of S. Peter's. Giulia Bella was the mistress ofAlexander VI. , and a sister of the Farnese, who owed his cardinal's hatto her influence. To represent her as an allegory of Truth upon herbrother's tomb might well pass for a grim satire. The Prudence oppositeis said to be a portrait of the Pope's mother, Giovanna Gaëtani. Sheresembles nothing more than a duenna of the type of Martha in Goethe'sFaust. Here, again, the allegory would point a scathing sarcasm, if wedid not remember the naïveté of the Renaissance. [62] See above, Chapter II, Italian want of feeling for Gothic. [63] Having said so much about this pulpit of S. Andrea, I am sorry thatI cannot refer the English reader to any accessible representation of it. For its sake alone, if for no other purpose, Pistoja is well worth avisit. [64] It was long believed that he died of eating poisoned figs. [65] See above, Footnote 16, for the original conception of this motiveat Orvieto. [66] See _Il Duomo di Orvieto, descritto ed illustrato per LodovicoLuzi_, pp. 330-339. [67] See Luzi, pp. 317-328, and the first extant commission given in 1310to Maitani, which follows, pp. 328-330. [68] The whole series has been admirably engraved under thesuperintendence of Ludwig Grüner. Special attention may be directed tothe groups of angels attendant on the Creator in His last day's work; tothe "Adoration of the Shepherds, " distinguished by tender and idyllicgrace: and to the "Adoration of the Magi, " marked no less by majesty. Thedead breaking open the lids of their sarcophagi and rising to judgmentare justly famous for spirited action. [69] In Gothic sculpture of an early date the Bible narrative isliterally represented. God draws Eve from the open side of sleeping Adam. On the façade of Orvieto this motive is less altered than refined. Thewound in Adam's side is visible, but Eve is coming from behind hissleeping body in obedience to the beckoning hand of her Creator. Ghibertiin the bronze gate of the Florentine Baptistery still further developsthe poetic beauty of the motive. Angels lift Eve in the air above Adam, in whose side there is now no open wound, and sustain her face to facewith God, who calls her into life. Della Quercia, on the façade of S. Petronio, confines himself to the creative act, expressed by the raisedhand of the Maker, and the answering attitude of Eve; and this conceptionreceives final treatment from Michael Angelo in the frescoes of theSistine. [70] _Le Tre Porte del Battistero di San Giovanni di Firenze, incise edillustrate_ (Firenze, 1821), contains outlines of all Andrea Pisano's andGhiberti's work. [71] See above, Chapter I, Greek and Christian Ideals. [72] See above, Chapter I, Greek and Christian Ideals. [73] What Giotto himself was, as a designer for sculpture, is shown inthe little reliefs upon the basement of his campanile. [74] What has previously been noted in the chapter upon architecturedeserves repetition here--that the Italian style of building gave morescope to independent sculpture, owing to its preference for flat walls, and its rejection of multiplied niches, canopies, and so forth, than theNorthern Gothic. Thus, however subordinated to architecture, sculpture inItaly still had more scope for self-assertion than in Germany or France. [75] See Perkins, _Italian Sculptors_, p. 109, for a description of theArca di S. Agostino, which he assigns to Matteo and Bonino da Campione. This shrine, now in the Duomo, was made for the sacristy of S. Pietro inCielo d'Oro, where it stood until the year 1832. [76] Bonino da Campione, the Milanese, who may have had a hand in theArca di S. Agostino, carved the tomb of Can Signorio. That of Mastino II. Was executed by another Milanese, Perino. [77] See Trucchi, _Poesie Italiane inedite_, vol. Ii. [78] See the Illustrated work, _Il Tabernacolo della Madonna d'Orsammichele_, Firenze, 1851. [79] The weighty chapter in Alberti's _Treatise on Painting_, lib. Iii. Cap. 5, might be used to support this paragraph. [80] Quercia, born 1374; Ghiberti, 1378; Brunelleschi, 1379; Donatello, 1386. [81] They are engraved in the work cited above, _Le Tre Porte, secondaPorta_, Tavole i. Ii. [82] The bas-reliefs of S. Petronio were executed between 1425 and 1435. Those of the font in the chapel of S. John (not the lower church of S. John), at Siena, are ascribed to Quercia, and are in his manner; but whenthey were finished I do not know. They set forth six subjects from thestory of Adam and Eve, with a compartment devoted to Hercules killing theCentaur Nessus, and another to Samson or Hercules and the Lion. Thechoice of subjects, affording scope for treatment of the nude, ischaracteristic; so is the energy of handling, though rude in detail. Itmay be worth while to notice here a similar series of reliefs upon thefaçade of the Colleoni Chapel at Bergamo, representing scenes from thestory of Adam in conjunction with the labours of Hercules. [83] Ruskin's _Modern Painters_, vol. Ii. Chap, vii. , Repose. [84] See Flaxman's _Lectures on Sculpture_, p. 310. [85] This criticism of the "Gate of Paradise" sounds even to the writerof it profane, and demands a palinode. Who, indeed, can affirm that hewould wish the floating figure of Eve, or the three angels at Abraham'stent-door, other than they are? [86] See the _Commentaries of Ghiberti_, printed in vol. I. Of Vasari(Lemonnier, 1846). [87] The patera is at South Kensington, the frieze at Florence. [88] As also the wooden Baptist in the Frari at Venice. [89] There is another "David, " by Donatello, in marble; also in theBargello, scarcely less stiff and ugly than the "Baptist. " [90] The cast was published by the Arundel Society. The original belongsto Lord Elcho. [91] It has been suggested, with good show of reason, that Mantegna waslargely indebted to these bas-reliefs for his lofty style. [92] This omits the statues of the Scaligers: but no mediaeval work aimedat equal animation. The antique bronze horses at Venice and the statue ofMarcus Aurelius must have been in Donatello's mind. [93] The sculptor of a beautiful tomb erected for the Countess ofMontorio and her infant daughter in the church of S. Bernardino at Aquilawas probably Andrea dell' Aquila, a pupil of Donatello. See Perkins's_Italian Sculptors_, pp. 46, 47. [94] _Istoria della Vita e Fatti dell' eccellentissimo Capitano di guerraBartolommeo Colleoni_, scritta per Pietro Spino. Republished, 1859. [95] See Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, p. 310, note 2. [96] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. Ii. Chap, xvi. , may be consulted as tothe several claims of the two brothers. [97] His bas-reliefs on Giotto's campanile of Grammar, Astronomy, Geometry, Plato, Aristotle, &c. , are anterior to 1445; and even aboutthis date there is uncertainty, some authorities fixing it at 1435. [98] _Purg. _ x. 37, and xi. 68. [99] Among the very best works of the later Robbian school may be citedthe frieze upon the façade of the Ospedale del Ceppo at Pistoja, representing in varied colour, and with graceful vivacity, the Seven Actsof Mercy. Date about 1525. [100] He calls himself Agostinus Florentine Lapicida on his façade of theOratory of S. Bernardino. [101] See especially a roundel in the Bargello, and the altar-piece inthe church of Monte Oliveto at Naples. Those who wish to understandRossellino should study him in the latter place. [102] In the church of Samminiato, near Florence. [103] _Vite di Uomini Illustri_, pp. 152-157. [104] These tombs in the Badia were erected for Count Ugo, Governor ofTuscany under Otho II. , and for Messer Bernardo Giugni. Mino also madethe tomb for Pope Paul II. , parts of which are preserved in the Grotte ofS. Peter's. At Rome he carved a tabernacle for S. Maria in Trastevere, and at Volterra a ciborium for the Baptistery--one of his mostsympathetic productions. The altars in the Baglioni Chapel of S. PietroCassinense at Perugia, in S. Ambrogio at Florence, and in the cathedralof Fiesole, and the pulpit in the Duomo at Prato, may be mentioned amonghis best works. [105] Besides Civitali's altar of S. Regulus, and the tomb of Pietro daNoceto already mentioned, Bernardo Rossellino's monument to LionardoBruni, and Desiderio's monument to Carlo Marsuppini in S. Croce atFlorence, may be cited as eminent examples of Tuscan sepulchres. [106] The wooden statue of the Magdalen in Santa Trinità at Florenceshows Desiderio's approximation to the style of his master. She is acareworn and ascetic saint, with the pathetic traces of great beauty inher emaciated face. [107] This bust is in the Palazzo Strozzi at Florence. [108] So Giovanni Santi, Raphael's father, described Desiderio daSettignano. [109] The following story is told about Benedetto's youth. He made twolarge inlaid chests or _cassoni_, adorned with all the skill of a workerin tarsia, or wood-mosaic, and carried these with him to King MatthiasCorvinus, of Hungary. Part of his journey was performed by sea. Onarriving and unpacking his chests, he found that the sea-damp had ungluedthe fragile wood-mosaic, and all his work was spoiled. This determinedhim to practise the more permanent art of sculpture. See Perkins, vol. I. P. 228. [110] For further description of the sculpture at Rimini, I may refer tomy _Sketches in Italy and Greece_, pp. 250-252. For the student ofItalian art, who has no opportunity of visiting Rimini, it is greatly tobe regretted that these reliefs have never yet even in photography beenreproduced. The palace of Duke Frederick at Urbino was designed byLuziano, a Dalmatian architect, and continued by Baccio Pontelli, aFlorentine. The reliefs of dancing Cupids, white on blue ground, withwings and hair gilt, and the children holding pots of roses andgilly-flowers, in one of its great rooms, may be selected for specialmention. Ambrogio or Ambrogino da Milano, none of whose handiwork isfound in his native district, and who may therefore be supposed to havelearned and practised his art elsewhere, was the sculptor of these trulygenial reliefs. [111] See, for example, the remarkable bas-relief of the Doge LionardoLoredano engraved by Perkins, _Italian Sculptors_, p. 201. [112] Another Modenese, Antonio Begarelli, born in 1479, developed thisart of the _plasticatore_, with quite as much pictorial impressiveness, and in a style of stricter science, than his predecessor Il Modanino. Hismasterpieces are the "Deposition from the Cross" in S. Francesco, and the"Pietà" in S. Pietro, of his native city. [113] The name of this great master is variously written--GiovanniAntonio Amadeo, or Omodeo, or degli Amadei, or de' Madeo, or aMadeo--pointing possibly to the town Madeo as his native place. Through along life he worked upon the fabric of the Milanese Duomo, the Certosa ofPavia, and the Chapel of Colleoni at Bergamo. To him we owe the generaldesign of the façade of the Certosa and the cupola of the Duomo of Milan. For the details of his work and an estimate of his capacity, see Perkins, _Italian Sculptors_, pp. 127-137. [114] This statue was originally intended for a chapel built and endowedby Colleoni at Basella, near Bergamo. When he determined to erect hischapel in S. Maria Maggiore at Bergamo, he entrusted the execution ofthis new work to Amadeo, and the monument of Medea was subsequentlyplaced there. [115] See above, p. 113. I have spelt the name _Sansovino_, when appliedto Jacopo Tatti, in accordance with time-honoured usage. [116] To multiply instances is tedious; but notice in this connection theHermaphroditic statue of S. Sebastian at Orvieto, near the western door. It is a fair work of Lo Scalza. [117] This brief allusion to Cellini must suffice for the moment, as Iintend to treat of him in a separate chapter. CHAPTER IV PAINTING Distribution of Artistic Gifts in Italy--Florence and Venice--Classification by Schools--Stages in the Evolution of Painting--Cimabue--The Rucellai Madonna--Giotto--His widespread Activity--The Scope of hisArt--Vitality--Composition--Colour--Naturalism--Healthiness--Frescoes atAssisi and Padua--Legend of S. Francis--The Giotteschi--Pictures of theLast Judgment--Orcagna in the Strozzi Chapel--Ambrogio Lorenzetti atPisa--Dogmatic Theology--Cappella degli Spagnuoli--Traini's "Triumph, of S. Thomas Aquinas"--Political Doctrine expressed in Fresco--Sala dellaPace at Siena--Religious Art in Siena and Perugia--The Relation of theGiottesque Painters to the Renaissance. It is the duty of the historian of painting to trace the beginnings of artin each of the Italian communities, to differentiate their local styles, and to explain their mutual connections. For the present generation thiswork is being done with all-sufficient thoroughness and accuracy. [118] Thehistorian of culture, on the other hand, for whom the arts form oneimportant branch of intellectual activity, may dispense with thesedetailed inquiries, and may endeavour to seize the more general outlinesof the subject. He need not weigh in balances the claims of rival citiesto priority, nor hamper his review of national progress by discussing thespecial merits of the several schools. Still there are certain broad factsabout the distribution of artistic gifts in Italy which it is necessary tobear in mind. However much we may desire to treat of painting as a phaseof national and not of merely local life, the fundamental difficulty ofItalian history, its complexity and variety, owing to the subdivisions ofthe nation into divers states, must here as elsewhere be acknowledged. Todeny that each of the Italian centres had its own strong personality inart--that painting, as practised in Genoa or Naples, differed from thepainting of Ferrara or Urbino--would be to contradict a law that has beenover and over again insisted upon already in these volumes. The broad outlines of the subject can be briefly stated. Surveying the mapof Italy, we find that we may eliminate from our consideration thenorth-western and the southern provinces. Not from Piedmont nor fromLiguria, not from Rome nor from the extensive kingdom of Naples, doesItalian painting take its origin, or at any period derive importantcontributions. [119] Lombardy, with the exception of Venice, iscomparatively barren of originative elements. [120] To Tuscany, to Umbria, and to Venice, roughly speaking, are due the really creative forces ofItalian painting; and these three districts were marked by strongpeculiarities. In art, as in politics, Florence and Venice exhibitdistinct types of character. [121] The Florentines developed fresco, anddevoted their genius to the expression of thought by scientific design. The Venetians perfected oil-painting, and set forth the glory of the worldas it appeals to the imagination and the senses. The art of Florence mayseem to some judges to savour over-much of intellectual dryness; the artof Venice, in the apprehension of another class of critics, offerssomething over-much of material richness. More allied to the Tuscan thanto the Venetian spirit, the Umbrian masters produced a style of genuineoriginality. The cities of the Central Apennines owed their specificquality of religious fervour to the influences emanating from Assisi, thehead-quarters of the _cultus_ of S. Francis. This pietism, nowhere else soparamount, except for a short period in Siena, constitutes theindividuality of Umbria. With regard to the rest of Italy, the old custom of speaking about schoolsand places, instead of signalising great masters, has led tomisconception, by making it appear that local circumstances were moreimportant than the facts justify. We do not find elsewhere what we find inTuscany, in Umbria, and in Venice--a definite quality, native to thedistrict, shared through many generations by all its painters, andculminating in a few men of commanding genius. When, for instance, wespeak of the School of Milan, what we mean is the continuation throughLionardo da Vinci and his pupils of the Florentine tradition, as modifiedby him and introduced into the Lombard capital. That a special style wasdeveloped by Luini, Ferrari, and other artists of the Milanese duchy, sothat their manner differs essentially from that of Parma and Cremona, doesnot invalidate the importance of this fact about its origin. The name ofRoman School, again, has been given to Raphael and Michael Angelo togetherwith their pupils. The truth is that Rome, for one brief period, duringthe pontificates of Julius and Leo, was the focus of Italian intellect. Allured by the patronage of the Papal Curia, not only artists, butscholars and men of letters, flocked from all the cities of Italy toRome, where they found a nobler sphere for the exercise of their facultiesthan elsewhere. But Rome, while she lent her imperial quality of grandeurto the genius of her aliens, was in no sense originative. Rome produced nofirst-rate master from her own children, if we except Giulio Romano. Thetitle of originality is due rather to Padua, the birthplace of Mantegna, or to Parma, the city of Correggio, whose works display independence ofeither Florentine or Venetian traditions. Yet these great masters wereisolated, neither expressing in any definite form the character of theirdistricts, nor founding a succession of local artists. Their influence wasincontestably great, but widely diffused. Bologna and Ferrara, Brescia andBergamo, Cremona and Verona, have excellent painters; and it is notdifficult to show that in each of these cities art assumed specificcharacters. Yet the interest of the schools in these towns is due mainlyto the varied influences brought to bear upon them from Venice, Umbria, and Milan. In other words they are affiliated, each according to itsgeographical position, to the chief originative centres. What I have advanced in the foregoing paragraphs is not meant for apolemic against the time-honoured division of Italian painters into localschools, but for a justification of my own proposed method of treatment. Having undertaken to deal with painting as the paramount art-product ofthe Renaissance, it will be my object to point out the leadingcharacteristics of aesthetic culture in Italy, rather than to dwell uponits specific differences. The Venetian painters I intend to reserve for aseparate chapter, devoting this and the two next to the general history ofthe art as developed in Tuscany and propagated by Tuscan influences. [122]In pursuing this plan I shall endeavour to show how the successive stagesin the evolution of Italian painting corresponded to similar stages in thehistory of the Renaissance. Beginning as the handmaid of the Church, andstimulated by the enthusiasm of the two great popular monastic orders, painting was at first devoted to embodying the thoughts of mediaevalChristianity. In proportion as the painters fortified themselves by studyof the natural world, their art became more secular. Mysticism gave way torealism. It was felt that much beside religious sentiment was worthy ofexpression. At the same time, about the year 1440, this process ofsecularisation was hastened by the influences of the classical revival, renewing an interest in the past life of humanity, and stirring a zeal forscience. The painters, on the one hand, now aimed at accurate delineationof actual things: good perspective, correct drawing, sound portraiture, occupied their attention, to the exclusion of more purely spiritualmotives. On the other hand they conceived an admiration for the fragmentsof the newly discovered antiques, and felt the plastic beauty of Helleniclegends. It is futile to attempt, as M. Rio has done, to prove that thisabandonment of the religious sphere of earlier art was for painting aplain decline from good to bad, or to make the more or less of spiritualfeeling in a painter's style the test of his degree of excellence; norcan we by any sophistries be brought to believe that the Popes of thefifteenth century were pastoral protectors of solely Christian arts. Thetruth is, that in the Church, in politics, and in society, the fifteenthcentury witnessed a sensible decrease of religious fervour, and a veryconsiderable corruption of morality. Painting felt this change; and thesecularisation, which was inevitable, passed onward into paganism. Yet theart itself cannot be said to have suffered, when on the threshold of thesixteenth century stand the greatest painters whom the world hasknown--neither Catholics nor Heathens, but, in their strength of fullaccomplished art and science, human. After Italy, in the course of thatcentury, had been finally enslaved, then, and not till then, paintingsuffered from the general depression of the national genius. The greatluminaries were extinguished one by one, till none were left but MichaelAngelo in Rome, and Tintoret in Venice. The subsequent history of Italianpainting is occupied with its revival under the influences of thecounter-Reformation, when a new religious sentiment, emasculated andecstatic, was expressed in company with crude naturalism and cruelsensualism by Bolognese and Neapolitan painters. I need scarcely repeat the tale of Cimabue's picture, visited by Charlesof Anjou, and borne in triumph through the streets with trumpeters, beneath a shower of garlands, to S. Maria Novella. [123] Yet this was thebirthday festival of nothing less than what the world now values asItalian painting. In this public act of joy the people of Florencerecognised and paid enthusiastic honour to the art arisen among them fromthe dead. If we rightly consider the matter, it is not a little wonderfulthat a whole community should thus have hailed the presence in their midstof a new spirit of power and beauty. It proves the widespread sensibilityof the Florentines to things of beauty, and shows the sympathy which, emanating from the people, was destined to inspire and brace the artistfor his work. [124] In a dark transept of S. Maria Novella, raised by steps above the level ofthe church, still hangs this famous "Madonna" of the Rucellai--not far, perhaps, from the spot where Boccaccio's youths and maidens met thatTuesday morning in the year of the great plague; nor far, again, fromwhere the solitary woman, beautiful beyond belief, conversed withMachiavelli on the morning of the first of May in 1527. [125] We who cancall to mind the scenes that picture has looked down upon--we who havestudied the rise and decadence of painting throughout Italy from thisbeginning even to the last work of the latest Bolognese--may do well tovisit it with reverence, and to ponder on the race of mighty masters whoselineage here takes its origin. Cimabue did not free his style from what are called Byzantine orRomanesque mannerisms. To unpractised eyes his saints and angels, withtheir stiff draperies and angular attitudes, though they exhibitstateliness and majesty, belong to the same tribe as the grim mosaics andgaunt frescoes of his predecessors. It is only after careful comparisonthat we discover, in this picture of the Rucellai for example, adistinctly fresh endeavour to express emotion and to depict life. Theoutstretched arms of the infant Christ have been copied from nature, notmerely borrowed from tradition. The six kneeling angels display variety ofattitude suited to several shades of devout affection and adoring service. The head of the Madonna, heavy as it is and conventional in type, stillstrives to represent maternal affection mingled with an almost melancholyreverence. Prolonging our study, we are led to ask whether the paintermight not have painted more freely had he chosen--whether, in fact, he wasnot bound down to the antique mode of presentation consecrated by devouttradition. This question occurs with even greater force before thewall-paintings ascribed to Cimabue in the church of S. Francis at Assisi. It remained for Giotto Bondone, born at Vespignano in 1276, just at thedate of Niccola Pisano's death, to carry painting in his lifetime evenfurther than the Pisan sculptor had advanced the sister art. Cimabue, soruns a legend luckily not yet discredited, found the child Giotto amongthe sheep-folds on the solemn Tuscan hill-side, drawing with boyish artthe outline of a sheep upon a stone. [126] The master recognised histalent, and took him from his father's cottage to the Florentine_bottega_, much as young Haydn was taken by Renter to S. Stephen's atVienna. Gifted with a large and comprehensive intellect, capable ofsustained labour, and devoted with the unaffected zeal of a good craftsmanto his art, Giotto in the course of his long career filled Italy with workthat taught succeeding centuries of painters. As we travel from Padua inthe north, where his Arena Chapel sets forth the legend of Mary and thelife of Christ in a series of incomparable frescoes, southward to Naples, where he adorned the convent of S. Chiara, we meet with Giotto in almostevery city. The "Passion of our Lord" and the "Allegories of S. Francis"were painted by him at Assisi. S. Peter's at Borne still shows his mosaicof the "Ship of the Church. " Florence raises his wonderful bell-tower, that lily among campanili, to the sky; and preserves two chapels of S. Croce, illuminated by him with paintings from the stories of S. Francisand S. John. In the chapel of the Podestà he drew the portraits of Dante, Brunetto Latini, and Charles of Valois. And these are but a tithe of hisproductions. Nothing, indeed, in the history of art is more remarkablethan the fertility of this originative genius, no less industrious inlabour than fruitful of results for men who followed him. The sound commonsense, the genial temper, and the humour of the man, as we learn to knowhim in tales made current by Vasari and the novelists, help to explain howhe achieved so much, with energy so untiring and with excellence so even. It is no exaggeration to say that Giotto and his scholars, within thespace of little more than half a century, painted out upon the walls ofthe churches and public palaces of Italy every great conception of theMiddle Ages. And this they achieved without ascetic formalism, energetically, but always reverently, aiming at expressing life anddramatising Scripture history. The tale told about Giotto's first essay indrawing might be chosen as a parable: he was not found beneath a churchroof tracing a mosaic, but on the open mountain, trying to draw theportrait of the living thing committed to his care. What, therefore, Giotto gave to art was, before all things else, vitality. His Madonnas are no longer symbols of a certain phase of pious awe, butpictures of maternal love. The Bride of God suckles her divine infant witha smile, watches him playing with a bird, or stretches out her arms totake him when he turns crying from the hands of the circumcising priest. By choosing incidents like these from real home-life, Giotto, through hispainting, humanised the mysteries of faith, and brought them close tocommon feeling. Nor was the change less in his method than his motives. Before his day painting had been without composition, without charm ofcolour, without suggestion of movement or the play of living energy. Hefirst knew how to distribute figures in the given space with perfectbalance, and how to mass them together in animated groups agreeable to theeye. He caught varied and transient shades of emotion, and expressed themby the posture of the body and the play of feature. The hues of morningand of evening served him. Of all painters he was most successful inpreserving the clearness and the light of pure, well-tempered colours. Hispower of telling a story by gesture and action is unique in its peculiarsimplicity. There are no ornaments or accessories in his pictures. Thewhole force of the artist has been concentrated on rendering the image ofthe life conceived by him. Relying on his knowledge of human nature, andseeking only to make his subject intelligible, no painter is moreunaffectedly pathetic, more unconsciously majestic. While under theinfluence of his genius, we are sincerely glad that the requisite sciencefor clever imitation of landscape and architectural backgrounds was notforthcoming in his age. Art had to go through a toilsome period ofgeometrical and anatomical pedantry, before it could venture, in thefrescoes of Michael Angelo and Raphael, to return with greater wealth ofknowledge on a higher level to the divine simplicity of its childhood inGiotto. In the drawing of the figure Giotto was surpassed by many meaner artistsof the fifteenth century. Nor had he that quality of genius which selectsa high type of beauty, and is scrupulous to shun the commonplace. Thefaces of even his most sacred personages are often almost vulgar. In hischoice of models for saints and apostles we already trace the Florentineinstinct for contemporary portraiture. Yet, though his knowledge ofanatomy was defective, and his taste was realistic, Giotto solved thegreat problem of figurative art far better than more learned andfastidious painters. He never failed to make it manifest that what hemeant to represent was living. Even to the non-existent he gave thesemblance of reality. We cannot help believing in his angels leaningwaist-deep from the blue sky, wringing their hands in agony above theCross, pacing like deacons behind Christ when He washes the feet of Hisdisciples, or sitting watchful and serene upon the empty sepulchre. Hewas, moreover, essentially a fresco-painter, working with rapid decisionon a large scale, aiming at broad effects, and willing to sacrificesubtlety to clearness of expression. The health of his whole nature andhis robust good sense are everywhere apparent in his solid, concrete, human work of art. There is no trace of mysticism, no ecstatic piety, nothing morbid or hysterical, in his imagination. Imbuing whatever hehandled with the force and freshness of actual existence, Giottoapproached the deep things of the Christian faith and the legend of S. Francis in the spirit of a man bent simply on realising the objects of hisbelief as facts. His allegories of "Poverty, " "Chastity, " and "Obedience, "at Assisi, are as beautiful and powerfully felt as they are carefullyconstructed. Yet they conceal no abstruse spiritual meaning, but areplainly painted "for the poor laity of love to read. " The artist poet whocoloured the virginal form of Poverty, with the briars beneath her feetand the roses blooming round her forehead, proved by his well-known_canzone_ that he was free from monastic Quixotism, and took a practicalview of the value of worldly wealth. [127] His homely humour saved him fromthe exaltation and the childishness that formed the weakness of theFranciscan revival. By the same firm grasp upon reality he created morethan mere abstractions in his _chiaroscuro_ figures of the virtues andvices at Padua. Fortitude and Justice, Faith and Envy, are gifted by himwith a real corporeal existence. They seem fit to play their parts withother concrete personalities upon the stage of this world's history. Giotto in truth possessed a share of that power which belonged to theGreek sculptors. He embodies myths in physical forms, adequate to theirintellectual meaning. This was in part the secret of the influence heexercised over the sculptors of the second period;[128] and had theconditions of the age been favourable to such development, some of theallegorical types created by him might have passed into the Pantheon ofpopular worship as deities incarnate. The birth of Italian painting is closely connected with the religious lifeof the Italians. The building of the church of S. Francis at Assisi gaveit the first great impulse; and to the piety aroused by S. Francisthroughout Italy, but mostly in the valleys of the Apennines, it owed itsanimating spirit in the fourteenth century. The church of Assisi isdouble. One structure of nave, and choir, and transept, is imposed uponanother; and the walls of both, from floor to coping-stone, are coveredwith fresco-painted pictures taking here the place occupied by mosaic insuch churches as the cathedral of Monreale, or by coloured glass in thenorthern cathedrals of the pointed style. Many of these frescoes date fromyears before the birth of Giotto. Giunta the Pisan, Gaddo Gaddi, andCimabue, are supposed to have worked there, painfully continuing or feeblystruggling to throw off the decadent traditions of a dying art. In theirschool Giotto laboured, and modern painting arose with the movement of newlife beneath his brush. Here, pondering in his youth upon the story ofChrist's suffering, and in his later manhood on the virtues of S. Francisand his vow, he learned the secret of giving the semblance of flesh andblood reality to Christian thought. His achievement was nothing less thanthis. The Creation, the Fall, the Redemption of the World, the moraldiscipline of man, the Judgment, and the final state of bliss ormisery--all these he quickened into beautiful and breathing forms. Thosewere noble days, when the painter had literally acres of walls given himto cover; when the whole belief of Christendom, grasped by his own faith, and firmly rooted in the faith of the people round him, as yet unimpairedby alien emanations from the world of classic culture, had to be set forthfor the first time in art. His work was then a Bible, a compendium ofgrave divinity and human history, a book embracing all things needful forthe spiritual and the civil life of man. He spoke to men who could notread, for whom there were no printed pages, but whose heart received histeaching through the eye. Thus painting was not then what it is now, adecoration of existence, but a potent and efficient agent in the educationof the race. Such opportunities do not occur twice in the same age. Oncein Greece for the pagan world; once in Italy for the modern world;--thatmust suffice for the education of the human race. Like Niccola Pisano, Giotto not only founded a school in his native city, but spread his manner far and wide over Italy, so that the first period ofthe history of painting is the Giottesque. The Gaddi of Florence, Giottino, Puccio Capanna, the Lorenzetti of Siena, Spinello of Arezzo, Andrea Orcagna, Domenico Veneziano, and the lesser artists of the PisanCampo Santo, were either formed or influenced by him. To give an accountof the frescoes of these painters would be to describe how the religious, social, and philosophical conceptions of the fourteenth century foundcomplete expression in form and colour. By means of allegory and picturedscene they drew the portrait of the Middle Age in Italy, performingjointly and in combination with the followers of Niccola Pisano whatDante had done singly by his poetry. It has often been remarked that the drama of the life beyond thisworld--its prologue in the courts of death, the tragedy of judgment, andthe final state of bliss or misery prepared for souls--preoccupied themind of the Italians at the close of the Middle Ages. Every city had itspictorial representation of the "Dies Irae;" and within this framework theartist was free to set forth his philosophy of human nature, adding suchtouches of satire or admonition as suited his own temper or thecircumstances of the place for which he worked. Dante's poem hasimmortalised this moment of Italian consciousness, when the belief inanother world was used to intensify the emotions of this life--when theinscrutable darkness toward which men travel became for them a black andpolished mirror reflecting with terrible luminousness the events of thepresent and the past. So familiar had the Italians become with the themeof death artistically treated, that they did not shrink from actedpageants of the tragedy of Hell. Giovanni Villani tells us that in 1304the companies and clubs of pleasure, formed for making festival throughoutthe town of Florence on the 1st of May, contended with each other for theprize of novelty and rarity in sports provided for the people. "Among therest, the Borgo S. Friano had it cried about the streets, that whosowished for news from the other world, should find himself on Mayday on thebridge Carraja or the neighbouring banks of Arno. And in Arno theycontrived stages upon boats and various small craft, and made thesemblance and figure of Hell there with flames and other pains andtorments, with men dressed as demons horrible to see; and others had theshape of naked souls; and these they gave unto those divers tortures withexceeding great crying and groaning and confusion, the which seemedhateful and appalling unto eyes and ears. The novelty of the sport drewmany citizens, and the bridge Carraja, then of wood, was so crowded thatit brake in several places and fell with the folk upon it, whereby weremany killed and drowned, and many were disabled; and as the crier hadproclaimed, so now in death went much folk to learn news of the otherworld. " Such being the temper of the people, we find that some of the greatestworks of art in this age were paintings of Death and Hell, Heaven andJudgment. Orcagna, in the Strozzi Chapel of S. Maria Novella, set forththese scenes with a wonderful blending of beauty and grotesque invention. In the treatment of the Inferno he strove to delineate the whole geographyof Dante's first _cantica_, tracing the successive circles and introducingthe various episodes commemorated by the poet. Interesting as this workmay be for the illustration of the "Divine Comedy" as understood byDante's immediate successors, we turn from it with a sense of relief toadmire the saints and angels ranged in goodly row, "each burning upward tohis point of bliss" whereby the painter has depicted Paradise. EarlyItalian art has nothing more truly beautiful to offer than the white-robedMadonna kneeling at the judgment seat of Christ. [129] It will be felt by every genuine student of art that if Orcagna paintedthese frescoes in S. Maria Novella, whereof there is no doubt, he couldnot have executed the wall-paintings in the Campo Santo at Pisa attributedto him by Vasari. To what artists or artist we owe those three grave andawful panels, may still be regarded an open question. [130] At the end ofthe southern wall of the cemetery, exposed to a cold and equal north lightfrom the cloister windows, these great compositions, after the lapse offive centuries, bring us face to face with the most earnest thoughts ofmediaeval Christianity. Their main purpose seems to be to illustrate theadvantage of the ascetic over the secular mode of life, and to school meninto living with the fear of death before their eyes. The first displaysthe solitary vigils, self-imposed penances, cruel temptations, firmendurance, and beatific visions of the anchorites in the Thebaid. Thesecond is devoted to the triumph of Death over the pomp, strength, wealth, and beauty of the world. The third reveals a grimly realistic and yetawfully imaginative vision of judgment, such as it has rarely been grantedto a painter to conceive. Thus to the awakening soul of the Italians, onthe threshold of the modern era, with the sonnets of Petrarch and thestories of Boccaccio sounding in their memories, this terrible masterpresented the three saddest phantoms of the Middle Ages--the spectre ofdeath omnipotent, the solitude of the desert as the only refuge from asinful and doomed world, the dread of Divine justice inexorable andinevitable. In those piles of the promiscuous and abandoned dead, thosefiends and angels poised in mid-air struggling for souls, those blind andmutilated beggars vainly besieging Death with prayers and imprecations fordeliverance, while she descends in her robe of woven wire to mow down withher scythe the knights and ladies in their garden of delight; again inthose horses snuffing at the open graves, those countesses and princesface to face with skeletons, those serpents coiling round the flesh ofwhat was once fair youth or maid, those multitudes of guilty men and womentrembling beneath the trump of the archangel--tearing their cheeks, theirhair, their breasts in agony, because they see Hell through theprison-bars, and hear the raging of its fiends, and feel the clasp upontheir wrists and ankles of clawed hairy demon hands; in all this terrificamalgamation of sinister and tragic ideas, vividly presented, full ofcoarse dramatic power, and intensified by faith in their material reality, the Lorenzetti brethren, if theirs be indeed the hands that painted here, summed up the nightmares of the Middle Age and bequeathed an evermemorable picture of its desolate preoccupations to the rising world. Theyhave called to their aid poetry, and history, and legend. Boccacciosupplies them with the garden scene of youths and damsels dancing amongroses, while the plague is at their gates, and death is in the air above. From Petrarch they have borrowed the form and mystic robe of Deathherself[131]. Uguccione della Faggiuola has sat for the portrait of theCaptain who must quail before the terrors of the tomb, and CastruccioCastracane is the strong man cut off in the blossom of his age. Theprisons of the Visconti have disgorged their victims, cast adrift withmaiming that makes life unendurable but does not hasten death. [132] Thelazar houses and the charnels have been ransacked for forms of grislydecay. Thus the whole work is not merely "an hieroglyphical and shadowedlesson" of ascetic philosophy; it is also a realisation of mediaeval lifein its cruellest intensity and most uncompromising truth. For mere beautythese painters had but little regard. [133] Their distribution of thesubjects chosen for treatment on each panel shows, indeed, a keen sensefor the value of dramatic contrast and a masterly power of varying whilecombining the composition. Their chief aim, however, is to produce theutmost realism of effect, to translate the poignancy of passion, the dreadcertainty of doom, into forms of unmistakable fidelity. Therefore they donot shrink from prosaic and revolting details. The knight who has to holdhis nose above the open grave, the lady who presses her cheek against herhand with a spasm of distress, the horse who pricks his ears and snortswith open nostrils, the grooms who start aside like savage creatures, allsuggest the loathsomeness of death, its physical repulsiveness. In the"Last Judgment" the same kind of dramatic force is used to heighten asublime conception. The crouching attitude and the shrouded face of theArchangel Raphael, whose eyes alone are visible above the hand that he hasthrust forth from his cloak to hide the grief he feels, prove moreemphatically than any less realistic motive could have done, howterrible, even for the cherubic beings to whose guardianship the humanrace has been assigned, will be the trumpet of the wrath of God. [134]Studying these frescoes, we cannot but reflect what nerves, what brains, what hearts encased in triple brass the men who thought and felt thus musthave possessed. They make us comprehend not merely the stern and savagetemper of the Middle Ages, but the intense and fiery ebullition of theRenaissance, into which, as by a sudden liberation, so much imprisonedpent-up force was driven. A different but scarcely less important phase of mediaeval thought isimaged in the frescoes of the Cappella degli Spagnuoli in S. MariaNovella. [135] Dogmatic theology is here in the ascendant. While S. Francisbequeathed a legend of singular suavity and beauty, overflowing with themilk of charity and mildness, to the Church, S. Dominic assumed theattitude of the saint militant and orthodox. Dante's words about him-- L'amoroso drudo[136] Della fede Cristiana, il santo atleta, Benigno a' suoi, ed a' nemici crudo, omit nothing that is needed to characterise the impression produced uponthe Christian world by this remorseless foe of heresy, this champion ofthe faith who dealt in butcheries and burnings. S. Francis taught love; S. Dominic taught wrath: and both, perhaps, were needed for the safety of themediaeval Church--the one by resuscitating the spirit of the Gospels, theother by resisting the intrusion of alien ideals ere the time for theirtriumph had arrived. What the painters of these frescoes undertook todelineate for the Dominicans of Florence, was the fabric of societysustained and held together by the action of inquisitors and doctorsissued from their order. The Pope with his Cardinals, the Emperor with hisCouncil, represent the two chief forces of Christendom, as conceived bythe mediaeval jurists and the school of Dante. Seated on thrones, they areready to rise in defence of Holy Church, symbolised by a picture of S. Maria del Fiore. At their feet the black and white hounds of the Dominicanorder--_Domini canes_, according to the monkish pun--are hunting hereticalwolves. Opposite this painting is the apotheosis of S. Thomas Aquinas. Beneath the footstool of this "dumb ox of Sicily, " as he was called, grovel the heresiarchs--Arius, Sabellius, Averroes. At again a lowerlevel, as though supporting the saint on either hand, are ranged sevensacred and seven profane sciences, each with its chief representative. Thus Rhetoric and Cicero, Civil Law and Justinian, Speculative Theologyand the Areopagite, Practical Theology and Peter Lombard, Geometry andEuclid, Arithmetic and Abraham, are grouped together. It will be seenthat the whole learning of the Middle Age--its philosophy as well as itsdivinity--is here combined as in a figured abstract, for the wise tocomment on and for the simple to peruse. None can avoid drawing the lessonthat knowledge exists for the service of the Church, and that the Church, while she instructs society, will claim complete obedience to her decrees. The _ipse dixit_ of the Dominican author of the "Summa" is law. Such frescoes, by no means uncommon in Dominican cloisters, still retaingreat interest for the student of scholastic thought. In the church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva at Rome, where Galileo was afterwards compelled tosign his famous retractation, Filippino Lippi painted another triumph of S. Thomas, conceived in the spirit of Taddeo Gaddi's, but expressed with thefreedom of the middle Renaissance. Nor should we neglect to notice theremarkable picture by Traini in S. Caterina at Pisa. Here the doctor ofAquino is represented in an aureole surrounded by a golden sphere or disc, on the edge of which are placed the four evangelists, together with Mosesand S. Paul. [137] At his side, within the burnished sphere, Plato andAristotle stand upright, holding the "Timaeus" and the "Ethics" in theirhands. Christ in glory is above the group, emitting from His mouth threerays upon the head of S. Thomas. Single rays descend in like manner uponthe evangelists and Moses and S. Paul. They, like Plato and Aristotle, hold open books; and rays from these eight volumes converge upon the headof the angelical doctor, who becomes the focus, as it were, of all thebeams sent forth from Christ and from the classic teachers, whetherdirectly effused or transmitted through the writers of the Bible. S. Thomas lastly holds a book open in his hand, and carries others on hislap; while lines of light are shed from these upon two bands of thefaithful, chiefly Dominican monks, arranged on each side of his footstool. Averroes lies prostrate beneath his feet with his book face downwards, lightning-smitten by a shaft from the leaves of the volume in the saint'shand, whereon is written: _veritatem meditabitur guttur meum et labia meadetestabuntur impium_. [138] This picture, afterwards repeated by Benozzo Gozzoli with some change inthe persons, [139] has been minutely described, because it is important tobear in mind the measure of inspiration conceded by the mediaeval Church tothe fathers of Greek philosophy, and her utter detestation of theperipatetic traditions transmitted through the Arabic by Averroes. Averroes, though Dante placed him with the great souls of pagancivilisation in the first circle of Inferno, [140] was regarded as theprotagonist of infidelity. The myth of incredulity that gathered round hismemory and made him hated in the Middle Ages, has been traced withexquisite delicacy by Renan, [141] who shows that his name became arallying point for freethinkers. Scholars like Petrarch were eager toconfute his sect, and artists used him as a symbol of materialisticdisbelief. Thus we meet with Averroes among the lost souls in the PisanCampo Santo, distinguished as usual by his turban and long beard. On theother hand, the frank acceptance of pagan philosophy, insofar as it couldbe accommodated to the doctrine of the Church, finds full expression inthe art of this early period. On the walls of the Palazzo Pubblico atSiena were painted the figures of Curius Dentatus and Cato, [142] whilethe pavement of the Duomo showed Hermes Trismegistus instructing both apagan and a Christian, and Socrates ascending the steep hill of virtue. Perugino, some years later, decorated the Sala del Cambio at Perugia withthe heroes, philosophers, and worthies of the ancient world. We are thusled by a gradual progress up to the final achievement of Raphael in theVatican. Separating the antique from the Christian tradition, but placingthem upon an equality in his art, Raphael made the "School of Athens" anepitome of Greek and Roman wisdom, while in the "Dispute of the Sacrament"he symbolised the Church in heaven and Church on earth. Another class of ideas, no less illustrative of mediaevalism, can bestudied in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena. There, on the walls of the Saladella Pace or de' Nove, may be seen the frescoes whereby AmbrogioLorenzetti expressed theories of society and government peculiar to hisage. [143] The panels are three in number. In the first the painter hasdelineated the Commune of Siena by an imperial male figure in the prime oflife, throned on a judgment-seat, holding a sceptre in his right hand anda medallion of Justice in his left. [144] He wears no coronet, but aburgher's cap; and beneath his footstool are the Roman twins, suckled bythe she-wolf. [145] Above his head in the air float Faith, Charity, andHope--the Christian virtues; while Justice, Temperance, Magnanimity, Prudence, Fortitude, and Peace, six women, crowned, and with appropriateemblems, are enthroned beside him. The majestic giant of the Communetowers above them all in bulk and stature, as though to indicate thepeople's sovereignty. The virtues are his assessors and inspirers--he isKing. Beneath the daïs occupied by these supreme personages, are ranged oneither hand mailed and visored cavaliers, mounted on chargers, theguardians of the State. All the citizens in their degrees advance towardthe throne, carrying between them, pair by pair, a rope received from thehands of Concord; while some who have transgressed her laws, are beingbrought with bound hands to the judgment-seat. Concord herself, being lessthe virtue of the government than of the governed, is seated on a linewith the burghers in a place apart beneath the throne of Civil Justice, who is allegorised as the dispenser of rewards and punishments, as well ascontroller of the armed force and the purse of the community. The whole ofthis elaborate allegory suffers by the language of description. Those whohave seen it, and who are familiar with Sienese chronicles, feel that, artistically laboured as the painter's work may be, every figure had apassionate and intense meaning for him[146]. His picture is the epitome ofgovernment conducted by a sovereign people. Nor can we fail to be struckwith the beauty of some details. The pale earnest faces of the horsemenare eminently chivalrous, with knightly honour written on their calm andfearless features. Peace, reclining at ease upon her pillow, is a lovelywoman in loose raiment, her hair wreathed with blossoms, in her hand anolive branch, her feet reposing upon casque and shield. She is like apainted statue, making us wonder whether the artist had not copied herfrom the "Aphrodite" of Lysippus, ere the Sienese destroyed this statue intheir dread of paganism[147]. In the other two panels of this hall Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted thecontrast of good and bad government, harmony and discord. A city full ofbrawls and bloodshed is set in opposition to one where the dance and violdo not cease. Merchants are plundered as they issue from the gates on oneside; on the other, trains of sumpter mules are securely winding alongmountain paths. Tyranny, with all the vices for his council and withTerror for prime minister, presides over the ill-governed town. Theburghers of the happy commune follow trade or pleasure, as they list; abeautiful winged genius, inscribed "Securitas, " floats above theircitadel. It should be added that in both these pictures the architectureis the same; for the painter has designed to teach how different may bethe state of one and the same city according to its form of government. Such then were the vivid images whereby Ambrogio Lorenzetti expressed themediaeval curse of discord, and the ideal of a righteous rule. It is onlynecessary to read the "Diario Sanese" of Allegretto Allegretti in order tosee that he drew no fancy picture. The torchlight procession of burghersswearing amity by couples in the cathedral there described, receives exactpictorial illustration in the fresco of the Sala della Pace[148]. Siena, by her bloody factions and her passionate peacemakings, expressed indaily action what the painter had depicted on her palace walls. The method of treatment adopted for these chapters has obliged me to givepriority to Florence, and to speak of the two Lorenzetti, Pietro in thePisan Campo Santo and Ambrogio in the Sala della Pace at Siena, as thoughthey were followers of Giotto; so true is it that the main currents ofTuscan art were governed by Florentine influences, and that Giotto'sgenius made itself felt in all the work of his immediate successors. Itmust, however, be observed that painting had an independent origin amongthe Sienese, and that Guido da Siena may claim to rank even earlier thanCimabue. [149] In the year 1260, just before engaging in their duel withFlorence, the Sienese dedicated their city to the Virgin; and the victoryof Montaperti, following immediately upon this vow, gave a marked impulseto their piety. [150] The early masters of Siena devoted themselves toreligious paintings, especially to pictures of Madonna suited for chapelsand oratories. We find upon these mystic panels an ecstasy of adorationand a depth of fervour which are alien to the more sober spirit ofFlorence, combined with an almost infantine delight in pure brightcolours, and in the decorative details of the miniaturist. The first great painter among the Sienese was Duccio di Buoninsegna. [151]The completion of his masterpiece--a picture of the Majesty of the Virgin, executed for the high altar of the Duomo--marked an epoch in the historyof Siena. Nearly two years had been spent upon it; the painter receivingsixteen soldi a day from the Commune, together with his materials, inexchange for his whole time and skill and labour. At last, on June 9, 1310, it was carried from Duccio's workshop to its place in the cathedral. A procession was formed by the clergy, with the archbishop at their head, followed by the magistrates of the Commune, and the chief men of the Montede' Nove. These great folk crowded round their Lady; after came amultitude of burghers bearing tapers; while the rear was brought up bywomen and children. The bells rang and trumpets blew as this new image ofthe Sovereign Mistress of Siena was borne along the summer-smiling streetsof her metropolis to take its throne in her high temple. Duccio'saltar-piece presented on one face to the spectator a Virgin seated withthe infant Christ upon her lap, and receiving the homage of the patronsaints of Siena. On the other, he depicted the principal scenes of theGospel story and the Passion of our Lord in twenty-eight compartments. What gives peculiar value to this elaborate work of Sienese art is, thatin it Duccio managed to combine the tradition of an early hieratic styleof painting with all the charm of brilliant colouring and with dramaticforce of presentation only rivalled at that time by Giotto. Independentlyof Giotto, he performed at a stroke what Cimabue and his pupil hadachieved for the Florentines, and bequeathed to the succeeding painters ofSiena a tradition of art beyond which they rarely passed. Far more than their neighbours at Florence, the Sienese remained fetteredby the technical methods and the pietistic formulae of the earliestreligious painting. To make their conventional representations ofMadonna's love and woe and glory burn with all the passion of a ferventspirit, and to testify their worship by the oblation of rich gifts incolouring and gilding massed around her, was their earnest aim. Itfollowed that, when they attempted subjects on a really large scale, thefaults of the miniaturist clung about them. I need hardly say thatAmbrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti form notable exceptions to this generalstatement. It may be applied, however, with some truth to Simone Martini, the painter, who during his lifetime enjoyed a celebrity only second tothat of Giotto. [152] Like Giotto, Simone exercised his art in many partsof Italy. Siena, Pisa, Assisi, Orvieto, Naples, and Avignon can stillboast of wall and easel pictures from his hand; and though it has beensuggested that he took no part in the decoration of the Cappella degliSpagnuoli, the impress of his manner remains at Florence in those noblefrescoes of the "Church Militant" and the "Consecration of S. Dominic. "[153] Simone's first undisputed works are to be seen at Siena andat Assisi, where we learn what he could do as a _frescante_ in competitionwith the ablest Florentines. In the Palazzo Pubblico of his native city hepainted a vast picture of the Virgin enthroned beneath a canopy andsurrounded by saints;[154] while at Assisi he put forth his whole power inportraying the legend of S. Martin. In all his paintings we trace theskill of an exquisite and patient craftsman, elaborately careful to finishhis work with the utmost refinement, sensitive to feminine beauty, full ofdelicate inventiveness, and gifted with a rare feeling for grace. Theseexcellent qualities tend, however, towards affectation and over-softness;nor are they fortified by such vigour of conception or such majesty incomposition as belong to the greatest _trecentisti_. The Lorenzetti alonesoared high above the Sienese mannerism into a region of masculineimaginative art. We feel Simone's charm mostly in single heads anddetached figures, some of which at Assisi have incomparable sweetness. "Molles Senae, " the delicate and femininely variable, fond of all thingsbrilliant, and unstable through defect of sternness, was the fit mother ofthis ingenious and delightful master. After the days of Duccio and Simone Martini, of Ambrogio and PietroLorenzetti, were over, there remained but little for the Sienese to do inpainting. Taddeo di Bartolo continued the tradition of Duccio as the laterGiottesques continued that of Giotto. His most remarkable wall-painting isa fresco of the Apostles visiting the Virgin, the motive of which ismarked by great originality. [155] Our Lady is seated in an open loggiawith a company of holy men and women round her. Descending from the skyand floating through the arches are three of the Apostles, while one whohas just alighted from his aërial transit kneels and folds his hands inadoration. Seldom have the longing and the peace of loving worship beenmore poetically expressed than here. The seated, kneeling, standing, andflying figures are admirably grouped together; their draperies aredignified and massive; and the architectural accessories help thecomposition by dividing it into three balanced sections. Such power of depicting movement was rare in the fourteenth century. Tofind its analogue, we must betake ourselves to the frescoes of SpinelloAretino, a master more decidedly Giottesque than his contemporary Taddeodi Bartolo. [156] A Gabriel, rushing down from heaven to salute Madonna, with all the whirr of arch-angelic pinions and the glory of Paradisearound him, is a fine specimen of Spinello's vehemence. The same quality, more tempered, is noticeable in his frescoes of the legend of S. Ephesusat Pisa. [157] Few faces in the paintings of any period are morefascinating than the profiles under steel-blue battle-caps of that godlikepair--the knightly saint and the Archangel Michael--breaking by theirresistible force of their onset and their calm youthful beauty throughthe mailed ranks of the Sardinian pagans. Spinello was essentially awarlike painter; among the best of his compositions may be named theseries of pictures from the history of the Venetian campaign againstFrederick Barbarossa. [158] It is a pity that the war of liberation carriedon by the Lombard communes with the Empire should have left but littletrace on Italian art; and therefore these paintings of Spinello, inaddition to their intrinsic merit, have rare historical interest. Delighting in the gleam of armour and the shock of speared warriors, Spinello communicated something of this fiery spirit even to his saints. The monks of Samminiato near Florence employed him in 1388 to paint theirnewly-finished sacristy with the legend of S. Benedict. In the executionof this task Spinello displayed his usual grandeur and vigour, treatingthe grey-robed brethren of Monte Cassino like veritable champions of amilitant Church. When he died in 1410, it might have been truly said thatthe flame of the torch kindled by Giotto was at last extinguished. The student of history cannot but notice with surprise that a city famedlike Siena for its vanity, its factious quarrels, and its delicateliving, should have produced an almost passionately ardent art ofpiety. [159] The same reflections are suggested at Perugia, torn by thesavage feuds of the Oddi and Baglioni, at warfare with Assisi, reduced toexhaustion by the discords of jealous parties, yet memorable in thehistory of painting as the head-quarters of the pietistic Umbrian school. The contradiction is, however, in both cases more apparent than real. Thepeople both of Siena and Perugia were highly impressible and emotional, quick to obey the promptings of their passion, whether it took the form ofhatred or of love, of spiritual fervour or of carnal violence. Yielding atone moment to the preachings of S. Bernardino, at another to thepersuasions of Grifonetto degli Baglioni, the Perugians won the characterof being fiends or angels according to the temper of their leaders; whileSiena might boast with equal right of having given birth to S. Catherineand nurtured Beccadelli. The religious feeling was a passion with them ona par with all the other movements of their quick and mobile temperament:it needed ecstatic art for its interpretation. What was cold and soberwould not satisfy the men of these two cities. The Florentines, morejustly balanced, less abandoned to the frenzies of impassioned impulse, less capable of feeling the rapt exaltation of the devotee, expressedthemselves in art distinguished for its intellectual power, its sanity, its scientific industry, its adequacy to average human needs. Therefore, Florentine influences determined the course of painting in Central Italy. Therefore Giotto, who represented the Florentine genius in the fourteenthcentury, set his stamp upon the Lorenzetti. The mystic painters of Umbriaand Siena have their high and honoured place in the history of Italianart. They supply an element which, except in the work of Fra Angelico, wasdefective at Florence; but to the Florentines was committed the greatcharge of interpreting the spirit of Italian civilisation in all itsbranches, not for the cloister only, or the oratory, but for humanity atlarge, through painting. Giotto and his followers, then, in the fourteenth century painted, as wehave seen, the religious, philosophical, and social conceptions of theirage. As artists, their great discovery was the secret of depicting life. The ideas they expressed belonged to the Middle Ages. But by their methodand their spirit they anticipated the Renaissance. In executing their workupon the walls of palaces and churches, they employed a kind of fresco. Fresco was essentially the Florentine vehicle of expression. Among thepeoples of Central Italy it took the place of mosaic in Sicily, Ravenna, and Venice, as the means of communicating ideas by forms to the unletteredlaity, and as affording to the artist the widest and the freest sphere forthe expression of his thoughts. [160] FOOTNOTES: [118] In the _History of Painting in Italy_, by Messrs. Crowe andCavalcaselle. [119] Nothing is more astonishing than the sterility of Genoa and ofRome. Neither in sculpture nor in painting did these cities produceanything memorable, though Genoa was well placed for receiving theinfluences of Pisa, and had the command of the marble quarries ofCarrara, while Rome was the resort of all the art-students of Italy. Thevery early eminence of Apulia in architecture and the plastic arts led tono results. [120] Milan, it is true, produced a brilliant school of sculptors, andthe Certosa of Pavia is a monument of her spontaneous artistic genius. But in painting, until the date of Lionardo's advent, she achievedlittle. [121] See Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, pp. 182-188, for theconstitutional characteristics of Florence and Venice; and Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning_, pp. 118-120, for the intellectual supremacy ofFlorence. [122] A glance at the map shows to what a large extent the Italians owedthe progress of their arts to Tuscany. Pisa, as we have already seen, took the lead in sculpture. Florence, at a somewhat later period, revivedpainting, while Siena contemporaneously developed a style peculiar toherself. This Sienese style--thoroughly Tuscan, though different fromthat of Florence--exercised an important influence over the schools ofUmbria, and gave a peculiar quality to Perugian painting. Through Pierodella Francesca, a native of Borgo San Sepolcro, the Florentine traditionwas extended to Umbria and the Roman States. Perugia might be evengeographically claimed for Tuscany, inasmuch as the Tiber divides the oldEtrurian territory from the Umbrians and the duchy of Spoleto. Lionardowas a Tuscan settled as an alien in Milan. Raphael, though a native ofUrbino, derived his training from Florence, indirectly through his fatherand his master Perugino, more immediately from Fra Bartolommeo andMichael Angelo. [123] If Vasari is to be trusted, this visit of Charles of Anjou toCimabue's studio took place in 1267; but neither the Malespini norVillani mention it, and the old belief that the Borgo Allegri owed itsname to the popular rejoicing at that time is now somewhat discredited. See Vasari, Le Monnier, 1846, vol. I. P. 225, note 4. Gino Capponi, inhis _Storia della Repubblica di Firenze_, vol. I. P. 157, refuses howeverto reject the legend. [124] See Capponi, vol. I. Pp. 59, 78, for a description of the gay andcourteous living of the Florentines upon the end of the thirteenthcentury. [125] See the _Descrizione della Peste di Firenze_. [126] I wish I could here transcribe the most beautiful passage fromRuskin's _Giotto and his Works in Padua_, pp. 11, 12, describing thecontrast between the landscape of Valdarno and the landscape of the hillsof the Mugello district. I can only refer readers to the book, printedfor the Arundel Society, 1854. [127] See Trucchi, _Poesie Italiane Inedite_, vol. Ii. P. 8. [128] See above, Chapter III, Relation of Sculpture to Painting. [129] The wonderful beauty of Orcagna's faces, profile after profile laidtogether like lilies in a garden border, can only be discovered afterlong study. It has been my good fortune to examine, through the kindnessof Mrs. Higford Burr, of Aldermaston, a large series of tracings, takenchiefly by the Right Hon. A. H. Layard, from the frescoes of Giottesqueand other early masters, which, by the selection of simple form inoutline, demonstrate not only the grand composition of these religiouspaintings, but also the incomparable loveliness of their types. How greatthe _Trecentisti_ were as draughtsmen, how imaginative was the beauty oftheir conception, can be best appreciated by thus artificially separatingtheir design from their colouring. The semblance of archaism disappears, and leaves a vision of pure beauty, delicate and spiritual. Thecollection to which I have alluded was made some years ago, when accessto the wall-paintings of Italy for the purpose of tracing was stillpossible. It includes nearly the whole of Lorenzetti's work in the Saladella Pace, much of Giotto, the Gozzoli frescoes at S. Gemignano, frescoes of the Veronese masters and of the Paduan Baptistery, a greatdeal of Piero della Francesca, Mantegna, Luini, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Pinturicchio, Masolino, &c. The earliest masters of Arezzo, Pisa, Siena, Urbino are copiously illustrated, while few burghs or hamlets of theTuscan and Umbrian districts have been left unvisited. [130] See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. I. Pp. 445-451, for a discussionof the question. They incline to the authorship of Pietro and AmbrogioLorenzetti. But the last Florentine edition of Vasari renders thisopinion doubtful. [131] Ed una donna involta in veste negra, Con un furor qual io non so se mai Al tempo de' giganti fosse a Flegra. _Trionfo della Morte_, cap. I. 31. [132] On a scroll above these wretches is written this legend:-- Dacchè prosperitade ci ha lasciati, O morte, medicina d'ogni pena, Deh vieni a darne omai l'ultima cena. [133] This might be used as an argument against the Lorenzettihypothesis; for their work at Siena is eminently beautiful. [134] The attitude and the eyes of this archangel have an imaginativepotency beyond that of any other motive used by any painter to suggestthe terror of the _Dies Irae_. Simplicity and truth of vision in theartist have here touched the very summit of intense dramaticpresentation. [135] The "Triumph of S. Thomas Aquinas, " in this cloister-chapel, haslong been declared the work of Taddeo Gaddi. "The Triumph of the ChurchMilitant, " and the "Consecration of S. Dominic, " used to be ascribed, onthe faith of Vasari, to Simone Martini of Siena. Independently of itsmain subject, this vast wall-painting is specially interesting on accountof its portraits. The work has a decidedly Sienese character; but recentcritics are inclined to assign it to a certain Andrea, of Florence. SeeCrowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. Ii. P. 89. The same critics doubt the handof Taddeo Gaddi in the "Triumph of S. Thomas, " vol. I. P. 374, and remarkthat "these productions of the art of the fourteenth century are, indeed, second-class works, executed by pupils of the Sienese and Florentineschool, and unworthy of the high praise which has ever been given tothem. " Whatever may be ultimately thought about the question of theirauthorship and pictorial merit, their interest to the student of Italianpainting in relation to mediaeval thought will always remain indisputable. Few buildings in the length and breadth of Italy possess such claims onour attention as the Cappella degli Spagnuoli. [136] The amorous fere of the Christian faith, the holy athlete, gentleto his own, and to his foes cruel. [137] Everything outside this golden region is studded with stars tosignify an epoyranios topos or heaven of heavens. S. Thomas andthe Greeks are inside the golden sphere of science, and below on earthare the heresiarchs and faithful. Rosini gives a faithful outline of thispicture in his Atlas of Illustrations. [138] "For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abominationto my lips. "--Prov. Viii. 7. [139] Gozzoli's picture is now in the Louvre. I think Guillaume de SaintAmour takes the place of Averroes. [140] _Inf. _ iv. 144. [141] _Averroès et l'Averroïsme_, pp. 236-316. [142] In the chapel. They are the work of Taddeo di Bartolo, and bearthis inscription: "Specchiatevi in costoro, voi che reggete. " Themediaeval painters of Italy learned lessons of civility and government aswillingly from classical tradition, as they deduced the lessons of pietyand godly living from the Bible. Herein they were akin to Dante, whochose Virgil for the symbol of the human understanding and Beatrice forthe symbol of divine wisdom, revealed to man in Theology. [143] He began his work in 1337. [144] A similar mode of symbolising the Commune is chosen in thebas-reliefs of Archbishop Tarlati's tomb at Arezzo, where the discord ofthe city is represented by an old man of gigantic stature, throned andmaltreated by the burghers, who are tearing out his hair by handfuls. Over this figure is written "Il Comune Pelato. " [145] These were adopted as the ensign of Siena, in the Middle Ages. [146] In the year 1336, just before Ambrogio began to paint, the SieneseRepublic had concluded a league with Florence for the maintenance of theGuelf party. The Monte de' Nove still ruled the city with patrioticspirit and equity, and had not yet become a forceful oligarchy. The powerof the Visconti was still in its cradle; the great plague had notdevastated Tuscany. As early as 1355 the whole of the fair orderrepresented by Ambrogio was shaken to the foundation, and Siena deservedthe words applied to it by De Commines. See Vol. L, _Age of the Despots_, p. 162, note 2. [147] Rio, perversely bent on stigmatising whatever in Italian artsavours of the Renaissance, depreciates this lovely form of Peace. _L'ArtChrétien_, vol. I. P. 57. [148] See Muratori, vol. Xxiii. , or the passage translated by me in Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, p. 480. [149] His "Madonna" in S. Domenico is dated 1221. For a full discussionof Guido da Siena's date, see Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. I. Pp. 180-185. [150] On their coins the Sienese struck this legend: "Sena vetus CivitasVirginis. " It will be remembered how the Florentines, two centuries and ahalf later, dedicated their city to Christ as king. [151] Date of birth unknown; date of death, about 1320. [152] He is better known as Simone Memmi, a name given to him by amistake of Vasari's. He was born in 1283 at Siena. He died in 1344 atAvignon. Petrarch mentions his portrait of Madonna Laura, in the 49th and50th sonnets of the "Rime in Vita di Madonna Laura. " In another place heuses these words about Simone: "Duos ego novi pictores egregios, necformosos, Jottum Florentinum civem, cujus inter modernos fama ingens est, et Simonem Senensem. "--_Epist. Fam. _ lib. V. 17, p. 653. Petrarchproceeds to mention that he has also known sculptors, and asserts theirinferiority to painters in modern times. [153] See above, Chapter IV, Theology and S. Dominic. Messrs. Crowe andCavalcaselle reject, not without reason, as it seems to me, the traditionthat Simone painted the frescoes of S. Ranieri in the Campo Santo atPisa. See vol. Ii. P. 83. What remains of his work at Pisa is analtar-piece in S. Caterina. [154] To Simone is also attributed the interesting portrait ofGuidoriccio Fogliani de' Ricci, on horseback, in the Sala del Consiglio. This, however, has been so much repainted as to have lost its character. [155] In S. Francesco at Pisa. [156] Spinello degli Spinelli was born of a Ghibelline family, exiledfrom Florence, who settled at Arezzo about 1308. He died at Arezzo in1410, aged 92, according to some computations. [157] South wall of the Campo Santo, on the left-hand of the entrance. [158] In the Sala di Balia of the public palace at Siena. [159] See _Inferno_, xxix. 121; the sonnets on the months by Cene dallaChitarra, _Poeti del Primo Secolo, _ vol. Ii. Pp. 196-207; the epithet"Molles Senae, " given by Beccadelli; and the remarks of De Comines. [160] I have not thought it necessary to distinguish between tempera andfresco. In tempera painting the colours were mixed with egg, gum, andother vehicles dissolved in water, and laid upon a dry ground. In frescopainting the colours, mixed only with water, were laid upon plaster whilestill damp. The latter process replaced the former for wall-paintings inthe fourteenth century. CHAPTER V PAINTING Mediaeval Motives exhausted--New Impulse toward TechnicalPerfection--Naturalists in Painting--Intermediate Achievement neededfor the Great Age of Art--Positive Spirit of the FifteenthCentury--Masaccio--The Modern Manner--Paolo Uccello--Perspective--RealisticPainters--The Model--Piero della Francesca--His Study of Form--Resurrectionat Borgo San Sepolcro--Melozzo da Forli--Squarcione at Padua--Gentile daFabriano--Fra Angelico--Benozzo Gozzoli--His Decorative Style--LippoLippi--Frescoes at Prato and Spoleto--Filippino Lippi--SandroBotticelli--His Value for the Student of Renaissance Fancy--His Feelingfor Mythology--Piero di Cosimo--Domenico Ghirlandajo--In what sense hesums up the Age--Prosaic Spirit--Florence hitherto supreme inPainting--Extension of Art Activity throughout Italy--Medicean Patronage. After the splendid outburst of painting in the first half of thefourteenth century, there came a lull. The thoughts and sentiments ofmediaeval Italy had been now set forth in art. The sincere and simple styleof Giotto was worked out. But the new culture of the Revival had not asyet sufficiently penetrated the Italians for the painters to express it;nor had they mastered the technicalities of their craft in such a manneras to render the delineation of more complex forms of beauty possible. Theyears between 1400 and 1470 may be roughly marked out as the second periodof great, activity in painting. At this time sculpture, under the hands ofGhiberti, Donatello, and Luca della Robbia, had reached a higher pointthan the sister art. The debt the sculptors owed to Giotto, they nowrepaid in full measure to his successors, in obedience to the law wherebysculpture, though subordinated, as in Italy, to painting, is moreprecocious in its evolution. One of the most marked features of thisperiod was the progress in the art of design, due to bronze modelling andbas-relief; for the painters, labouring in the workshops of the goldsmithsand the stone-carvers, learned how to study the articulation of the humanbody, to imitate the nude, and to aim by means of graduated light and darkat rendering the effect of roundness in their drawing. The laws ofperspective and foreshortening were worked out by Paolo Uccello andBrunelleschi. New methods of colouring were attempted by the Peselli andthe Pollajuoli. Abandoning the conventional treatment of religious themes, the artists began to take delight in motives drawn from everydayexperience. It became the fashion to introduce contemporary costumes, striking portraits, and familiar incidents into sacred subjects, so thatmany pictures of this period, though worthless to the student of religiousart, are interesting for their illustration of Florentine custom andcharacter. At the same time the painters began to imitate landscape andarchitecture, loading the background of their frescoes with pompous vistasof palaces and city towers, or subordinating their figures to fantasticscenery of wood and rock and seashore. Many were naturalists, delighting, like Gentile da Fabriano, in the delineation of field flowers and livingcreatures, or, like Piero di Cosimo, in the portrayal of things rare andcurious. Gardens please their eyes, and birds and beasts and insects. Whole menageries and aviaries, for instance, were painted by PaoloUccello. Others, again, abandoned the old ground of Christian story forthe tales of Greece and Rome; and not the least charming products of thetime are antique motives treated with the freshness of romantic feeling. We look in vain for the allegories of the Giottesque masters: that stageof thought has been traversed, and a new cycle of poetic ideas, fanciful, idyllic, corresponding to Boiardo's episodes rather than to Dante'svision, opens for the artist. Instead of seeking to set forth vastsubjects with the equality of mediocrity, like the Gaddi, or to inventarchitectonic compositions embracing the whole culture of their age, likethe Lorenzetti, the painters were now bent upon realising some specialquality of beauty, expressing some fantastic motive, or solving sometechnical problem of peculiar difficulty. They had, in fact, outgrown thechildhood of their art; and while they had not yet attained to mastery, had abandoned the impossible task of making it the medium of universalexpression. In this way the manifold efforts of the workers in the firsthalf of the fifteenth century prepared the ground for the great paintersof the Golden Age. It remained for Raphael and his contemporaries toachieve the final synthesis of art in masterpieces of consummate beauty. But this they could not have done without the aid of those innumerableintermediate labourers, whose productions occupy in art the place ofBacon's _media axiomata_ in science. Remembering this, we ought not tocomplain that the purpose of painting at this epoch was divided, or thatits achievements were imperfect. The whole intellectual conditions of thecountry were those of growth, experiment, preparation, and acquisition, rather than of full accomplishment. What happened in the field ofpainting, was happening also in the field of scholarship; and we have goodreason to be thankful that by the very nature of the arts, these tentativeendeavours have a more enduring charm than the dull tomes of contemporarystudents. Nor, again, is it rational to regret that painting, havingstarted with the sincere desire of expressing the hopes and fears thatagitate the soul of man, and raise him to a spiritual region, should nowbe occupied with lessons in perspective and anatomy. In the twofoldprocess of discovering the world and man, this dry ground had inevitablyto be explored, and its exploration could not fail to cost the sacrificeof much that was impassioned and imaginative in the earlier and lessscientific age of art. [161] The spirit of Cosimo de' Medici, almostcynical in its positivism, the spirit of Sixtus IV. , almost godless in itsegotism, were abroad in Italy at this period;[162] indeed, the fifteenthcentury presents at large a spectacle of prosaic worldliness and unidealaims. Yet the work done by the artists was the best work of the epoch, farmore fruitful of results and far more permanently valuable than that ofFilelfo inveighing in filthy satires against his personal foes, or ofBeccadelli endeavouring to inoculate modern literature with the virus ofpagan vices. Petrarch in the fourteenth century had preached the evangelof humanism; Giotto in the fourteenth century had given life to painting. The students of the fifteenth, though their spirit was so much baser andless large than Petrarch's, were following in the path marked out for themand leading forward to Erasmus. The painters of the fifteenth, though theylacked the unity of aim and freshness of their master, were learning whatwas needful for the crowning and fulfilment of his labours on a loftierstage. Foremost among the pioneers of Renaissance-painting, towering above themall by head and shoulders, like Saul among the tribes of Israel, standsMasaccio. [163] The Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine at Florence, painted infresco almost entirely by his hand, was the school where all succeedingartists studied, and whence Raphael deigned to borrow the composition andthe figures of a portion of his Cartoons. The "Legend of S. Catherine, "painted by Masaccio in 8. Clemente at Rome, though an earlier work, isscarcely less remarkable as evidence that a new age had begun for art. Inhis frescoes the qualities essential to the style of the Renaissance--whatVasari calls the modern manner--appear precociously full-formed. Besideslife and nature they have dignity and breadth, the grand and heightenedmanner of emancipated art. Masaccio is not inferior to Giotto in his powerof telling a story with simplicity; but he understands the value ofperspective for realising the circumstances of the scene depicted. Hisaugust groups of the Apostles are surrounded by landscape tranquillisingto the sense and pleasant to the eye. Mountain-lines and distant horizonslend space and largeness to his compositions, and the figures of his menand women move freely in a world prepared for them. In Masaccio'smanagement of drapery we discern the influence of plastic art; withoutconcealing the limbs, which are always modelled with a freedom thatsuggests the power of movement even in stationary attitudes, thevoluminous folds and broad masses of powerfully coloured raiment investhis forms with a nobility unknown before in painting. His power ofrepresenting the nude is not less remarkable. But what above all elserenders his style attractive is the sense of aërial space. For the firsttime in art the forms of living persons are shown moving in a transparentmedium of light, graduated according to degrees of distance, andharmonised by tones that indicate an atmospheric unity. In comparingMasaccio with Giotto we must admit that, with so much gained, somethinghas been sacrificed. Giotto succeeded in presenting the idea, the feeling, the pith of the event, and pierced at once to the very ground-root ofimagination. Masaccio thinks over-much, perhaps, of external form, and isintent on air-effects and colouring. He realises the phenomenal truth witha largeness and a dignity peculiar to himself. But we ask whether he wascapable of bringing close to our hearts the secret and the soul ofspiritual things. Has not art beneath his touch become more scenic, losingthereby somewhat of dramatic poignancy? Born in 1402, Masaccio left Florence in 1429 for Rome, and was not heardof by his family again. Thus perished, at the early age of twenty-seven, apainter whose work reveals not only the originality of real creativegenius, but a maturity that moves our wonder. What might he not have doneif he had lived? Between his style in the Brancacci chapel and that ofRaphael in the Vatican there seems to be but a narrow gap, which mightperchance have been passed over by this man, if death had spared him. Masaccio can by no means be taken as a fair instance of the painters ofhis age. Gifted with exceptional powers, he overleaped the difficulties ofhis art, and arrived intuitively at results whereof as yet no scientificcertainty had been secured. His contemporaries applied humbler talents tosevere study, and wrought out by patient industry those principles whichMasaccio had divined. Their work is therefore at the same time morearchaic and more pedantic, judged by modern standards. It is difficult toimagine a style of painting less attractive than that of PaoloUccello. [164] Yet his fresco of the "Deluge" in the cloisters of S. MariaNovella, and his battlepieces--one of which may be seen in the NationalGallery--taught nearly all that painters needed of perspective. The lessonwas conveyed in hard, dry, uncouth diagrams, ill-coloured and deficient inthe quality of animation. At this period the painters, like the sculptors, were trained as goldsmiths, and Paolo had been a craftsman of that guildbefore he gave his whole mind to the study of linear perspective and thedrawing of animals. The precision required in this trade forced artiststo study the modelling of the human form, and promoted that crudenaturalism which has been charged against their pictures. Carefully toobserve, minutely to imitate some actual person--the Sandro of yourworkshop or the Cecco from the marketplace--became the pride of painters. No longer fascinated by the dreams of mediaeval mysticism, and unable forthe moment to invest ideals of the fancy with reality, they meanwhile madethe great discovery that the body of a man is a miracle of beauty, eachlimb a divine wonder, each muscle a joy as great as sight of stars orflowers. Much that is repulsive in the pictures of the Pollajuoli andAndrea del Castagno, the leaders in this branch of realism, is due toadmiration for the newly studied mechanism of the human form. They seem tohave cared but little to select their types or to accentuate expression, so long as they were able to portray the man before them withfidelity. [165] The comeliness of average humanity was enough for them; thedifficulties of reproducing what they saw, exhausted their force. Thus themaster-works on which they staked their reputation show them emulous offame as craftsmen, while only here and there, in minor paintings for themost part, the poet that was in them sees the light. Brunelleschi toldDonatello the truth when he said that his Christ was a crucified_contadino_. Intent on mastering the art of modelling, and determinedabove all things to be accurate, the sculptor had forgotten that somethingmore was wanted in a crucifix than the careful study of a robustpeasant-boy. A story of a somewhat later date still further illustrates the dependenceof the work of art upon the model in Renaissance Florence. JacopoSansovino made the statue of a youthful "Bacchus" in close imitation of alad called Pippo Fabro. Posing for hours together naked in a cold studio, Pippo fell into ill health, and finally went mad. In his madness hefrequently assumed the attitude of the "Bacchus" to which his life hadbeen sacrificed, and which is now his portrait. The legend of the painterwho kept his model on a cross in order that he might the more minutelyrepresent the agonies of death by crucifixion, is but a mythus of therealistic method carried to its logical extremity. Piero della Francesca, a native of Borgo San Sepolcro, and a pupil ofDomenico Veneziano, must be placed among the painters of this period whoadvanced their art by scientific study. He carried the principles ofcorrect drawing and solid modelling as far as it is possible for thegenius of man to do, and composed a treatise on perspective in the vulgartongue. But these are not his only titles to fame. By dignity ofportraiture, by loftiness of style, and by a certain poetical solemnity ofimagination, he raised himself above the level of the mass of hiscontemporaries. Those who have once seen his fresco of the "Resurrection"in the hall of the Compagnia della Misericordia at Borgo San Sepolcro, will never forget the deep impression of solitude and aloofness from allearthly things produced by it. It is not so much the admirable groupingand masterly drawing of the four sleeping soldiers, or even the majestictype of the Christ emergent without effort from the grave, as thecommunication of a mood felt by the painter and instilled into our souls, that makes this by far the grandest, most poetic, and most awe-inspiringpicture of the Resurrection. The landscape is simple and severe, with thecold light upon it of the dawn before the sun is risen. The drapery of theascending Christ is tinged with auroral colours like the earliest cloudsof morning; and His level eyes, with the mystery of the slumber of thegrave still upon them, seem gazing, far beyond our scope of vision, intothe region of the eternal and illimitable. Thus, with Piero formystagogue, we enter an inner shrine of deep religious revelation. Thesame high imaginative faculty marks the fresco of the "Dream ofConstantine" in S. Francesco at Arezzo, where, it may be said in passing, the student of art must learn to estimate what Piero could do in the wayof accurate foreshortening, powerful delineation of solid bodies, andnoble treatment of drapery. [166] To Piero, again, we owe most preciousportraits of two Italian princes, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta andFederigo of Urbino, masterpieces[167] of fidelity to nature and soundworkmanship. In addition to the many great paintings that command our admiration, Pieroclaims honour as the teacher of Melozzo da Forli and of Luca Signorelli. Little is left to show the greatness of Melozzo; but the frescoespreserved in the Quirinal are enough to prove that he continued the graveand lofty manner of his master. [168] Signorelli bears a name illustriousin the first rank of Italian painters; and to speak of him will be soon myduty. It was the special merit of these artists to elevate the ideal ofform and to seek after sublimity, without departing from the path ofconscientious labour, in an age preoccupied on the one hand withtechnicality and naturalism, on the other with decorative prettiness andpietism. While the Florentine and Umbro-Tuscan masters were perfecting the arts ofaccurate design, a similar direction toward scientific studies was givento the painters of Northern Italy at Padua. Michael Savonarola, writinghis panegyric of Padua about 1440, expressly mentions Perspective as abranch of philosophy taught in the high school;[169] and the influence ofFrancesco Squarcione, though exaggerated by Vasari, was notinconsiderable. This man, who began life as a tailor or embroiderer, wasearly interested in the fine arts. Like Ciriac of Ancona, he had a tastefor travel and collection, [170] visiting the sacred soil of Greece andsojourning in divers towns of Italy, everywhere making drawings, copyingpictures, taking casts from statues, and amassing memoranda on the relicsof antiquity as well as on the methods practised by contemporary painters. Equipped with these aids to study, Squarcione returned to Padua, hisnative place, where he opened a kind of school for painters. It is clearthat he was himself less an artist than an amateur of painting, with aturn for teaching, and a conviction, based upon the humanistic instinctsof his age, that the right way of learning was by imitation of theantique. During the course of his career he is said to have taught no lessthan 137 pupils, training his apprentices by the exhibition of casts anddrawings, and giving them instruction in the science of perspective. [171]From his studio issued the mighty Andrea Mantegna, whose life-work, one ofthe most weighty moments in the history of modern art, will be noticed atlength in the next chapter. For the present it is enough to observe thatthrough Squarcione the scientific and humanistic movement of the fifteenthcentury was communicated to the art of Northern Italy. There, as atFlorence, painting was separated from ecclesiastical tradition, and a newstarting-point was sought in the study of mathematical principles, andthe striving after form for its own sake. Without attempting the detailed history of painting in this period ofdivided energy and diverse effort, it is needful here to turn aside andnotice those masters of the fifteenth century who remained comparativelyuninfluenced by the scholastic studies of their contemporaries. Of these, the earliest and most notable was Gentile da Fabriano, the last greatpainter of the Gubbian school. [172] In the predella of his masterpiece atFlorence there is a little panel, which attracts attention as one of theearliest attempts to represent a sunrise. The sun has just appeared aboveone of those bare sweeping hill-sides so characteristic of Central Italianlandscape. Part of the country lies untouched by morning, cold and grey:the rest is silvered with the level light, falling sideways on theburnished leaves and red fruit of the orange trees, and casting shadowsfrom olive branches on the furrows of a new-ploughed field. Along the roadjourney Joseph and Mary and the infant Christ, so that you may call thislittle landscape a "Flight into Egypt, " if you choose. Gentile, with allhis Umbrian pietism, was a painter for whom the fair sights of the earthhad exquisite value. The rich costumes of the Eastern kings, their trainof servants, their hawks and horses, hounds and monkeys, are painted byhim with scrupulous fidelity; and nothing can be more true to nature thanthe wild flowers he has copied in the framework of this picture. Yet weperceive that, though he felt in his own way the naturalistic impulse ofthe age, he had scarcely anything in common with masters like Uccello orVerocchio. Still less had Fra Angelico. Of all the painters of this period he mostsuccessfully resisted the persuasions of the Renaissance, and perfected anart that owed little to sympathy with the external world. He thought it asin to study or to imitate the naked form, and his most beautiful facesseem copied from angels seen in visions, not from any sons of men. Whilethe artists around him were absorbed in mastering the laws of geometry andanatomy, Fra Angelico sought to express the inner life of the adoringsoul. Only just so much of realism, whether in the drawing of the body andits drapery, or in the landscape background, as seemed necessary forsuggesting the emotion or for setting forth the story, found its way intohis pictures. The message they convey might have been told almost asperfectly upon the lute or viol. His world is a strange one--a world notof hills and fields and flowers and men of flesh and blood, but one wherethe people are embodied ecstasies, the colours tints from evening cloudsor apocalyptic jewels, the scenery a flood of light or a background ofilluminated gold. His mystic gardens, where the ransomed souls embrace, and dance with angels on the lawns outside the City of the Lamb, are suchas were never trodden by the foot of man in any paradise of earth. Criticism has a hard task in attempting to discern the merit of theseveral painters of this time. It is clear that we must look not to FraAngelico but to Masaccio for the progressive forces that were carrying artforward to complete accomplishment. Yet the charm of Masaccio is asnothing in comparison with that which holds us spell-bound before thesacred and impassioned reveries of the Fiesolan monk. Masaccio hadinestimable value for his contemporaries. Fra Angelico, now that we knowall Masaccio can teach, has a quality so unique that we return again andagain to the contemplation of his visions. Thus it often happens that weare tempted to exaggerate the historical importance of one painterbecause he touches us by some peculiar quality, and to over-estimate theintrinsic value of another because he was a motive power in his own age. Both these temptations should be resolutely resisted by the student who iscapable of discerning different kinds of excellence and diverse titles toaffectionate remembrance. Tracing the history of Italian painting is likepursuing a journey down an ever-broadening river, whose affluents areGiotto and Masaccio, Ghirlandajo, Signorelli, and Mantegna. We have toturn aside and land upon the shore, in order to visit theheaven-reflecting lakelet, self-encompassed and secluded, called Angelico. Benozzo Gozzoli, the pupil of Fra Angelico, but in no sense thecontinuator of his tradition, exhibits the blending of several styles by agenius of less creative than assimilative force. That he was keenlyinterested in the problems of perspective and foreshortening, and thatnone of the knowledge collected by his fellow-workers had escaped him, issufficiently proved by his frescoes at Pisa. His compositions are rich inarchitectural details, not always chosen with pure taste, but painted withan almost infantine delight in the magnificence of buildings. Quaint birdsand beasts and reptiles crowd his landscapes; while his imagination runsriot in rocks and rivers, trees of all variety, and rustic incidentsadopted from real life. At the same time he felt an enjoyment like that ofGentile da Fabriano in depicting the pomp and circumstance of pageantry, and no Florentine of the fifteenth century was more fond of assembling thepersonages of contemporary history in groups. [173] Thus he showed himselfsensitive to the chief influences of the earlier Renaissance, and combinedthe scientific and naturalistic tendencies of his age in a manner notdevoid of native poetry. What he lacked was depth of feeling, the senseof noble form, the originative force of a great mind. His poetry ofinvention, though copious and varied, owed its charm to the unstudiedgrace of improvisation, and he often undertook subjects where his idyllicrather than dramatic genius failed to sustain him. It is difficult, forinstance, to comprehend how M. Rio could devote two pages to Gozzoli's"Destruction of Sodom, " so comparatively unimpressive in spite of itsaggregated incidents, when he passes by the "Fulminati" of Signorelli, sotragic in its terrible simplicity, with a word. [174] This painter's marvellous rapidity of execution enabled him to produce analmost countless series of decorative works. The best of these are thefrescoes of the Pisan Campo Santo, of the Riccardi Palace of Florence, ofSan Gemignano, and of Montefalco. It has been well said of Gozzoli that, though he attempted grand subjects on a large scale, he could not riseabove the limitations of a style better adapted to the decoration of_cassoni_ than to fresco. [175] Yet within the range of his own powersthere are few more fascinating painters. His feeling for fresh nature--forhunters in the woods at night or dawn, for vintage-gatherers among theirgrapes, for festival troops of cavaliers and pages, and for themarriage-dances of young men and maidens--yields a delightful gladness tocompositions lacking the simplicity of Giotto and the dignity ofMasaccio. [176] No one knew better how to sketch the quarrels of littleboys in their nursery, or the laughter of serving-women, or childrencarrying their books to school;[177] and when the idyllic genius of theman was applied to graver themes, his fancy supplied him with multitudesof angels waving rainbow-coloured wings above fair mortal faces. Bevies ofthem nestle like pigeons on the penthouse of the hut of Bethlehem, orcrowd together round the infant Christ. [178] From these observations on the style of Benozzo Gozzoli it will be seenthat in the evolution of Renaissance culture he may be compared with theromantic poets for whom the cheerfulness of nature and the joy that comesto men from living in a many-coloured world of inexhaustible delight weresufficient sources of inspiration. It should be mentioned lastly that heenjoyed the patronage and friendship of the Medicean princes. Another painter favoured by the Medici was Fra Filippo Lippi, whose lifeand art-work were alike the deviation of a pleasure-loving temperamentfrom its natural sphere into the service of the Church. Left an orphan atthe age of two years, he was brought up by an aunt, who placed him, as aboy of eight, in the convent of the Carmine at Florence. For monasticduties he had no vocation, and the irregularities of his behaviour causedscandal even in that age of cynical indulgence. It can scarcely be doubtedthat the schism between his practice and profession served to debase andvulgarise a genius of fine imaginative quality, while the uncongenial workof decorating choirs and painting altar-pieces limed the wings of hisswift spirit with the dulness of routine that savoured of hypocrisy. Bounddown to sacred subjects, he was too apt to make angels out ofstreet-urchins, and to paint the portraits of his peasant-loves forVirgins. [179] His delicate sense of natural beauty gave peculiar charm tothis false treatment of religious themes. Nothing, for example, can bemore attractive than the rows of angels bearing lilies in his "Coronationof the Virgin;"[180] and yet, when we regard them closely, we find thatthey have no celestial quality of form or feature. Their grace is earthly, and the spirit breathed upon the picture is the loveliness of colour, quiet and yet glowing--blending delicate blues and greens with whitenesspurged of glare. The beauties as well as the defects of such compositionsmake us regret that Fra Filippo never found a more congenial sphere forhis imagination. As a painter of subjects half-humorous and half-pathetic, or as the illustrator of romantic stories, we fancy that he might have wonfame rivalled only by the greatest colourists. One such picture it wasgranted him to paint, and this is his masterpiece. In the prime of life hewas commissioned to decorate the choir of the cathedral at Prato with thelegends of S. John Baptist and S. Stephen. All of these frescoes arenoteworthy for their firm grasp upon reality in the portraits ofFlorentine worthies, and for the harmonious disposition of the groups; butthe scene of Salome dancing before Herod is the best for its poeticfeeling. Her movement across the floor before the tyrant and his guests attable, the quaint fluttering of her drapery, the well-bred admiration ofthe spectators, their horror when she brings the Baptist's head toHerodias, and the weak face of the half-remorseful Herod are expressedwith a dramatic power that shows the genius of a poet painter. And evenmore lovely than Salome are a pair of girls locked in each other's armsclose by Herodias on the daïs. A natural and spontaneous melody, not onlyin the suggested movements of this scene, but also in the colouring, choice of form, and treatment of drapery, makes it one of the most musicalof pictures ever painted. Fra Filippo was not so successful in the choir of the cathedral atSpoleto, where he undertook; to paint scenes from the life of the Virgin. Yet those who have not examined these frescoes, ruinous in their decay andspoiled by stupid restoration, can form no just notion of the latentcapacity of this great master. The whole of the half-dome above thetribune is filled with, a "Coronation of Madonna. " A circular rainbowsurrounds both her and Christ. She is kneeling with fiery rays around her, glorified by her assumption into heaven. Christ is enthroned, and at Hisside stands a seat prepared for His mother, as soon as the crown that Heis placing on her head shall have made her Queen. From the outer courts ofheaven, thronged with multitudes of celestial beings, angels are crowdingin, breaking the lines of the prismatic aureole, as though the ardour oftheir joy could scarcely be repressed; while the everlasting light of Godsheds radiance from above, and far below, lies earth with diminished sunand moon. The boldness of conception in this singular fresco reveals agenius capable of grappling with such problems as Tintoretto solved. FraFilippo died at Spoleto, and left his work unfinished, to the care of hisassistant, the Fra Diamante. Over his tomb Lorenzo de' Medici caused amonument to be erected, and Poliziano wrote Latin couplets to commemoratethe fame of a painter highly prized by his patrons. The space devoted in these pages to Fra Lippo Lippi is justified not onlyby the excellence of his own work, but also by the influence he exercisedover two of the best Florentine painters of the fifteenth century. WhetherFilippino Lippi was in truth his son by Lucrezia Buti, a novice he is saidto have carried from her cloister in Prato, has been called in questionby recent critics; but they adduce no positive arguments for discreditingthe story of Vasari. [181] There can, however, be no doubt that to theFrate, whether he was his father or only his teacher, Filippino owed hisstyle. His greatest works were painted in continuation of Masaccio'sfrescoes in the Carmine at Florence. It is the best warrant of theirexcellence that we feel them worthy to hold the place they do, and thatRaphael transferred one of their motives, the figure of S. Paul addressingS. Peter in prison, to his cartoon of "Mars' Hill. " That he was not soaccomplished as Masaccio in the art of composition, that his scale ofcolour is less pleasing, and that his style in general lacks the elevationof his mighty predecessor, is not sufficient to place him in any positionof humiliating inferiority. [182] What above all things interests thestudent of the Renaissance in Filippino's work, is the powerful action ofrevived classicism on his manner. This can be traced better in the CaraffaChapel of S. Maria sopra Minerva at Rome and in the Strozzi Chapel of S. Maria Novella at Florence than in the Carmine. The "Triumph of S. ThomasAquinas" and the "Miracle of S. John" are remarkable for an almostinsolent display of Roman antiquities--not studied, it need scarcely beobserved, with the scientific accuracy of Alma Tadema--for such sciencewas non-existent in the fifteenth century--but paraded with a kind ofpassion. To this delight in antique details Filippino added violentgestures, strange attitudes, and affected draperies, producing a generalresult impressive through the artist's energy, but quaint andunattractive. Sandro Botticelli, the other disciple of Fra Lippo, bears a name ofgreater mark. He is one of those artists, much respected in their owndays, who suffered eclipse from the superior splendour of immediatesuccessors, and to whom, through sympathy stimulated by prolonged study ofthe fifteenth century, we have of late paid tardy and perhaps exaggeratedhonours. [183] His fellow-workers seem to have admired him as an abledraughtsman gifted with a rare if whimsical imagination; but no onerecognised in him a leader of his age. For us he has an almost uniquevalue as representing the interminglement of antique and modern fancy at amoment of transition, as embodying in some of his pictures the subtlestthought and feeling of men for whom the classic myths were beginning tolive once more, while new guesses were timidly hazarded in the sphere oforthodoxy. [184] Self-confident sensuality had not as yet encouragedpainters to substitute a florid rhetoric for the travail of their brain;nor was enough known about antiquity to make the servile imitation ofGreek or Roman fragments possible. Yet scholarship had already introduceda novel element into the culture of the nation. It was no doubt with akind of wonder that the artists heard of Fauns and Sylvans, and the birthof Aphrodite from the waves. Such fables took deep hold upon their fancy, stirring them to strange and delicate creations, the offspring of theirown thought, and no mere copies of marbles seen in statue galleries. Thevery imperfection of these pictures lends a value to them in the eyes ofthe student, by helping him to comprehend exactly how the revelations ofthe humanists affected the artistic sense of Italy. In the mythological work of Botticelli there is always an element ofallegory, recalling the Middle Ages and rendering it far truer to thefeelings of the fifteenth century than to the myths it illustrates. Hispainting of the "Spring, " suggested by a passage from Lucretius, [185] isexquisitely poetic; and yet the true spirit of the Latin verse has notbeen seized--to have done that would have taxed the energies ofTitian--but something special to the artist and significant for Mediceanscholarship has been added. There is none of the Roman largeness andfreedom in its style; Venus and her Graces are even melancholy, and theirmovements savour of affectation. This combination or confusion of artisticimpulses in Botticelli, this treatment of pagan themes in the spirit ofmediaeval mysticism, sometimes ended in grotesqueness. It might suffice tocite the pregnant "Aphrodite" in the National Gallery, if the "Mars andVenus" in the same collection were not even a more striking instance. Marsis a young Florentine, whose throat and chest are beautifully studied fromthe life, but whose legs and belly, belonging no doubt to the same model, fall far short of heroic form. He lies fast asleep with the corners of hismouth drawn down, as though he were about to snore. Opposite there sits awoman, weary and wan, draped from neck to foot in the thin raimentBotticelli loved. Four little goat-footed Cupids playing with the armourof the sleeping lad complete the composition. These wanton loves areadmirably conceived and exquisitely drawn; nor indeed can any drawingexceed in beauty the line that leads from the flank along the ribs and armof Mars up to his lifted elbow. The whole design, like one of Piero diCosimo's pictures in another key, leaves a strong impression on the mind, due partly to the oddity of treatment, partly to the careful workdisplayed, and partly to the individuality of the artist. It gives us keenpleasure to feel exactly how a painter like Botticelli applied the drynaturalism of the early Florentine Renaissance, as well as his ownoriginal imagination, to a subject he imperfectly realised. Yet are weright in assuming that he meant the female figure in this group forAphrodite, the sleeping man for Ares? A Greek or a Roman would haverejected this picture as false to the mythus of Mars and Venus; andwhether Botticelli wished to be less descriptive than emblematic, might befairly questioned. The face and attitude of that unseductive Venus, wideawake and melancholy, opposite her snoring lover, seems to symbolise theindignities which women may have to endure from insolent and sottish boyswith only youth to recommend them. This interpretation, however, soundslike satire. We are left to conjecture whether Botticelli designed hiscomposition for an allegory of intemperance, the so-called Venus typifyingsome moral quality. Botticelli's "Birth of Aphrodite" expresses this transient moment in thehistory of the Renaissance with more felicity. It would be impossible forany painter to design a more exquisitely outlined figure than that of hisVenus, who, with no covering but her golden hair, is wafted to the shoreby zephyrs. Roses fall upon the ruffled waves, and the young gods of theair twine hands and feet together as they float. In the picture of"Spring" there is the same choice of form, the same purity of line, thesame rare interlacement in the limbs. It would seem as though Botticelliintended every articulation of the body to express some meaning, and this, though it enhances the value of his work for sympathetic students, oftenleads him to the verge of affectation. Nothing but a touch of affectationin the twined fingers of Raphael and Tobias impairs the beauty of one ofBotticelli's best pictures at Turin. We feel the same discord looking atthem as we do while reading the occasional _concetti_ in Petrarch; and allthe more in each case does the discord pain us because we know that itresults from their specific quality carried to excess. Botticelli's sensibility to the refinements of drawing gave peculiarcharacter to all his work. Attention has frequently been called to thebeauty of his roses. [186] Every curl in their frail petals is renderedwith as much care as though they were the hands or feet of Graces. Nor isit, perhaps, a mere fancy to imagine that the corolla of an open rosesuggested to Botticelli's mind the composition of his best-known picture, the circular "Coronation of the Virgin" in the Uffizzi. That masterpiececombines all Botticelli's best qualities. For rare distinction of beautyin the faces it is unique, while the mystic calm and resignation, somisplaced in his Aphrodites, find a meaning here[187]. There is only oneother picture in Italy, a "Madonna and Child with S. Catherine" in alandscape by Boccaccino da Cremona, that in any degree rivals the peculiarbeauty of its types[188]. Sandro Botticelli was not a great painter in the same sense as AndreaMantegna. But he was a true poet within the limits of a certain sphere. Wehave to seek his parallel among the verse-writers rather than the artistsof his day. Some of the stanzas of Poliziano and Boiardo, in particular, might have been written to explain his pictures, or his pictures mighthave been painted to illustrate their verses[189]. In both Poliziano andBoiardo we find the same touch upon antique things as in Botticelli; andthis makes him serviceable almost above all painters to the readers ofRenaissance poetry. The name of Piero di Cosimo has been mentioned incidentally in connectionwith that of Botticelli; and though his life exceeds the limits assignedfor this chapter, so many links unite him to the class of painters I havebeen discussing, that I can find no better place to speak of him thanthis. His biography forms one of the most amusing chapters in Vasari, whohas taken great delight in noting Piero's quaint humours and eccentrichabits, and whose description of a Carnival triumph devised by him is oneof our most precious documents in illustration of Renaissancepageantry. [190] The point that connects him with Botticelli is theromantic treatment of classical mythology, best exemplified in hispictures of the tale of Perseus and Andromeda. [191] Piero was by natureand employment a decorative painter; the construction of cars forpageants, and the adornment of dwelling rooms and marriage chests, affected his whole style, rendering it less independent and more quaintthan that of Botticelli. Landscape occupies the main part of hiscompositions, made up by a strange amalgam of the most eccentricdetails--rocks toppling over blue bays, sea-caverns, and fantasticmountain ranges. Groups of little figures disposed upon these spaces tellthe story, and the best invention of the artist is lavished on the form ofmonstrous creatures like the dragon slain by Perseus. There is no attemptto treat the classic subject in a classic spirit: to do that, and to failin doing it, remained for Cellini. [192] We have, on the contrary, beforeus an image of the orc, as it appeared to Ariosto's fancy--a creatureborrowed from romance and made to play its part in a Greek myth. The samecriticism applies to Piero's picture of the murdered Procris watched by aSatyr of the woodland. [193] In creating his Satyr the painter has not hadrecourse to any antique bas-relief, but has imagined for himself a beinghalf human, half bestial, and yet wholly real; nor has he portrayed inProcris a nymph of Greek form, but a girl of Florence. The strange animalsand gaudy flowers introduced into the landscape background further removethe subject from the sphere of classic treatment. Florentine realism andquaint fancy being thus curiously blended, the artistic result may beprofitably studied for the light it throws upon the so-called Paganism ofthe earlier Renaissance. Fancy at that moment was more free than whensuperior knowledge of antiquity had created a demand for reproductive art, and when the painters thought less of the meaning of the fable forthemselves than of its capability of being used as a machine for thedisplay of erudition. It remains to speak of the painter who closes and at the same time gathersup the whole tradition of this period. Domenico Ghirlandajo deserves thisplace of honour not because he had the keenest intuitions, the deepestthought, the strongest passion, the subtlest fancy, the loftiestimagination--for in all these points he was excelled by some one or otherof his contemporaries or predecessors--but because his intellect was themost comprehensive and his mastery of art the most complete. His lifelasted from 1449 to 1498, and he did not distinguish himself as a paintertill he was past thirty. [194] Therefore he does not properly fall withinthe limit of 1470, assigned roughly to this age of transition inpainting. But in style and spirit he belonged to it, resuming in his ownwork the qualities we find scattered through the minor artists of thefifteenth century, and giving them the unity of fusion in a large andlucid manner. Like the painters hitherto discussed, he was working towardthe full Renaissance; yet he reached it neither in ideality nor infreedom. His art is the art of the understanding only; and to this themasters of the golden age added radiance, sublimity, grace, passion--qualities of the imagination beyond the scope of men likeGhirlandajo. It is almost with reluctance that a critic feels obliged to name thispowerful but prosaic painter as the Giotto of the fifteenth century inFlorence, the tutelary angel of an age inaugurated by Masaccio. He was aconsummate master of the science collected by his predecessors. No onesurpassed him in the use of fresco. His orderly composition, in thedistribution of figures and the use of architectural accessories, isworthy of all praise; his portraiture is dignified and powerful;[195] hischoice of form and treatment of drapery, noble. Yet we cannot help notinghis deficiency in the finer sense of beauty, the absence of poeticinspiration or feeling in his work, the commonplaceness of his colour, andhis wearisome reiteration of calculated effects. He never arrestsattention by sallies of originality, or charms us by the delicacies ofsuggestive fancy. He is always at the level of his own achievement, sothat in the end we are as tired with able Ghirlandajo as the men of Athenswith just Aristides. Who, however, but Ghirlandajo could have composed thefrescoes of "S. Fina" at S. Gemignano, the fresco of the "Death of S. Francis" in S. Trinità at Florence, or that again of the "Birth of theVirgin" in S. Maria Novella? There is something irritating in pure commonsense imported into art, and Ghirlandajo's masterpieces are the apotheosisof that quality. How correct, how judicious, how sagacious, howmathematically ordered! we exclaim; but we gaze without emotion, and weturn away without regret. It does not vex us to read how Ghirlandajo usedto scold his prentices for neglecting trivial orders that would fill hispurse with money. Similar traits of character pain us with a sense ofimpropriety in Perugino. They harmonise with all we feel about the work ofGhirlandajo. It is bitter mortification to know that Michael Angelo neverfound space or time sufficient for his vast designs in sculpture. It is apositive relief to think that Ghirlandajo sighed in vain to have thecircuit of the walls of Florence given him to paint. How he would havecovered them with compositions, stately, flowing, easy, sober, andincapable of stirring any feeling in the soul! Though Ghirlandajo lacked almost every true poetic quality, he combinedthe art of distributing figures in a given space, with perspective, fairknowledge of the nude, and truth to nature, in greater perfection than anyother single painter of the age he represents; and since these wereprecisely the gifts of that age to the great Renaissance masters, weaccord to him the place of historical honour. It should be added that, like almost all the artists of this epoch, he handled sacred and profane, ancient and modern, subjects in the same style, introducing contemporarycustoms and costumes. His pictures are therefore valuable for theirportraits and their illustration of Florentine life. Fresco was hisfavourite vehicle; and in this preference he showed himself a true masterof the school of Florence: but he is said to have maintained that mosaic, as more durable, was superior to wall-painting. This saying, if it beauthentic, justifies our criticism of his cold achievement as a painter. Reviewing the ground traversed in this and the last chapter, we find thatthe painting of Tuscany, and in particular the Florentine section of it, has absorbed attention. It is characteristic of the next age that otherdistricts of Italy began to contribute their important quota to thegeneral culture of the nation. The force generated in Tuscany expanded anddilated till every section of the country took part in the movement whichFlorence had been first to propagate. What was happening in scholarshipbegan to manifest itself in art, for the same law of growth anddistribution affected both alike; and thus the local differences of theItalians were to some extent abolished. The nation, never destined toacquire political union in the Renaissance, possessed at last anintellectual unity in its painters and its students, which justifies ourspeaking of the great men of the golden period as Italians and not ascitizens of such or such a burgh. In the Middle Ages United Italy was anIdea to theorists like Dante, who dreamed for her an actual supremacybeneath her Emperor's sway in Rome. The reasoning to which they trustedproved fallacious, and their hopes were quenched. Instead of the politicalempire of the "De Monarchiâ, " a spiritual empire had been created, and theItalians were never more powerful in Europe than when their sacred citywas being plundered by the imperial bandits in 1527. It is necessary, atthe risk of some repetition, to keep this point before the reader, if onlyas an apology for the method of treatment to be followed in the nextchapter, where the painters of the mid-Renaissance period will be reviewedless in relation to their schools and cities than as representatives ofthe Italian spirit. Since the intellectual unity gained by the Italians in the age of theRenaissance was chiefly due to the Florentines, it is a matter of somemoment to reconsider the direct influences brought to bear upon the artsin Florence during the fifteenth century. I have chosen Ghirlandajo as therepresentative of painting in that period. I have also expressed theopinion that his style is singularly cold and prosaic, and have hintedthat this prosaic and cold quality was caused by a defect of emotionalenthusiasm, by preoccupation with finite aims. Herein Ghirlandajo did butreflect the temper of his age--that temper which Cosimo de' Medici, thegreatest patron of both art and scholarship in Florence before 1470, represented in his life and in his public policy. It concerns us, therefore, to take into account the nature of the patronage extended bythe Medici to art. Excessive praise and blame have been showered uponthese burgher princes in almost equal quantities; so that, if we were toplace Roscoe and Rio, as the representatives of conflicting views, in thescales together, they would balance each other, and leave the indexquivering. This bare statement warns the critic to be cautious, andinclines him to accept the intermediate conclusion that neither the Medicinor the artists could escape the conditions of their century. It isspecially argued on the one hand against the Medici that they encouraged asensual and worldly style of art, employing the painters to decorate theirpalaces with nude figures, and luring them away from sacred to profanesubjects. Yet Cosimo gave orders to Donatello for his "David" and his"Judith, " employed Michellozzo and Brunelleschi to build him convents andchurches, and filled the library of S. Marco, where Fra Angelico waspainting, with a priceless collection of MSS. His own private chapel wasdecorated by Benozza Gozzoli. Fra Lippo Lippi and Michael AngeloBuonarroti were the house-friends of Lorenzo de' Medici. Leo BattistaAlberti was a member of his philosophical society. The only greatFlorentine artist who did not stand in cordial relations to the Mediceancircle, was Lionardo da Vinci. This sufficiently shows that the Mediceanpatronage was commensurate with the best products of Florentine genius;nor would it be easy to demonstrate that encouragement, so largelyexhibited and so intelligently used, could have been in the main injuriousto the arts. There is, however, a truth in the old grudge against the Medicean princes. They enslaved Florence; and even painting was not slow to suffer from thestifling atmosphere of tyranny. Lorenzo deliberately set himself toenfeeble the people by luxury, partly because he liked voluptuous living, partly because he aimed at popularity, and partly because it was hisinterest to enervate republican virtues. The arts used for the purposes ofdecoration in triumphs and carnival shows became the instruments ofcareless pleasure; and there is no doubt that even earnest painters lenttheir powers with no ill-will and no bad conscience to the service oflascivious patrons. "Per la città, in diverse case, fece tondi di sua manoe femmine ignude assai, " says Vasari about Sandro Botticelli, whoafterwards became a Piagnone and refused to touch a pencil. [196] We may, therefore, reasonably concede that if the Medici had never taken hold onFlorence, or if the spirit of the times had made them other than they werein loftiness of aim and nobleness of heart, the arts of Italy in theRenaissance might have shown less of worldliness and materialism. It wasagainst the demoralisation of society by paganism, as against theenslavement of Florence by her tyrants, that Savonarola strove; and sincethe Medici were the leaders of the classical revival, as well as thedespots of the dying commonwealth, they justly bear the lion's share ofthat blame which fell in general upon the vices of their age denounced bythe prophet of S. Marco. We may regard it either as a singular misfortunefor Italy or as the strongest sign of deep-seated Italian corruption, thatthe most brilliant leaders of culture both at Florence and atRome--Cosimo, Lorenzo, and Giovanni de' Medici--promoted rather thanchecked the debasing influences of the Renaissance, and added the weightof their authority to the popular craving for sensuous amusement. Meanwhile, what was truly great and noble in Renaissance Italy, found itsproper home in Florence; where the spirit of freedom, if only as an idea, still ruled; where the populace was still capable of being stirred tosuper-sensual enthusiasm; and where the flame of the modern intellectburned with its purest, whitest lustre. FOOTNOTES: [161] See Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, p. 12. [162] See Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning_, pp. 122-129. [163] His real name was Tommaso di Ser Giovanni, of the family ofScheggia. Masaccio means in Tuscan, "Great hulking Tom, " just asMasolino, his supposed master and fellow-worker, means "Pretty littleTom. " Masolino was Tommaso di Cristofero Fini, born in 1384 in S. Croce. It is now thought that we have but little of his authentic work exceptthe frescoes at Castiglione di Olona, near Milan. Masaccio was born atSan Giovanni, in the upper valley of the Arno, in 1402. He died at Bornein 1429. [164] His family name was Doni. He was born about 1396, and died at theage of about 73. He got his name Uccello from his partiality for paintingbirds, it is said. [165] See above, Chapter III, Andrea Verocchio, for what has been saidabout Verocchio's "David. " [166] A drawing made in red chalk for this "Dream of Constantine" hasbeen published in facsimile by Ottley, in his _Italian School of Design_. He wrongly attributes it, however, to Giorgione, and calls it a "SubjectUnknown. " [167] The one in S. Francesco at Rimini, the other in the Uffizzi. [168] Two angels have recently been published by the Arundel Society whohave also copied Melozzo's wall-painting of Sixtus IV. In the Vatican. Itis probable that the picture in the Royal Collection at Windsor, of DukeFrederick of Urbino listening to the lecture of a Humanist, is also awork of Melozzo's, much spoiled by re-painting. See Vol. II. , _Revival ofLearning_, p. 220. [169] Muratori, vol. Xxiv. 1181. [170] For Ciriac of Ancona, see Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning_, p. 113. [171] The services rendered by Squarcione to art have been thoroughlydiscussed by Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _Painting in North Italy_, vol. I. Chap. 2. I cannot but think that they underrate the importance ofhis school. [172] He was born between 1360 and 1370, and he settled at Florence about1422, where he opened a _bottega_ in S. Trinità. In 1423 he painted hismasterpiece, the "Adoration of the Magi, " now exhibited in the FlorentineAcademy of Arts. [173] See, for instance, the valuable portraits of the Medicean familywith Picino and Poliziano, in the fresco of the "Tower of Babel" at Pisa. [174] _L'Art Chrétien_, vol. Ii. P. 397. [175] The same remark might be made about the Venetian Bonifazio. It isremarkable that the "Adoration of the Magi" was always a favouritesubject with painters of this calibre. [176] I may refer to the picture of the hunters in the Taylor Gallery atOxford, the "Vintage of Noah" at Pisa, the attendants of the Magi in theRiccardi Palace, and the _Carola_ in the "Marriage of Jacob and Rachel"at Pisa. [177] "Stories of Isaac and Ishmael and of Jacob and Esau" at Pisa, and"Story of S. Augustine" at San Gemignano. Nothing can be prettier thanthe school children in the latter series. The group of the little boy, horsed upon a bigger boy's back for a whipping, is one of the mostnatural episodes in painting. [178] Riccardi Chapel. [179] For an example, the picture of Madonna worshipping the infantChrist upheld by two little angels in the Uffizzi. [180] In the Academy of Fine Arts at Florence. [181] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. Ii. Chap. 19. Nothing was more commonin the practice of Italian arts than for pupils to take their names fromtheir masters, in the same way as they took them from their fathers, bythe prefix _di_ or otherwise. [182] The most simply beautiful of Filippino's pictures is theoil-painting in the Badia at Florence, which represents Madonna attendedby angels dictating the story of her life to S. Bernard. In this mostlovely religious picture Filippino comes into direct competition withPerugino (see the same subject at Munich), without suffering by thecontrast. The type of Our lady, striven after by Botticelli and othermasters of his way of feeling, seems to me more thoroughly attained byFilippino than by any of his fellow-workers. She is a woman acquaintedwith grief and nowise distinguished by the radiance of her beauty amongthe daughters of earth. It is measureless love for the mother of his Lordthat makes S. Bernard bow before her with eyes of wistful adoration andhushed reverence. [183] The study of the fine arts offers few subjects of more curiousinterest than the vicissitudes through which painters of the type ofBotticelli, not absolutely and confessedly in the first rank, butattractive by reason of their relation to the spirit of their age, and ofthe seal of _intimité_ set upon their work have passed. In the lastcentury and the beginning of this, our present preoccupation withBotticelli would have passed for a mild lunacy, because he has none ofthe qualities then most in vogue and most enthusiastically studied, andbecause the moment in the history of culture he so faithfully represents, was then but little understood. The prophecy of Mr. Ruskin, thetendencies of our best contemporary art in Mr. Burne Jones's painting, the specific note of our recent fashionable poetry, and, more than all, our delight in the delicately poised psychological problems of the middleRenaissance, have evoked a kind of hero-worship for this excellent artistand true poet. [184] A friend, writing to me from Italy, speaks thus of Botticelli, andof the painters associated with him: "When I ask myself what it is I findfascinating in him--for instance, which of his pictures, or what elementin them--I am forced to admit that it is the touch of paganism in him, the fairy-story element, _the echo of a beautiful lapsed mythology whichhe has found the means of transmitting. _" The words I have printed initalics seem to me very true. At the same time we must bear in mind thatthe scientific investigation of nature had not in the fifteenth centurybegun to stand between the sympathetic intellect and the outer world. There was still the possibility of that "lapsed mythology, " the dream ofpoets and the delight of artists, seeming positively the best form ofexpression for sentiments aroused by nature. [185] _De Rerum Naturâ_, lib. V. 737. [186] The rose-tree background in a Madonna belonging to Lord Elcho is acharming instance of the value given to flowers by careful treatment. [187] I cannot bring myself to accept Mr. Pater's reading of theMadonna's expression. It seems to me that Botticelli meant to portray themingled awe and tranquillity of a mortal mother chosen for the Son ofGod. He appears to have sometimes aimed at conveying more than paintingcan compass; and, since he had not Lionardo's genius, he gives sadness, mournfulness, or discontent, for some more subtle mood. Next to theMadonna of the Uffizzi, Botticelli's loveliest religious picture to mymind is the "Nativity" belonging to Mr. Fuller Maitland. Poeticimagination in a painter has produced nothing more graceful and moretender than the dance of angels in the air above, and the embracement ofthe angels and the shepherds on the lawns below. [188] In the Academy of Fine Arts at Venice. I do not mention thispicture as a complete pendant to Botticelli's famous _tondo_. The facesof S. Catherine and Madonna, however, have something of the rarity thatis so striking in that work. [189] I might mention stanzas 122-124 of Poliziano's _Giostra_, describing Venus in the lap of Mars; or stanzas 99-107, describing thebirth of Venus; and from Boiardo's _Orlando Innamorato_, I might quotethe episode of Rinaldo's punishment by Love (lib. Ii. Canto xv. 43), orthe tale of Silvanella and Narcissus (lib. Ii. Canto xvii. 49). [190] I hope to make use of this passage in a future section of my workon the Italian Poetry of the Renaissance. Therefore I pass by thisportion of Piero's art-work now. [191] Uffizzi Gallery. [192] See the bas-relief upon the pedestal of his "Perseus" in the Loggiade' Lanzi. [193] In the National Gallery. [194] His family name was Domenico di Currado di Doffo Bigordi. Heprobably worked during his youth and early manhood as a goldsmith and gothis artist's name from the trade of making golden chaplets for theFlorentine women. See Vasari, vol. V. P. 66. [195] What, after all, remains the grandest quality of Ghirlandajo is hispowerful drawing of characteristic heads. They are as various as they arevigorous. What a nation of strong men must the Florentines have been, wefeel while gazing at his frescoes. [196] In many houses he painted roundels with his own hand, and of nakedwomen plenty. CHAPTER VI PAINTING Two Periods in the True Renaissance--Andrea Mantegna--His StatuesqueDesign--His Naturalism--Roman Inspiration--Triumph of JuliusCaesar--Bas-reliefs--Luca Signorelli--The Precursor of MichaelAngelo--Anatomical Studies--Sense of Beauty--The Chapel of S. Brizio atOrvieto--Its Arabesques and Medallions--Degrees in his Ideal--Enthusiasmfor Organic Life--Mode of treating Classical Subjects--Perugino--HisPietistic Style--His Formalism--The Psychological Problem of hisLife--Perugino's Pupils--Pinturicchio--At Spello and Siena--Francia--FraBartolommeo--Transition to the Golden Age--Lionardo da Vinci--The Magicianof the Renaissance--Raphael--The Melodist--Correggio--The Faun--MichaelAngelo--The Prophet. The Renaissance, so far as Painting is concerned, may be said to haveculminated between the years 1470 and 1550. These dates, it must befrankly admitted, are arbitrary; nor is there anything more unprofitablethan the attempt to define by strict chronology the moments of anintellectual growth so complex, so unequally progressive, and so varied asthat of Italian art. All that the historian can hope to do, is to strike amean between his reckoning of years and his more subtle calculations basedon the emergence of decisive genius in special men. An instance of suchcompromise is afforded by Lionardo da Vinci, who belongs, as far as datesgo, to the last half of the fifteenth century, but who must, on anyestimate of his achievement, be classed with Michael Angelo among thefinal and supreme masters of the full Renaissance. To violate the order oftime, with a view to what may here be called the morphology of Italianart, is, in his case, a plain duty. Bearing this in mind, it is still possible to regard the eighty yearsabove mentioned as a period no longer of promise and preparation but offulfilment and accomplishment. Furthermore, the thirty years at the closeof the fifteenth century may be taken as one epoch in this climax of theart, while the first half of the sixteenth forms a second. Within theformer falls the best work of Mantegna, Perugino, Francia, the Bellini, Signorelli, Fra Bartolommeo. To the latter we may reckon Michael Angelo, Raphael, Giorgione, Correggio, Titian, and Andrea del Sarto. Lionardo daVinci, though belonging chronologically to the former epoch, ranks firstamong the masters of the latter; and to this also may be given Tintoretto, though his life extended far beyond it to the last years of the century. We thus obtain, within the period of eighty years from 1470 to 1550, twosubordinate divisions of time, the one including the last part of thefifteenth century, the other extending over the best years of thesixteenth. The subdivisions I have just suggested correspond to two distinct stagesin the evolution of art. The painters of the earlier group win ouradmiration quite as much by their aim as by their achievement. Theirachievement, indeed, is not so perfect but that they still make somedemand upon interpretative sympathy in the student. There is, besides, asense of reserved strength in their work. We feel that their motives havenot been developed to the utmost, that their inspiration is not exhausted;that it will be possible for their successors to advance beyond them onthe same path, not realising more consummate excellence in special points, but combining divers qualities, and reaching absolute freedom. The painters of the second group display mastery more perfect, range offaculty more all-embracing. What they design they do; nature and art obeythem equally; the resources placed at their command are employed withfacile and unfettered exercise of power. The hand obedient to the brain isnow so expert that nothing further is left to be desired in the expressionof the artist's thought. [197] The student can only hope to penetrate themaster's meaning. To imagine a step further in the same direction isimpossible. The full flower of the Italian genius has been unfolded. Itsmessage to the world in art has been delivered. Chronology alone would not justify us in drawing these distinctions. Whatreally separates the two groups is the different degree in which theyseverally absorbed the spirit and uttered the message of their age. In theformer the Renaissance was still immature, in the latter it was perfected. Yet all these painters deserve in a true sense to be called its children. Their common object is art regarded as an independent function, andrelieved from the bondage of technical impediments. In their work theliberty of the modern mind finds its first and noblest expression. Theydeal with familiar and time-honoured Christian motives reverently; butthey use them at the same time for the exhibition of pure human beauty. Pagan influences yield them spirit-stirring inspiration; yet the antiquemodels of style, which proved no less embarrassing to their successorsthan Saul's armour was to David, weigh lightly, like a magician'sbreast-plate, upon their heroic strength. Andrea Mantegna was born near Padua in 1431. Vasari says that in hisboyhood he herded cattle, and it is probable that he was the son of asmall Lombard farmer. What led him to the study of the arts we do notknow; but that his talents were precociously developed, is proved by hisregistration in 1441 upon the books of the painter's guild at Padua. He isthere described as the adopted son of Squarcione. At the age of seventeenhe signed a picture with his name. Studying the casts and drawingscollected by Squarcione for his Paduan school, the young Mantegna foundcongenial exercise for his peculiar gifts. [198] His early frescoes in theEremitani at Padua look as though they had been painted from statues orclay models, carefully selected for the grandeur of their forms, thenobility of their attitudes, and the complicated beauty of their drapery. The figures, arranged on different planes, are perfect in theirperspective; the action is indicated by appropriate gestures, and thecolouring, though faint and cold, is scientifically calculated. Yet not aman or woman in these wondrous compositions seems to live. Well providedwith bone and muscle, they have neither blood nor anything suggestive ofthe breath of life within them. It is as though Mantegna had been calledto paint a people turned to stone, arrested suddenly amid their variousoccupations, and preserved for centuries from injury in some Egyptiansolitude of dewless sand. In spite of this unearthly immobility, the Paduan frescoes exercise astrange and potent spell. We feel ourselves beneath the sway of a giganticgenius, intent on solving the severest problems of his art in preparationfor the portraiture of some high intellectual abstraction. It should alsobe observed that notwithstanding their frigidity and statuesque composure, the pictures of "S. Andrew" and "S. Christopher" in the chapel of theEremitani reveal minute study of real objects. Transitory movements of thebody are noted and transcribed with merciless precision; an Italianhill-side, with its olive trees and winding ways and crown of turrets, forms the background of one scene; in another the drama is localised amidRenaissance architecture of the costliest style. Rustic types have beenselected for the soldiers, and commonplace details, down to a patchedjerkin or a broken shoe, bear witness to the patience and the observationof the master. But over all these things the glamour of Medusa's head hasfallen, turning them to stone. We are clearly in the presence of a painterfor whom the attractions of nature were subordinated to the fascinationsof science--a man the very opposite, for instance, to Benozzo Gozzoli. IfMantegna had passed away in early manhood, like Masaccio, his fame wouldhave been that of a cold and calculating genius labouring after an idealunrealised except in its dry formal elements. The truth is that Mantegna's inspiration was derived from theantique. [199] The beauty of classical bas-relief entered deep into hissoul and ruled his imagination. In later life he spent his acquired wealthin forming a collection of Greek and Roman antiquities. [200] He was, moreover, the friend of students, eagerly absorbing the knowledge broughtto light by Ciriac of Ancona, Flavio Biondo, and other antiquaries; and socompletely did he assimilate the materials of scholarship, that the spiritof a Roman seemed to be re-incarnated in him. Thus, independently of hishigh value as a painter, he embodies for us in art that sincere passionfor the ancient world which was the dominating intellectual impulse of hisage. The minute learning accumulated in the fifteenth century upon the subjectof Roman military life found noble illustration in his frieze of "JuliusCaesar's Triumph. "[201] Nor is this masterpiece a cold display ofpedantry. The life we vainly look for in the frescoes of the Eremitanichapel may be found here--statuesque, indeed, in style, and stately inmovement, but glowing with the spirit of revived antiquity. Theprocessional pomp of legionaries bowed beneath their trophied arms, themonumental majesty of robed citizens, the gravity of stoled and veiledpriests, the beauty of young slaves, and all the paraphernalia of spoilsand wreaths and elephants and ensigns are massed together with theself-restraint of noble art subordinating pageantry to rules of loftycomposition. What must the genius of the man have been who could move thusmajestically beneath the weight of painfully accumulated erudition, converting an antiquarian motive into a theme for melodies of linecomposed in the grave Dorian mood? By no process can the classic purity of this bas-relief be betterunderstood than by comparing the original with a transcript made by Rubensfrom a portion of the "Triumph. "[202] The Flemish painter strives to addrichness to the scene by Bacchanalian riot and the sensuality of imperialRome. His elephants twist their trunks, and trumpet to the din of cymbals;negroes feed the flaming candelabra with scattered frankincense; the whiteoxen of Clitumnus are loaded with gaudy flowers, and the dancing maidensare dishevelled Maenads. But the rhythmic procession of Mantegna, modulatedto the sound of flutes and soft recorders, carries our imagination back tothe best days and strength of Rome. His priests and generals, captives andchoric women, are as little Greek as they are modern. In them awakes to anew life the spirit-quelling energy of the republic. The painter's severetaste keeps out of sight the insolence and orgies of the empire; heconceives Rome as Shakspeare did in "Coriolanus. "[203] In compositions of this type, studied after bas-reliefs and friezes, Mantegna displayed a power that was unique. Those who have once seen hisdrawings for Judith with the head of Holofernes, and for Solomon judgingbetween the two mothers, will never forget their sculpture. The lines aregraven on our memory. When this marble master chose to be tragic, hisintensity was terrible. The designs for a dead Christ carried to the tombamong the weeping Maries, concentrate within the briefest space the utmostagony; it is as though the very ecstasy of grief had been congealed andfixed for ever. What, again, he could produce of purely beautiful withinthe region of religious art, is shown by his "Madonna of theVictory. "[204] No other painter has given to the soldier saints forms atonce so heroic and so chivalrously tender. With regard to the circumstances of Mantegna's biography, it may be saidbriefly that, though of humble birth, he spent the greater portion of hislife at Court and in the service of princes. It was in 1456, after he haddistinguished himself by the Paduan frescoes, that he first received aninvitation from the Marquis Lodovico Gonzaga. Of this sovereign I havealready had occasion to speak. [205] Reared by Vittorino da Feltre, to whomhis father had committed almost unlimited authority, Lodovico had earlylearned to estimate the real advantages of culture. It was now his objectto render his capital no less illustrious by art than by the residence oflearned men. With this view he offered Mantegna a salary of fifteen ducatsa month, together with lodging, corn, and fuel--provided the painter wouldplace his talents at his service. Mantegna accepted the invitation; butnumerous engagements prevented him from transferring his household fromPadua to Mantua until the year 1460. From that date onwards to 1506, whenhe died, Mantegna remained attached to the Gonzaga family serving threeMarquises in succession, and adorning their palaces, chapels, andcountry-seats with frescoes now, alas! almost entirely ruined. The grantsof land and presents he received in addition to his salary, enabled him tobuild a villa at Buscoldo, where he resided during the summer, as well asto erect a sumptuous mansion in the capital. Between Mantua, Goito, and Buscoldo, Mantegna spent the last forty-sixyears of his life in continual employment, broken only by a short visit toFlorence in 1466, and another to Bologna in 1472, [206] and by a longerresidence in Rome between the years 1488 and 1490. During the latterperiod Innocent VIII. Was Pope. He had built a chapel in the Belvedere ofthe Vatican, and wished the greatest painter of the day to decorate it. Therefore he wrote to Francesco, Marquis of Mantua, requesting that hemight avail himself of Mantegna's skill. Francesco, though unwilling topart with his painter in ordinary, thought it unadvisable to disappointthe Pope. Accordingly he dubbed Mantegna knight, and sent him to Rome. Thechapel painted in fresco for Innocent was ruthlessly destroyed by PiusVI. ; and thus the world has lost one of Mantegna's masterpieces, executedwhile his genius was at its zenith. On his return to Mantua he finishedthe decorations of the Castello of the Gonzaghi, and completed hisgreatest surviving work, the "Triumph of Julius Caesar. " By his wife, Nicolosia, the sister of Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, Mantegna had several children, one of whom, Francesco, adopted painting asa trade. The great artist was by temper arrogant and haughty; nor could hesucceed in living peaceably with any of his neighbours. It appears that hespent habitually more money than he could well afford, freely indulginghis taste for magnificence, and disbursing large sums in the purchase ofcuriosities. Long before his death his estate had been involved in debt;and after his decease, his sons were forced to sell the pictures in hisstudio for the payment of pressing creditors. He was buried in Alberti'schurch of S. Andrea at Mantua, in a chapel decorated at his own expense. Over the grave was placed a bronze bust, most noble in modelling andperfect in execution. The broad forehead with its deeply cloven furrows, the stern and piercing eyes, the large lips compressed with nervousenergy, the massive nose, the strength of jaw and chin, and the superbclusters of the hair escaping from a laurel-wreath upon the royal head, are such as realise for us our notion of a Roman in the days of theRepublic. Mantegna's own genius has inspired this masterpiece, whichtradition assigns to the medallist Sperando Maglioli. Whoever wrought it, must have felt the incubation of the mighty painter's spirit, and havestriven to express in bronze the character of his uncompromising art. Of a different temperament, yet not wholly unlike Mantegna in a certainiron strength of artistic character, was Luca Signorelli, born about 1441at Cortona. The supreme quality of Mantegna was studied purity of outline, severe and heightened style. As Landor is distinguished by concentrationabove all the English poets who have made trial of the classic Muse, soMantegna holds a place apart among Italian painters because of his sternRoman self-control. Signorelli, on the contrary, made his mark byboldness, pushing experiment almost beyond the verge of truth, andapproaching Michael Angelo in the hardihood of his endeavour to outdonature. Vasari says of him, that "even Michael Angelo imitated the mannerof Luca, as every one can see;" and indeed Signorelli anticipated thegreatest master of the sixteenth century, not only in his profound studyof human anatomy, but also in his resolution to express high thought andtragic passion by pure form, discarding all the minor charms of painting. Trained in the severe school of Piero della Francesca, he early learned todraw from the nude with boldness and accuracy; and to this point, too muchneglected by his predecessors, he devoted the full powers of his maturity. Anatomy he practised, according to the custom of those days, in thegraveyard or beneath the gibbet. There is a drawing by him in the Louvreof a stalwart man carrying upon his back the corpse of a youth. Both arenaked. The motive seems to have been taken from some lazar-house. Life-long study of perspective in its application to the drawing of thefigure, made the difficulties of foreshortening and the delineation ofbrusque attitude mere child's play to this audacious genius. The mostrapid movement, the most perilous contortion of bodies falling through theair or flying, he depicted with hard, firmly-traced, unerring outline. Ifwe dare to criticise the productions of a master so original and soaccomplished, all we can say is that Signorelli revelled almost toowantonly in the display of hazardous posture, and that he sacrificed thepassion of his theme to the display of science. [207] Yet his geniuscomprehended great and tragic subjects, and to him belongs the credit inan age of ornament and pedantry of having made the human body a languagefor the utterance of all that is most weighty in the thought of man. A story is told by Vasari which brings Signorelli very close to oursympathy, and enables us to understand the fascination of pure form hefelt so deeply. "It is related of Luca that he had a son killed atCortona, a youth of singular beauty in face and person, whom he hadtenderly loved. In his grief the father caused the boy to be strippednaked, and with extraordinary constancy of soul, uttering no complaintand shedding no tear, he painted the portrait of his dead son, to the endthat he might still be able, through the work of his own hand, tocontemplate that which nature had given him, but which an adverse fortunehad taken away. " So passionate and ardent, so convinced of theindissoluble bond between the soul he loved in life and its dead tenementof clay, and withal so iron-nerved and stout of will, it behoved that manto be, who undertook in the plenitude of his power, at the age of sixty, to paint upon the walls of the chapel of S. Brizio at Orvieto the imagesof Doomsday, Resurrection, Heaven, and Hell. [208] It is a gloomy chapel in the Gothic cathedral of that forlorn Papalcity--gloomy by reason of bad lighting, but more so because of theterrible shapes with which Signorelli has filled it[209]. In no other workof the Italian Renaissance, except in the Sistine Chapel, has so muchthought, engaged upon the most momentous subjects, been expressed withgreater force by means more simple and with effect more overwhelming. Architecture, landscape, and decorative accessories of every kind, theusual padding of _quattrocento_ pictures, have been discarded from themain compositions. The painter has relied solely upon his power ofimagining and delineating the human form in every attitude, and under themost various conditions. Darting like hawks or swallows through the air, huddling together to shun the outpoured vials of the wrath of God, writhing with demons on the floor of Hell, struggling into new life fromthe clinging clay, standing beneath the footstool of the Judge, floatingwith lute and viol on the winds of Paradise, kneeling in prayer, orclasping "inseparable hands with joy and bliss in overmeasure forever"--these multitudes of living beings, angelic, diabolic, bestial, human, crowd the huge spaces of the chapel walls. What makes theimpression of controlling doom the more appalling, is that we comprehendthe drama in its several scenes, while the chief actor, the divine Judge, at whose bidding the cherubs sound their clarions, and the dead arise, andweal and woe are portioned to the saved and damned, is Himselfunrepresented. [210] We breathe in the presence of embodied consciences, submitting, like our own, to an unseen inevitable will. It would be doing Signorelli injustice at Orvieto to study only thesegreat panels. The details with which he has filled all the vacant spacesabove the chapel stalls and round the doorway, throw new light upon hispower. The ostensible motive for this elaborate ornamentation is containedin the portraits of six poets, who are probably Homer, Virgil, Lucan, Horace, Ovid, and Dante, _il sesto tra cotanto senno_. [211] But theportraits themselves, though vigorously conceived and remarkable for boldforeshortening, are the least part of the whole design. Its originalityconsists in the arabesques, medallions, and _chiaroscuro_ bas-reliefs, where the human form, treated as absolutely plastic, supplies the soledecorative element. The pilasters by the doorway, for example, arecomposed, after the usual type of Italian _grotteschi_, in imitation ofantique candelabra, with numerous stages for the exhibition of theartist's fancies. Unlike the work of Raphael in the Loggie, thesepilasters of Signorelli show no birds or beasts, no flowers or foliage, fruits or fauns, no masks or sphinxes. They are crowded with nakedmen--drinking, dancing, leaning forward, twisting themselves into strangeattitudes, and adapting their bodies to the several degrees of theframework. The same may be said of the arabesques around the portraits ofthe poets, where men, women, and children, some complete, some ending infoliage or in fish-tails, are lavished with a wild and terrible profusion. Hippogriffs and centaurs, sirens and dolphins, are here used as adjunctsto humanity. Amid this fantastic labyrinth of twisted forms we findmedallions painted in _chiaroscuro_ with subjects taken chiefly fromOvidian and Dantesque mythology. Here every attitude of men in combat andin motion has been studied from the nude, and multitudes of figures drapedand undraped are compressed into the briefest compass. All but the humanform is sternly eliminated; and the body itself is treated with a masteryand a boldness that prove Signorelli to have held its varied capabilitiesfirmly in his brain. He could not have worked out all those postures fromthe living model. He played freely with his immense stores of knowledge;but his play was the pastime of a Prometheus. Each pose, howeverhazardous, carries conviction with it of sincerity and truth; the life andliberty of nature reign throughout. From the whole maze of interlaced andwrestling figures the terrible nature of the artist's genius shines forth. They are almost all strong men in the prime or past the prime of life, chosen for their salient display of vital structure. Signorelli was thefirst, and, with the exception of Michael Angelo, the last painter thus touse the body, without sentiment, without voluptuousness, without anysecond intention whatsoever, as the supreme decorative principle. In hisabsolute sincerity he made, as it were, a parade of hard and rugged types, scorning to introduce an element of beauty, whether sensuous or ideal, that should distract him from the study of the body in and for itself. This distinguishes him in the arabesques at Orvieto alike from Mantegnaand Michael Angelo, from Correggio and Raphael, from Titian and PaoloVeronese. This point is so important for its bearing on Renaissance art that I maybe permitted to dilate at greater length on Signorelli's choice of typesand treatment of form in general. Having a special predilection for thehuman body, he by no means confined himself to monotony in itspresentation. On the contrary, we can trace many distinct grades ofcorporeal expression. First comes the abstract nude, illustrated by the"Resurrection" and the arabesques at Orvieto[212]. Contemporary life, withall its pomp of costume and insolence of ruffling youth, is depicted inthe "Fulminati" at Orvieto and in the "Soldiers of Totila" at MonteOliveto[213]. These transcripts from the courts of princes and camps ofcondottieri are invaluable as portraits of the lawless young men whofilled Italy with the noise of their feuds and the violence of theiradventures. They illustrate Matarazzo's Perugian chronicle better than anyother Renaissance pictures; for in frescoes like those of Pinturicchio atSiena the same qualities are softened to suit the painter's predeterminedharmony, whereas Signorelli rejoices in their pure untemperedcharacter[214]. These, then, form a second stage. Third in degree we findthe type of highly idealised adolescence reserved by Signorelli for hisangels. All his science and his sympathy with real life are heresubordinated to poetic feeling. It is a mistake to say that these angelsare the young men of Umbria whom he loved to paint in their stripedjackets, with the addition of wings to their shoulders. The radiant beingswho tune their citherns on the clouds of Paradise, or scatter roses forelect souls, could not live and breathe in the fiery atmosphere ofsensuous passions to which the Baglioni were habituated. A grave andsolemn sense of beauty animates these fair male beings, clothed involuminous drapery, with youthful faces and still earnest eyes. Theirmelody, like that of Milton, is severe. Nor are Signorelli's angelicbeings of one uniform type like the angels of Fra Angelico. The athleticcherubs of the "Resurrection, " breathing their whole strength into thetrumpets that awake the dead; the mailed and winged warriors, keepingguard above the pit of "Hell, " that none may break their prison-bars amongthe damned; the lute-players of "Paradise, " with their almost femininesobriety of movement; the flame-breathing seraphs of the day of doom; the"Gabriel" of Volterra, in whom strength is translated intoswiftness:--these are the heralds, sentinels, musicians, executioners, andmessengers of the celestial court; and each class is distinguished byappropriate physical characteristics. At the other end of the scale, forming a fourth grade, we may mention the depraved types of humanitychosen for his demons--those greenish, reddish, ochreish fiends of the"Inferno, " whom Signorelli created by exaggerating the more grotesquequalities of the nude developed in his arabesques. We thus obtain fourseveral degrees of form: the demoniac, the abstract nude, the adolescentbeauty of young men copied from choice models, and the angelic. Except in his angels, Signorelli was comparatively indifferent to what iscommonly considered beauty. He was not careful to select his models, or toidealise their type. The naked human body, apart from facial distinctionor refinement of form, contented him. Violent contrasts of light andshadow, accentuating the anatomical structure with rough and angulardecision, give the effect of illustrative diagrams to his studies. Harmonyof proportion and the magic of expression are sacrificed to energyemergent in a powerful physique. Redundant life, in sinewy limbs, in theproud carriage of the head upon the neck, in the sway of the trunkbackward from the reins, the firmly planted calves and brawny thighs, thethick hair, broad shoulders, spare flanks, and massive gluteal muscles ofa man of twenty-two or upwards, whose growth has been confined to thedevelopment of animal force, was what delighted him. Yet there is nocoarseness or animalism properly so called in his style. He was attractedby the marvellous mechanism of the human frame--its goodliness regarded asthe most highly organised of animate existences. Owing, perhaps, to this exclusive predilection for organic life, Signorelli was not great as a colourist. His patches of blues and reds inthe frescoes of Monte Oliveto are oppressively distinct; his use of dullbrown for the shading of flesh imparts a disagreeable heaviness to hisbest modelled forms; nor did he often attain in his oil pictures to thatgrave harmony we admire in his "Last Supper" at Cortona. The world oflight and colour was to him a comparatively untravelled land. It remainedfor other artists to raise these elements of pictorial expression to theheight reached by Signorelli in his treatment of the nude. Before quitting the frescoes at Orvieto, some attention should be paid tothe medallions spoken of above, in special relation to the classicism ofthe earlier Renaissance. Scenes from Dante's "Purgatorio" and subjectsfrom the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid are treated here in the same key; but thelatter, since they engaged Signorelli's fancy upon Greek mythology, arethe more important for our purpose. Two from the legend of "Orpheus" andtwo from that of "Proserpine" might be chosen as typical of the wholeseries. Mediaeval intensity, curiously at variance with antique feeling, isdiscernible throughout. The satellites of Hades are gaunt and sinewydevils, eager to do violence to Eurydice. Pluto himself drives his jarringcar-wheels up through the lava-blocks and flames of Etna with a fury and avehemence we seek in vain upon antique sarcophagi. Ceres, wanderingthrough Sicily in search of her lost daughter, is a gaunt witch withdishevelled hair, raising frantic hands to tear her cheeks; while thesnakes that draw her chariot are no grave symbols of the germinating corn, but greedy serpents ready to spit fire against the ravishers ofProserpine. Thus the tranquillity and self-restraint of Greek art yield toa passionate and trenchant realisation of the actual romance. The mostthrilling moments in the legend are selected for dramatic treatment, graceand beauty being exchanged for vivid presentation. A whole cycle of humanexperience separates these medallions from the antique bas-relief atNaples, where Hermes hands the veiled Eurydice to Orpheus, and all threeare calm. That Signorelli, if he chose to do so, could represent a classicmyth with more of classic feeling, is shown by his picture of "PanListening to Olympus"[215]. The nymph, the vineleaf-girdled Faun, and thetwo shepherds, all undraped and drawn with subtle feeling for the melodiesof line, render this work one of his most successful compositions. It would be interesting to compare Signorelli's treatment of the antiquewith Mantegna's or Botticelli's. The visions of the pagan world, floatingbefore the mind of all men in the fifteenth century, found very differentinterpreters in these three painters--Botticelli adding the quaint alloyof his own fancy, Signorelli imparting the semi-savagery of a terribleimagination, Mantegna, with the truest instinct and the firmest touch, confining himself to the processional pageantry of bas-relief. Yet, werethis comparison to be instituted, we could hardly refrain from carrying itmuch further. Each great master of the Renaissance had his own relation toclassical mythology. The mystic sympathies of "Leda and the Swan, " asimaged severally by Lionardo and Michael Angelo; Correggio's romantichandling of the myths of "Danaë" and "Io;" Titian's and Tintoretto's rivalpictures of "Bacchus and Ariadne;" Raphael's "Galatea;" Pollajuolo's"Hercules;" the "Europa" of Veronese; the "Circe" of Dosso Dossi; Palma's"Venus;" Sodoma's "Marriage of Alexander"--all these, to mention none butpictures familiar to every traveller in Italy, raise for the student ofthe classical Revival absorbing questions relative to the influences ofpagan myths upon the modern imagination. Signorelli was chiefly occupied, during the course of his long career, upon religious pictures; and the high place he occupies in the history ofRenaissance culture is due partly to his free abandonment of conventionalmethods in treating sacred subjects. The Uffizzi Gallery contains acircular "Madonna" by his hand, with a row of naked men forbackground--the forerunner of Michael Angelo's famous "Holy Family. " Sofar had art for art's sake already encroached upon the ecclesiasticaldomain. To discuss Signorelli's merits as a painter of altar-pieces wouldbe to extend the space allotted to him far beyond its proper limits. It isnot as a religious artist that he takes his rank, but as having powerfullypromoted the rehabilitation of the body achieved for art by theRenaissance. Unlike Mantegna, Signorelli never entered the service of a prince, thoughwe have seen that he executed commissions for Lorenzo de' Medici andPandolfo Petrucci. He bore a name which, if not noble, had been more thanonce distinguished in the annals of Tuscany. Residing at his native place, Cortona, he there enjoyed the highest reputation, and was frequentlyelected to municipal office. Concerning his domestic life very little isknown, but what we do know is derived from an excellent source[216]. Hismother was the sister of Lazzaro, great-grandfather of Giorgio Vasari. Inhis biography of Signorelli, Vasari relates how, when he was himself a boyof eight, his illustrious cousin visited the house of the Vasari family atArezzo; and hearing from little Giorgio's grammar-master that he spent histime in drawing figures, Luca turned to the child's father and said, "Antonio, since Giorgio takes after his family, you must by all means havehim taught; for even though he should pay attention to literature as well, drawing cannot fail to be a source of utility, honour, and recreation tohim, as it is to every man of worth. " Luca's kindness deeply impressed theboy, who afterwards wrote the following description of his personalqualities: "He was a man of the most excellent habits, sincere andaffectionate with his friends, sweet of conversation and amusing insociety, above all things courteous to those who had need of his work, andeasy in giving instruction to his pupils. He lived splendidly, and tookdelight in dressing handsomely. This excellent disposition caused him tobe always held in highest veneration both in his own city and abroad. " To turn from Signorelli to Perugino is to plunge at once into a verydifferent atmosphere[217]. It is like quitting the rugged gorges of highmountains for a valley of the Southern Alps--still, pensive, beautiful, and coloured with reflections from an evening sky. Perugino knew exactlyhow to represent a certain mood of religious sentiment, blending meekacquiescence with a prayerful yearning of the impassioned soul. HisMadonnas worshipping the infant Jesus in a tranquil Umbrian landscape, hisangels ministrant, his pathetic martyrs with upturned holy faces, hissexless S. Sebastians and immaculate S. Michaels, display the perfectionof art able by colour and by form to achieve within a narrow range what itdesires. What this artist seems to have aimed at, was to create for thesoul amid the pomps and passions of this world a resting-place ofcontemplation tenanted by saintly and seraphic beings. No pain comes nearthe folk of his celestial city; no longing poisons their repose; they arenot weary, and the wicked trouble them no more. Their cheerfulness is noless perfect than their serenity; like the shades of Hellas, they havedrunk Lethean waters from the river of content, and all remembrance ofthings sad or harsh has vanished from their minds. The quietude ofholiness expressed in this ideal region was a legacy to Perugino fromearlier Umbrian masters; but his technical supremacy in fresco-paintingand in oils, his correct drawing within certain limits, and his refinedsense of colour enabled him to realise it more completely than his lessaccomplished predecessors. In his best work the Renaissance set the sealof absolute perfection upon pietistic art. We English are fortunate in possessing one of Perugino's sincerestdevotional oil pictures[218]. His frescoes of "S. Sebastian" at Panicale, and of the "Crucifixion" at Florence, are tolerably well known throughreproductions[219]; while the "Vision of S. Bernard" at Munich and the"Pietà" in the Pitti Gallery are familiar to all travelled students ofItalian painting. These masterpieces belong to Perugino's best period, when his inspiration was fresh, and his enthusiasm for artistic excellencewas still unimpaired; and when, as M. Rio thinks, the failure of his faithhad not yet happened. It is only at Perugia, however, in the Sala delCambio, that we are able to gauge the extent of his power and to estimatethe value of his achievement beyond the pale of strictly religious themes. Early in the course of his career Perugino seems to have become contentedwith a formal repetition of successful motives, and to have checked thegrowth of his genius by adhering closely to a prescribed cycle of effects. The praises of his patrons and the prosperity of his trade proved to hiskeen commercial sense that the raised ecstatic eyes, the upturned ovalfaces, the pale olive skin, the head inclined upon the shoulder, the thinfluttering hair, the ribands and the dainty dresses of his holy personsfound great favour in Umbrian palaces and convents. Thenceforward hepainted but little else; and when, in the Sala del Cambio, he was obligedto treat the representative heroes of Greek and Roman story, he adoptedthe same manner[220]. Leonidas, the lionhearted Spartan, and Cato, theaustere Roman, who preferred liberty to life, bend their mild heads likeflowers in Perugino's frescoes, and gather up their drapery in studiedfolds with celestial delicacy. Jove is a reproduction of the Eterno Padre, conceived as a benevolent old man for a conventional painting of the"Trinity;" and Ganymede is a page-boy with the sweet submissive featuresof Tobias. Already Perugino had opened a manufactory of pietisticpictures, and was employing many pupils on his works. He coined money byfixing artificially beautiful faces upon artificially elegant figures, placing a row of these puppets in a landscape with calm sky behind them, and calling the composition by the name of some familiar scene. Hisinspiration was dead, his invention exhausted; his chief object seemed tobe to make his trade thrive. Perugino will always remain a problem to the psychologist who believes inphysiognomy, as well as to the student of the passionate times in which helived. His hard unsympathetic features in the portraits at Perugia andFlorence do not belie, but rather win credence for Vasari's tales abouthis sordid soul. [221] Local traditions and contemporary rumours, again, give colour to what Vasari relates about his infidelity; while thecriminal records of Florence prove that he was not over-scrupulous to keephis hands from violence. [222] How could such a man, we ask ourselves, haveendured to pass a long life in the _fabrication of devotional pictures?_Whence did he derive the sentiment of masterpieces, for piety onlyequalled by those of Fra Angelico, either in his own nature or in thesociety of a city torn to pieces by the factions of the Baglioni? How, again, was it possible for an artist who at times touched beauty so ideal, to be contented with the stencilling by his pupils of conventional figureson canvases to which he gave his name? Taking these questions separately, we might reply that "there is no art to find the mind's construction inthe face;" that painting in the sixteenth century was a trade regulated bythe demand for particular wares; that men can live among ruffians withoutsharing their mood; that the artist and the moral being are separate, andmay not be used to interpret each other. Yet, after giving due weight tosuch answers, Perugino, being what he was, living at the time he did, notas a recluse, but as a prosperous _impresario_ of painting, andsystematically devoting his powers to pietistic art, must be for us apuzzle. That the quietism of his highly artificial style should have beenfashionable in Perugia, while the Baglioni were tearing each other topieces, and the troops of the Vitelli and the Borgia were trampling uponUmbria, is one of the most striking paradoxes of an age rich in dramaticcontradictions. It is much to be regretted, with a view to solving the question ofPerugino's personality in relation to his art, that his character does notemerge with any salience from the meagre notices we have receivedconcerning him, and that we know but little of his private life. Vasaritells us that he married a very beautiful girl, and that one of his chiefpleasures was to see this wife handsomely dressed at home and abroad. Heoften decked her out in clothes and jewels with his own hand. For therest, we find in Perugino, far more than in either Mantegna or Signorelli, an instance of the simple Italian craftsman, employing numerousassistants, undertaking contract work on a large scale, and striking keenbargains with his employers. Both at Florence and at Perugia he opened a_bottega_; and by the exercise of his trade as a master-painter, herealised enough money to buy substantial estates in those cities, as wellas in his birthplace. [223] In all the greatest artworks of the age he tookhis part. Thus we find him painting in the Sistine Chapel between 1484 and1486, treating with the commune of Orvieto for the completion of thechapel of S. Brizio in 1489, joining in the debate upon the façade of S. Maria del Fiore in 1491, giving his opinion upon the erection of MichaelAngelo's "David" at Florence in 1504, and competing with Signorelli, Pinturicchio, and Bazzi for the decoration of the Stanze of the Vatican in1508. The rising of brighter stars above the horizon during his lifetimesomewhat dimmed his fame, and caused him much disquietude; yet neitherRaphael nor Michael Angelo interfered with the demand for his pictures, which continued to be lively till the very year of his death. That he wasjealous of these younger rivals, appears from the fact that he brought anaction against Michael Angelo for having called his style stupid andantiquated. In the celebrated phrase cast at him by the blunt and scornfulmaster of a new art-mystery[224], we discern the abrupt line of divisionbetween time-honoured tradition and the _maniera moderna_ of the fullRenaissance. The old Titans had to yield their place before the newOlympian deities of Italian painting. There is something pathetic in theretirement of the grey-haired Perugino from Rome, to make way for thevictorious Phoebean beauty of the boy Raphael. The influence of Perugino upon Italian art was powerful though transitory. He formed a band of able pupils, among whom was the great Raphael; andthough Raphael speedily abandoned his master's narrow footpath through thefields of painting, he owed to Perugino the invaluable benefit of trainingin solid technical methods and traditions of pure taste. From none of hiselder contemporaries, with the exception of Fra Bartolommeo, could theyoung Raphael have learnt so much that was congenial to his earlyinstincts. What, for example, might have befallen him if he had workedwith Signorelli, it is difficult to imagine; for while nothing is moreobvious on the one hand than Raphael's originality, his strongassimilative bias is scarcely less remarkable. The time has not yet cometo speak of Raphael; nor will space suffice for detailed observations onhis fellow-students in the workshop at Perugia. The place occupied byPerugino in the evolution of Italian painting is peculiar. In the middleof a positive and worldly age, declining fast to frigid scepticism andpolitical corruption, he set the final touch of technical art upon thedevotion transmitted from earlier and more enthusiastic centuries. Theflower of Umbrian piety blossomed in the masterpieces of his youth, andfaded into dryness in the affectations of his manhood. Nothing was left onthe same line for his successors. Among these, Bernardo Pinturicchio can here alone be mentioned. A thoroughnaturalist, though saturated with the mannerism of the Umbrian school, Pinturicchio was not distracted either by scientific or ideal aims fromthe clear and fluent presentation of contemporary manners and costumes. Heis a kind of Umbrian Gozzoli, who brings us here and there in closerelation to the men of his own time, and has in consequence a specialvalue for the student of Renaissance life. His wall-paintings in thelibrary of the cathedral of Siena are so well preserved that we need notseek elsewhere for better specimens of the decorative art most highlyprized in the first years of the sixteenth century[225]. These frescoeshave a richness of effect and a vivacity of natural action, which, inspite of their superficiality, render them highly charming. The life ofÆneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Pius II. , is here treated like a legend. Thereis no attempt at representing the dress of half a century anterior to thepainter's date, or at rendering accurate historic portraiture. Both Popeand Emperor are romantically conceived, and each portion of the tale istold as though it were a fit in some popular ballad. So much remains ofPerugian affectation as gives a kind of childlike grace to the studiedattitudes and many-coloured groups of elegant young men. We must always be careful to distinguish the importance of an artistconsidered as the exponent of his age from that which he may claim byvirtue of some special skill or some peculiar quality of feeling. The artof Perugino, for example, throws but little light upon the Renaissancetaken as a whole. Intrinsically valuable because of its technicalperfection and its purity of sentiment, it was already in the painter'slifetime superseded by a larger and a grander manner. The progressiveforces of the modern style found their channels outside him. This again istrue of Francesco Raibolini, surnamed Francia from his master in thegoldsmith's craft. Francia is known to Englishmen as one of the mostsincerely pious of Christian painters by his incomparable picture of the"Dead Christ" in our National Gallery. The spirituality that renders FraAngelico unintelligible to minds less ecstatically tempered than his own, is not found in such excess in Francia, nor does his work suffer from theinsipidity of Perugino's affectation. Deep religious feeling is combinedwith physical beauty of the purest type in a masterpiece of tranquilgrace. A greater degree of _naïveté_ and naturalness compensates for theinferiority of Francia's to Perugino's supremely perfect handling. This istrue of Francia's numerous pictures at Bologna; where indeed, in order tobe rightly known, he should be studied by all lovers of the _quattrocento_style in its most delightful moments[226]. For mastery over oil paintingand for charm of colour Francia challenges comparison with what is best inPerugino, though he did not quite attain the same technical excellence. One more painter must delay us yet awhile within the limits of thefifteenth century. Bartolommeo di Paolo del Fattorino, better known asBaccio della Porta or Fra Bartolommeo, forms at Florence the connectinglink between the artists of the earlier Renaissance and the goldenage[227]. By chronological reckoning he is nearly a quarter of a centurylater than Lionardo da Vinci, and is the exact contemporary of MichaelAngelo. As an artist, he has thoroughly outgrown the _quattrocento_ style, and falls short only by a little of the greatest. In assigning him a placeamong the predecessors and precursors of the full Renaissance, I amtherefore influenced rather by the range of subjects he selected, and bythe character of his genius, than by calculations of time or estimate ofability. Fra Bartolommeo was sent, when nine years old, into the workshop of CosimoRosselli, where he began his artist's life by colour-grinding, sweepingout the shop, and errand-running. It was in Cosimo's _bottega_ that hemade acquaintance with Mariotto Albertinelli, who became his intimatefriend and fellow-worker. In spite of marked differences of character, disagreements upon the fundamental matters of politics and religion, andnot unfrequent quarrels, these men continued to be comrades through thebetter part of their joint lives. Baccio was gentle, timid, yielding, andindustrious. Mariotto was wilful, obstinate, inconsequent, and flighty, Baccio fell under the influence of Savonarola, professed himself a_piagnone_, and took the cowl of the Dominicans[228]. Mariotto was apartisan of the Medici, an uproarious _pallesco_, and a loose liver, whoeventually deserted the art of painting for the calling of an innkeeper. Yet so sweet was the temper of the Frate, and so firm was the bond offriendship established in boyhood between this ill-assorted couple, thatthey did not part company until 1512, three years before Mariotto's deathand five before that of Bartolommeo. During their long association thetask of designing fell upon the Frate, while Albertinelli took his ordersand helped to work out his conceptions. Both were excellent craftsmen andconsummate colourists, as is proved by the pictures executed by eachunassisted. Albertinelli's "Salutation" in the Uffizzi yields no point ofgrace and vigour to any of his more distinguished coadjutor's paintings. The great contributions made by Fra Bartolommeo to the art of Italy werein the double region of composition and colouring. In his justlycelebrated fresco of S. Maria Nuova at Florence--a "Last Judgment" with aChrist enthroned amid a choir of Saints--he exhibited for the first time athoroughly scientific scheme of grouping based on geometrical principles. Each part is perfectly balanced in itself, and yet is necessary to thestructure of the whole. The complex framework may be subdivided intonumerous sections no less harmoniously ordered than is the total scheme towhich they are subordinated. Simple figures--the pyramid and the triangle, upright, inverted, and interwoven like the rhymes in a sonnet--form thebasis of the composition. This system was adhered to by the Frate in allhis subsequent works. To what extent it influenced the style of Raphael, will be afterwards discussed. As a colourist, Fra Bartolommeo was equal tothe best of his contemporaries, and superior to any of his rivals in theschool of Florence. Few painters of any age have combined harmony of toneso perfectly with brilliance and richness. It is a real joy to contemplatethe pure and splendid folds of the white drapery he loved to place in theforeground of his altar-pieces. Solidity and sincerity distinguish hiswork in every detail, while his feeling is remarkable for elevation andsobriety. All that he lacks, is the boldness of imagination, the depth ofpassion, and the power of thought, that are indispensable to genius of thehighest order. Gifted with a sympathetic and a pliant, rather than acreative and self-sustained nature, he was sensitive to every influence. Therefore we find him learning much in his youth from Lionardo, deriving afresh impulse from Raphael, and endeavouring in his later life, after avisit to Rome in 1514, to "heighten his style, " as the phrase went, byemulating Michael Angelo. The attempt to tread the path of Buonarroti wasa failure. What Fra Bartolommeo sought to gain in majesty, he lost incharm. His was essentially a pure and gracious manner, upon whichsublimity could not be grafted. The gentle soul, who dropped his weaponwhen the convent of S. Marco was besieged by the Compagnacci[229], and whovowed, if heaven preserved him in the tumult, to become a monk, had noneof Michael Angelo's _terribilità_. Without possessing some share of thatspirit, it was vain to aggrandise the forms and mass the raiment of hisprophets in imitation of the Sistine. Nature made Fra Bartolommeo the painter of adoration[230]. His masterpieceat Lucca--the "Madonna della Misericordia"--is a poem of glad worship, ahymn of prayerful praise. Our Lady stands elate, between earth and heaven, appealing to her Son for mercy. At her footstool are her suppliants, themen and women and little children of the city she has saved. The peril ispast. Salvation has been won; and the song of thanksgiving ascends fromall those massed and mingled forms in unison. Not less truly is the greatunfinished picture of "Madonna surrounded by the Patron Saints ofFlorence" a poem of adoration[231]. This painting was ordered by theGonfalonier Piero Soderini, the man who dedicated Florence to Christ asKing. He intended it to take its place in the hall of the ConsiglioGrande, where Michael Angelo and Lionardo gained their earliest laurels. Before it could be finished, the Republic perished. [232] "That, " says Rio, "is the reason why he left but an imperfect work--for those at least whoare only struck by what is wanting in it. Others will at first regard itwith the interest attaching to unfinished poems, interrupted by thejailer's call or by the stern voice of the executioner. Then they willstudy it in all its details, in order to appreciate its beauties; and thatappreciation will be the more perfect in proportion as a man is the morefully penetrated with its dominant idea, and with the attendantcircumstances that bring this home to him. It is not against an abstractenemy that the intercession of the celestial powers is here invoked: it isnot by a caprice of the painter or his patron that, in the group ofcentral figures, S. Anne attracts attention before the Holy Virgin, notonly by reason of her pre-eminence, but also through the intensity of herheavenward prayer, and again through her beauty, which far surpasses thatof nearly all "Madonnas" painted by Fra Bartolommeo. "[233] But artist andpatron had indeed good reason, in this crisis of the Commonwealth, toselect as the most eminent advocate for Florence at the bar of Heaven thatsaint, on whose day, July 26, 1343, had been celebrated the emancipationof the city from its servitude to Walter of Brienne. The great event of Fra Bartolommeo's life was the impression produced onhim by Savonarola. [234] Having listened to the Dominican's terrificdenunciations of worldliness and immorality, he carried his life studiesto the pyre of vanities, resolved to assume the cowl, and renounced hisart. Between 1499, when he was engaged in painting the "Last Judgment" ofS. Maria Nuova, and 1506, he is supposed never to have touched the pencil. When he resumed it Savonarola had been burned for heresy, and FraBartolommeo was a brother in his convent of S. Marco. Savonarola hassometimes been described as an iconoclast, obstinately hostile to the finearts. This is by no means a true account of the crusade he carried onagainst the pagan sensuality of his contemporaries. He desired that artshould remain the submissive handmaid of the Church and the willingservant of pure morality. While he denounced the heathenism of the stylein vogue at Florence, and forbade the study of the nude, he strove toencourage religious painting, and established a school for its exercise inthe cloister of S. Marco. It was in this monastic _bottega_ that FraBartolommeo, in concert with his friend Albertinelli, worked for thebenefit of the convent after the year 1506. The reforms Savonarolaattempted in the fine arts as in manners, by running counter to thetendencies of the Renaissance at a moment when society was too corrupt tobe regenerated, and the passion for antiquity was too powerful to berestrained, proved of necessity ineffective. It may further be said thatthe limitations he imposed would have been fatal to the free developmentof art if they had been observed. Several painters, besides Fra Baccio, submitted to Savonarola's influence. Among these the most distinguished were the pure and gentle Lorenzo diCredi and Sandro Botticelli, who, after the great preacher's death, issaid to have abandoned painting. Neither Lorenzo di Credi nor Fra Bacciopossessed a portion of the prophet's fiery spirit. Had that but foundexpression in their cloistral pictures, one of the most peculiar andcharacteristic flowers of art the world has ever known, would then havebloomed in Florence. The mantle of Savonarola, however, if it fell uponany painter, fell on Michael Angelo, and we must seek an echo of thefriar's thunders in the Sistine Chapel. Fra Bartolommeo was too tender andtoo timid. The sublimities of tragic passion lay beyond his scope. ThoughI have ventured to call him the painter of adoration, he did not feel eventhis movement of the soul with the intensity of Fra Angelico. In theperson of S. Dominic kneeling beneath the cross Fra Angelico paintedworship as an ecstasy, wherein the soul goes forth with love and pain andyearning beyond any power of words or tears or music to express what itwould utter. To these heights of the ascetic ideal Fra Bartolommeo neversoared. His sobriety bordered upon the prosaic. We have now reached the great age of the Italian Renaissance, the age inwhich, not counting for the moment Venice, four arch-angelic naturesgathered up all that had been hitherto achieved in art since the days ofPisano and Giotto, adding such celestial illumination from the sunlight oftheir inborn genius that in them the world for ever sees what art can do. Lionardo da Vinci was born in Valdarno in 1452, and died in France in1519. Michael Angelo Buonarroti was born at Caprese, in the Casentino, in1475, and died at Borne in 1564, having outlived the lives of his greatpeers by nearly half a century. Raphael Santi was born at Urbino in 1483, and died in Rome in 1520. Antonio Allegri was born at Correggio in 1494, and died there in 1534. To these four men, each in his own degree andaccording to his own peculiar quality of mind, the fulness of theRenaissance, in its power and freedom, was revealed. They entered theinner shrine, where dwelt the spirit of their age, and bore to the worldwithout the message each of them had heard. In their work posterity stillmay read the meaning of that epoch, differently rendered according to thedifference of gifts in each consummate artist, but comprehended in itsunity by study of the four together. Lionardo is the wizard or diviner; tohim the Renaissance offers her mystery and lends her magic. Raphael is thePhoebean singer; to him the Renaissance reveals her joy and dowers himwith her gift of melody. Correggio is the Ariel or Faun; he has surprisedlaughter upon the face of the universe, and he paints this laughter inever-varying movement. Michael Angelo is the prophet and Sibylline seer;to him the Renaissance discloses the travail of her spirit; him she endueswith power; he wrests her secret, voyaging, like an ideal Columbus, thevast abyss of thought alone. In order that this revelation of theRenaissance in painting should be complete, it is necessary to add a fifthpower to these four--that of the Venetian masters, who are the poets ofcarnal beauty, the rhetoricians of mundane pomp, the impassionedinterpreters of all things great and splendid in the pageant of the outerworld. As Venice herself, by type of constitution and historicaldevelopment, remained sequestered from the rest of Italy, so her paintersdemand separate treatment. [235] It is enough, therefore, for the presentto remember that without the note they utter the chord of the Renaissancelacks its harmony. Lionardo, the natural son of Messer Pietro, notary of Florence and landedproprietor at Vinci, was so beautiful of person that no one, says Vasari, has sufficiently extolled his charm; so strong of limb that he could bendan iron ring or horse-shoe between his fingers; so eloquent of speech thatthose who listened to his words were fain to answer "Yes" or "No" as hethought fit. This child of grace and persuasion was a wonderful musician. The Duke of Milan sent for him to play upon his lute and improvise Italiancanzoni. The lute he carried was of silver, fashioned like a horse'shead, and tuned according to acoustic laws discovered by himself. Of thesongs he sang to its accompaniment none have been preserved. Only onesonnet remains to show of what sort was the poetry of Lionardo, prized sohighly by the men of his own generation. This, too, is less remarkable forpoetic beauty than for sober philosophy expressed with singular brevity ofphrase. [236] This story of Da Vinci's lute might be chosen as a parable of hisachievement. Art and science were never separated in his work; and bothwere not unfrequently subservient to some fanciful caprice, some bizarrefreak of originality. Curiosity and love of the uncommon ruled his nature. By intuition and by persistent interrogation of nature he penetrated manysecrets of science; but he was contented with the acquisition ofknowledge. Once found, he had but little care to distribute the results ofhis investigations; at most he sought to use them for purposes ofpractical utility. [237] Even in childhood he is said to have perplexedhis teachers by propounding arithmetical problems. In his maturity hecarried anatomy further than Delia Torre; he invented machinery forwater-mills and aqueducts; he devised engines of war, discovered thesecret of conical rifle-bullets, adapted paddle-wheels to boats, projectednew systems of siege artillery, investigated the principles of optics, designed buildings, made plans for piercing mountains, raising churches, connecting rivers, draining marshes, clearing harbours. [238] There was nobranch of study whereby nature through the effort of the inquisitiveintellect might be subordinated to the use of man, of which he was notmaster. Nor, richly gifted as was Lionardo, did he trust his naturalfacility. His patience was no less marvellous than the quickness of hisinsight. He lived to illustrate the definition of genius as the capacityfor taking infinite pains. While he was a boy, says Vasari, Lionardo modelled in terra-cotta certainheads of women smiling. This was in the workshop of Verocchio, who hadalready fixed a smile on David's face in bronze. When an old man, he left"Mona Lisa" on the easel not quite finished, the portrait of a subtle, shadowy, uncertain smile. This smile, this enigmatic revelation of amovement in the soul, this seductive ripple on the surface of the humanpersonality, was to Lionardo a symbol of the secret of the world, an imageof the universal mystery. It haunted him all through his life, andinnumerable were the attempts he made to render by external form the magicof this fugitive and evanescent charm. Through long days he would follow up and down the streets of Florence orof Milan beautiful unknown faces, learning them by heart, interpretingtheir changes of expression, reading the thoughts through the features. These he afterwards committed to paper. We possess many such sketches--aseries of ideal portraits, containing each an unsolved riddle that themaster read; a procession of shadows, cast by reality, that, entering thecamera lucida of the artist's brain, gained new and spiritualquality. [239] In some of them his fancy seems to be imprisoned in thelabyrinths of hair; in others the eyes deep with feeling or hard withgemlike brilliancy have caught it, or the lips that tell and hide so much, or the nostrils quivering with momentary emotion. Beauty, inexpressive ofinner meaning, must, we conceive, have had but slight attraction for him. We do not find that he drew "a fair naked body" for the sake of its carnalcharm; his hasty studies of the nude are often faulty, mere memoranda ofattitude and gesture. The human form was interesting to him eitherscientifically or else as an index to the soul. Yet he felt the influenceof personal loveliness His favourite pupil Salaino was a youth "ofsingular grace, with curled and waving hair, a feature of personal beautyby which Lionardo was always greatly pleased. " Hair, the most mysteriousof human things, the most manifold in form and hue, snakelike in itssubtlety for the entanglement of souls, had naturally supremeattractiveness for the magician of the arts. With like energy Lionardo bent himself to divine the import of ugliness. Whole pages of his sketch-book are filled with squalid heads of shrivelledcrones and ghastly old men--with idiots, goîtred cretins, criminals, andclowns. It was not that he loved the horrible for its own sake; but he wasdetermined to seize character, to command the gamut of human physiognomyfrom ideal beauty down to forms bestialised by vice and disease. The storyrelated by Giraldi concerning the head of Judas in the "Cenacolo" atMilan, sufficiently illustrates the method of Lionardo in creating typesand the utility of such caricatures as his notebooks contain. [240] It is told that he brought into his room one day a collection ofreptiles--lizards, newts, toads, vipers, efts--all creatures that areloathsome to the common eye. These, by the magic of imagination, hecombined into a shape so terrible that those who saw it shuddered. Medusa's snake-enwoven head exhaling poisonous vapour from the livid lips;Leda, swanlike beside her swan lover; Chimaera, in whom many naturesmingled and made one; the conflict of a dragon and a lion; S. Johnconceived not as a prophet but as a vine-crowned Faun, the harbinger ofjoy:--over pictorial motives of this kind, attractive by reason of theircomplexity or mystery, he loved to brood; and to this fascination of asphinx-like charm we owe some of his most exquisite drawings. Lionardomore than any other artist who has ever lived (except perhaps his greatpredecessor Leo Battista Alberti) felt the primal sympathies that bindmen to the earth, their mother, and to living things, their brethren. [241]Therefore the borderland between humanity and nature allured him with aspell half aesthetic and half scientific. In the dawn of Hellas thissympathetic apprehension of the world around him would have made him asupreme mythopoet. In the dawn of the modern world curiosity claimed thelion's share of his genius: nor can it be denied that his art suffered bythis division of interests. The time was not yet come for accuratephysiological investigation, or for the true birth of the scientificspirit; and in any age it would have been difficult for one man toestablish on a sound basis discoveries made in so many realms as thoseexplored by Lionardo. We cannot, therefore, but regret that he was notmore exclusively a painter. If, however, he had confined his activity tothe production of works equal to the "Cenacolo, " we should have missed themost complete embodiment in one personality of the twofold impulses of theRenaissance and of its boundless passion for discovery. Lionardo's turn for physical science led him to study the technicalitiesof art with fervent industry. Whatever his predecessors had acquired inthe knowledge of materials, the chemistry of colours, the mathematics ofcomposition, the laws of perspective, and the illusions of _chiaroscuro, _he developed to the utmost. To find a darker darkness and a brighterbrightness than had yet been shown upon the painter's canvas; to solveproblems of foreshortening; to deceive the eye by finely graduated tonesand subtle touches; to submit the freest play of form to simple figures ofgeometry in grouping, were among the objects he most earnestly pursued. At the same time his deep feeling for all things that have life, gave himnew power in the delineation of external nature. The branching offlower-stems, the outlines of fig-leaves, the attitudes of beasts andbirds in motion, the arching of the fan-palm, were rendered by him withthe same consummate skill as the dimple on a cheek or the fine curves of ayoung man's lips. [242] Wherever he perceived a difficulty, he approachedand conquered it. Love, which is the soul of art--Love, the bondslave ofBeauty and the son of Poverty by Craft--led him to these triumphs. He usedto buy caged birds in the marketplace that he might let them loose. He wasattached to horses, and kept a sumptuous stable; and these he would drawin eccentric attitudes, studying their anatomy in detail for his statue ofFrancesco Sforza. [243] In the "Battle of the Standard, " known to us onlyby a sketch of Rubens, [244] he gave passions to the horse--not humanpassion, nor yet merely equine--but such as horses might feel when placedupon a par with men. In like manner the warriors are fiery with bestialimpulses--leonine fury, wolfish ferocity, fox-like cunning. Their veryarmour takes the shape of monstrous reptiles. To such an extent did theinterchange of human and animal properties haunt Lionardo's fancy. From what has been already said we shall be better able to understandLionardo's love of the bizarre and grotesque. One day a vine-dresserbrought him a very curious lizard. The master fitted it with wingsinjected with quicksilver to give them motion as the creature crawled. Eyes, horns, and a beard, a marvellous dragon's mask, were placed upon itshead. This strange beast lived in a cage, where Lionardo tamed it; but noone, says Vasari, dared so much as to look at it. [245] On quaint puzzlesand perplexing schemes he mused a good part of his life away. At one timehe was for making wings to fly with; at another he invented ropes thatshould uncoil, strand by strand; again, he devised a system of flat corks, by means of which to walk on water. [246] One day, after having scraped theintestines of a sheep so thin that he could hold them in the hollow of hishand, he filled them with wind from a bellows, and blew and blew until theroom was choked, and his visitors had to run into corners. Lionardo toldthem that this was a proper symbol of genius. Such stories form what may be called the legend of Lionardo's life; andsome of them seem simple, others almost childish. [247] They illustratewhat is meant when we call him the wizard of the Renaissance. Art, nature, life, the mysteries of existence, the infinite capacity of human thought, the riddle of the world, all that the Greeks called Pan, so swayed andallured him that, while he dreamed and wrought and never ceased fromtoil, he seemed to have achieved but little. The fancies of his brainwere, perhaps, too subtle and too fragile to be made apparent to the eyesof men. He was wont, after years of labour, to leave his work stillincomplete, feeling that he could not perfect it as he desired: yet evenhis most fragmentary sketches have a finish beyond the scope of lessermen. "Extraordinary power, " says Vasari, "was in his case conjoined withremarkable facility, a mind of regal boldness and magnanimous daring. " Yethe was constantly accused of indolence and inability to execute. [248]Often and often he made vast preparations and accomplished nothing. It iswell known how the Prior of S. Maria delle Grazie complained that Lionardostood for days looking at his fresco, and for weeks never came near it;how the monks of the Annunziata at Florence were cheated out of theirpainting, for which elaborate designs had yet been made; how Leo X. , seeing him mix oils with varnish to make a new medium, exclaimed, "Alas!this man will do nothing; he thinks of the end before he makes abeginning. " A good answer to account for the delay was always ready on thepainter's lips, as that the man of genius works most when his hands areidlest; Judas, sought in vain through all the thieves' resorts in Milan, is not found; I cannot hope to see the face of Christ except in Paradise. Again, when an equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza had been modelled inall its parts, another model was begun because Da Vinci would fain showthe warrior triumphing over a fallen foe. [249] The first motive seemed tohim tame; the second was unrealisable in bronze. "I can do anythingpossible to man, " he wrote to Lodovico Sforza, "and as well as any livingartist either in sculpture or painting. " But he would do nothing astaskwork, and his creative brain loved better to invent than toexecute. [250] "Of a truth, " continues his biographer, "there is goodreason to believe that the very greatness of his most exalted mind, aimingat more than could be effected, was itself an impediment; perpetuallyseeking to add excellence to excellence and perfection to perfection. Thiswas without doubt the true hindrance, so that, as our Petrarch has it, thework was retarded by desire. " At the close of that cynical and positivecentury, the spirit whereof was so well expressed by Cosimo de'Medici, [251] Lionardo set before himself aims infinite instead of finite. His designs of wings to fly with symbolise his whole endeavour. Hebelieved in solving the insoluble; and nature had so richly dowered him inthe very dawntime of discovery, that he was almost justified in thisdelusion. Having caught the Proteus of the world, he tried to grasp him;but the god changed shape beneath his touch. Having surprised Silenusasleep, he begged from him a song; but the song Silenus sang was somarvellous in its variety, so subtle in its modulations, that Lionardocould do no more than recall scattered phrases. His Proteus was the spiritof the Renaissance. The Silenus from whom he forced the song was thedouble nature of man and of the world. By ill chance it happened that Lionardo's greatest works soon perished. His cartoon at Florence disappeared. His model for Sforza's statue wasused as a target by French bowmen. His "Last Supper" remains a mere wreckin the Convent delle Grazie. Such as it is, blurred by ill-usage andneglect, more blurred by impious re-painting, that fresco must be seen bythose who wish to understand Da Vinci. It has well been called thecompendium of all his studies and of all his writings; and, chronologically, it is the first masterpiece of the perfectedRenaissance. [252] Other painters had represented the Last Supper as asolemn prologue to the Passion, or as the mystical inauguration of thegreatest Christian sacrament. [253] But none had dared to break the calm ofthe event by a dramatic action. The school of Giotto, Fra Angelico, Ghirlandajo, Perugino, even Signorelli, remained within the sphere ofsymbolical suggestion; and their work gained in dignity what it lost inintensity. Lionardo combined both. He undertook to paint a moment, todelineate the effect of a single word upon twelve men seated at a table, and to do this without sacrificing the tranquillity demanded by ideal art, and without impairing the divine majesty of Him from whose lips that wordhas fallen. The time has long gone by for detailed criticism ordescription of a painting known to everybody. It is enough to observe thatthe ideal representation of a dramatic moment, the life breathed into eachpart of the composition, the variety of the types chosen to expressvarieties of character, and the scientific distribution of the twelveApostles in four groups of three around the central Christ, mark theappearance of a new spirit of power and freedom in the arts. What hadhitherto been treated with religious timidity, with conventionalstiffness, or with realistic want of grandeur, was now humanised and atthe same time transported into a higher intellectual region; and thoughLionardo discrowned the Apostles of their aureoles, he for the first timein the history of painting created a Christ not unworthy to be worshippedas the _praesens Deus_. We know not whether to admire most the perfectionof the painter's art or his insight into spiritual things. [254] If we are forced to feel that, with Da Vinci, accomplishment fell short ofpower and promise, the case is very different with Raphael. In him therewas no perplexity, no division of interests. He was fascinated by noinsoluble mystery and absorbed by no seductive problems. His faculty andhis artistic purpose were exactly balanced, adequate, and mutuallysupporting. He saw by intuition what to do, and he did it without let orhindrance, exercising from his boyhood till his early death an unimpededenergy of pure productiveness. Like Mozart, to whom he bears in manyrespects a remarkable resemblance, Raphael was gifted with inexhaustiblefertility and with unwearied industry. Like Mozart, again, he had a naturewhich converted everything to beauty. Thought, passion, emotion, became inhis art living melody. We almost forget his strength in admiration of hisgrace; the travail of his intellect is hidden by the serenity of hisstyle. There is nothing over-much in any portion of his work, no sense ofeffort, no straining of a situation, not even that element of terrorneedful to the true sublime. It is as though the spirit of young Greecehad lived in him again, purifying his taste to perfection and restraininghim from the delineation of things stern or horrible. Raphael found in this world nothing but its joy, and communicated to hisideal the beauty of untouched virginity. Brescia might be sacked withsword and flame. The Baglioni might hew themselves to pieces in Perugia. The plains of Ravenna might flow with blood. Urbino might change mastersand obey the viperous Duke Valentino. Raphael, meanwhile, working throughhis short May-life of less than twenty [Handwritten: 40] years, receivedfrom nature and from man a message that was harmony unspoiled by onediscordant note. His very person was a symbol of his genius. Lionardo wasbeautiful but stately, with firm lips and penetrating glance; he conqueredby the magnetism of an incalculable personality. The loveliness of Raphaelwas fair and flexible, fascinating not by power or mystery, but by thewinning charm of open-hearted sweetness. To this physical beauty, ratherdelicate than strong, he united spiritual graces of the most amiablenature. He was gentle, docile, modest, ready to oblige, free fromjealousy, binding all men to him by his cheerful courtesy. [255] In moralshe was pure. Indeed, judged by the lax standard of those times, he mightbe called almost immaculate. His intellectual capacity, in all thatconcerned the art of painting, was unbounded; but we cannot place himamong the many-sided heroes of the Renaissance. What he attempted insculpture, though elegant, is comparatively insignificant; and the samemay be said about his buildings. As a painter he was capable ofcomprehending and expressing all things without excess or sense of labour. Of no other artist do we feel that he was so instinctively, unerringlyright in what he thought and did. Among his mental faculties the power of assimilation seems to have beendeveloped to an extraordinary degree. He learned the rudiments of his artin the house of his father Santi at Urbino, where a Madonna is stillshown--the portrait of his mother, with a child, perhaps the infantRaphael, upon her lap. Starting, soon after his father's death, as a pupilof Perugino, he speedily acquired that master's manner so perfectly thathis earliest works are only to be distinguished from Perugino's by theirgreater delicacy, spontaneity, and inventiveness. Though he absorbed allthat was excellent in the Peruginesque style, he avoided its affectations, and seemed to take departure for a higher flight from the most exquisiteamong his teacher's early paintings. Later on, while still a lad, heescaped from Umbrian conventionality by learning all that was valuable inthe art of Masaccio and Fra Bartolommeo. To the latter master, himselfeducated by the influence of Lionardo, Raphael owed more, perhaps, than toany other of his teachers. The method of combining figures in masses, needful to the general composition, while they preserve a subordinatecompleteness of their own, had been applied with almost mathematicalprecision by the Frate in his fresco at S. Maria Nuova. [256] It reappearsin all Raphael's work subsequent to his first visit to Florence[257](1504-1506). So great, indeed, is the resemblance of treatment between thetwo painters that we know not well which owed the other most. Many groupsof women and children in the Stanze, for example--especially in the"Miracle of Bolsena" and the "Heliodorus"--seem almost identical with FraBartolommeo's "Madonna della Misericordia" at Lucca. Finally, when Raphaelsettled in Rome, he laid himself open to the influence of Michael Angelo, and drank in the classic spirit from the newly discovered antiques. Hereat last it seemed as though his native genius might suffer from contactwith the potent style of his great rival; and there are many students ofart who feel that Raphael's later manner was a declension from the divinepurity of his early pictures. There is, in fact, a something savouring ofoverbloom in the Farnesina frescoes, as though the painter's faculty hadbeen strained beyond its natural force. Muscles are exaggerated to givethe appearance of strength, and open mouths are multiplied to indicateastonishment and action. These faults may be found even in the Cartoons. Yet who shall say that Raphael's power was on the decline, or that hisnoble style was passing into mannerism, after studying both the picture ofthe "Transfiguration" and the careful drawings from the nude prepared forthis last work? So delicate was the assimilative tendency in Raphael, that what he learnedfrom all his teachers, from Perugino, Fra Bartolommeo, Masaccio, Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, and the antique, was mingled with his own style withoutsacrifice of individuality. Inferior masters imitated him, and passedtheir pictures off upon posterity as Raphael's; but to mistake a genuinepiece of his painting for the performance of another is almost impossible. Each successive step he made was but a liberation of his genius, a stridetoward the full expression of the beautiful he saw and served. He wasnever an eclectic. The masterpieces of other artists taught him how tocomprehend his own ideal. Raphael is not merely a man, but a school. Just as in his genius heabsorbed and comprehended many diverse styles, so are many worthycraftsmen included in his single name. Fresco-painters, masters of theeasel, workmen in mosaic and marquetrie, sculptors, builders, arras-weavers, engravers, decorators of ceilings and of floors, alllaboured under his eye, receiving designs from, his hand, and executingwhat was called thereafter by his name. [258] It was thus partly by hisfacility and energy, partly by the use he made of other men, that Raphaelwas able to achieve so much. In the Vatican he covered the walls andceilings of the Stanze with historical and symbolical frescoes thatembrace the whole of human knowledge. The cramping limits ofecclesiastical tradition are transcended. The synod of the antique sagesfinds a place beside the synod of the Fathers and the company of Saints. Parnassus and the allegory of the virtues front each other. The legend ofMarsyas and the mythus of the Fall are companion pictures. A newcatholicity, a new orthodoxy of the beautiful, appears. The Renaissance inall its breadth and liberality of judgment takes ideal form. Nor is thereany sense of discord; for the genius of Raphael views both revelations, Christian and pagan, from a point of view of art above them. To his pureand unimpeded faculty the task of translating motives so diverse intomutually concordant shapes was easy. On the domed ceilings of the Loggiehe painted sacred history in a series of exquisitely simple compositions, known as Raphael's Bible. The walls and pilasters were adorned witharabesques that anticipated the discovery of Pompeii, and surpassed thebest of Roman frescoes in variety and freedom. With his own hands hecoloured the incomparable "Triumph of Galatea" in Agostino Chigi's villaon the Tiber, while his pupils traced the legend of Cupid and Psyche fromhis drawings on the roof of the great banquet hall. Remaining within thecircuit of Rome, we may turn from the sibyls of S. Maria della Pace to thegenii of the planets in S. Maria del Popolo, from the "Violin-player" ofthe Sciarra palace to the "Transfiguration" in the Vatican: wherever wego, we find the masterpieces of this youth, so various in conception, soequal in performance. And then, to think that the palaces andpicture-galleries of Europe are crowded with his easel-pictures, that hisoriginal drawings display a boundless store of prodigal inventivecreativeness, that the Cartoons, of which England is proud, are aloneenough to found a mighty master's fame! The vast mass of Raphael's works is by itself astounding. The accuracy oftheir design and the perfection of their execution are literallyoverwhelming to the imagination, that attempts to realise the conditionsof his short life. There is nothing, or but very little, of rhetoric inall this world of pictures. The brain has guided the hand throughout, andthe result is sterling poetry. The knowledge, again, expressed in many ofhis frescoes is so thorough that we wonder whether in his body lived againthe soul of some accomplished sage. How, for example, did he appropriatethe history of philosophy, set forth so luminously in the "School ofAthens, " that each head, each gesture, is the epitome of some system?Fabio Calvi may, indeed, have supplied him with serviceable notes on Greekphilosophy. But to Raphael alone belongs the triumph of having personifiedthe dry elements of learning in appropriate living forms. The same is trueof the "Parnassus, " and, in a less degree, of the "Disputa. " To thephysiognomist these frescoes will always be invaluable. The "Heliodorus, "the "Miracle of Bolsena, " and the Cartoons, display a like faculty appliedwith more dramatic purpose. Passion and action take the place ofrepresentative ideas; but the capacity for translating into perfect humanform what has first been intellectually apprehended by the artist, is thesame. If, after estimating the range of thought revealed in this portion ofRaphael's work, we next consider the labour of the mind involved in thedistribution of so many multitudes of beautiful and august human figures, in the modelling of their drapery, the study of their expression, andtheir grouping into balanced compositions, we may form some notion of themagnitude of Raphael's performance. It is, indeed, probable that allattempts at reflective analysis of this kind do injustice to thespontaneity of the painter's method. Yet, even supposing that the"Miraculous Draught of Fishes" or the "School of Athens" were seen by himas in a vision, this presumption will increase our wonder at theimagination which could hold so rich a store of details ready forimmediate use. That Raphael paid the most minute attention to the detailsof his work, is shown by the studies made for these two subjects, and bythe drawings for the "Transfiguration. " A young man bent on putting forthhis power the first time in a single picture that should prove hismastery, could not have laboured with more diligence than Raphael at theheight of his fame and in full possession of his matured faculty. When, furthermore, we take into account the variety of Raphael's work, wearrive at a new point of wonder. The drawing of "Alexander's Marriage withRoxana, " the "Temptation of Adam by Eve, " and the "Massacre of theInnocents, " engraved by Marc Antonio, are unsurpassed not only ascompositions, but also as studies of the nude in chosen attitudes, powerfully felt and nobly executed. In these designs, which he never usedfor painting, the same high style is successively applied to a pageant, anidyll, and a drama. [259] The rapture of Greek art in its most youthfulmoment has never been recaptured by a modern painter with more force andfire of fancy than in the "Galatea. " The tenderness of Christian feelinghas found no more exalted expression than in the multitudes of theMadonnas, one more lovely than another, like roses on a tree in June, fromthe maidenly "Madonna del Gran' Duca" to the celestial vision of the SanSisto, that sublimest lyric of the art of Catholicity. [260] It is only byhurrying through a list like this that we can appreciate the many-sidedperfection of Raphael's accomplishment. How, lastly, was it possible thatthis young painter should have found the time to superintend the buildingof S. Peter's, and to form a plan for excavating Rome in its twelveancient regions?[261] When Lomazzo assigned emblems to the chief painters of the Renaissance, hegave to Michael Angelo the dragon of contemplation, and to Mantegna theserpent of sagacity. For Raphael, by a happier instinct, he reserved man, the microcosm, the symbol of powerful grace, incarnate intellect. Thisquaint fancy of the Milanese critic touches the truth. What distinguishesthe whole work of Raphael, is its humanity in the double sense of thehumane and human. Phoebus, as imagined by the Greeks, was not moreradiant, more victorious by the marvel of his smile, more intolerant ofthings obscene or ugly. Like Apollo chasing the Eumenides from hisDelphian shrine, Raphael will not suffer his eyes to fall on what isloathsome or horrific. Even sadness and sorrow, tragedy and death, takeloveliness from him. And here it must be mentioned that he shunned sternand painful subjects. He painted no martyrdom, no "Last Judgment, " and no"Crucifixion, " if we except the little early picture belonging to LordDudley. [262] His men and women are either glorious with youth or dignifiedin hale old age. Touched by his innocent and earnest genius, mankind isonce more gifted with the harmony of intellect and flesh and feeling, thatbelonged to Hellas. Instead of asceticism, Hellenic temperance is thevirtue prized by Raphael. Over his niche in the Temple of Fame might bewritten: "I have said ye are gods;"--for the children of men in his idealworld are divinized. The godlike spirit of man is all in all. Happy indeedwas the art that by its limitations and selections could thus earlyexpress the good news of the Renaissance; while in the spheres of politicsand ethics, science and religion, we are still far from having learned itslesson. Correggio is the Faun or Ariel of Renaissance painting. Turning to himfrom Raphael, we are naturally first struck by the affinities anddifferences between them. Both drew from their study of the world theelements of joy which it contains; but the gladness of Correggio was moresensuous than that of Raphael; his intellectual faculties were lessdeveloped; his rapture was more tumultuous and Bacchantic. Like Raphael, Correggio died young; but his brief life was spent in comparativeobscurity and solitude. Far from the society of scholars and artists, ignorant of courts, unpatronised by princes, he wrought for himself alonethe miracle of brightness and of movement that delights us in hisfrescoes and his easel-pictures. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, was this lyrist of luxurious ecstasy. In his work there was nothingworldly; that divides him from the Venetians, whose sensuousness heshared: nothing scientific; that distinguishes him from Da Vinci, themagic of whose _chiaroscuro_ he comprehended: nothing contemplative; thatseparates him from Michael Angelo, the audacity of whose design in dealingwith forced attitudes he rivalled, without apparently having enjoyed theopportunity of studying his works. The cheerfulness of Raphael, thewizardry of Lionardo, and the boldness of Michael Angelo, met in him toform a new style, the originality of which is indisputable, and whichtakes us captive--not by intellectual power, but by the impulse ofemotion. Of his artistic education we know nothing; and when we call himthe Ariel of painting, this means that we are compelled to think of him asan elemental spirit, whose bidding the air and the light and the hues ofthe morning obey. Correggio created a world of beautiful human beings, the whole conditionof whose existence is an innocent and radiant wantonness. [263] Over thedomain of tragedy he had no sway; nor could he deal with subjectsdemanding pregnancy of intellectual meaning. He paints the three Fates forinstance like young and joyous Bacchantes; if we placed rose-garlands andthyrsi in their hands instead of the distaff and the thread of humandestinies, they might figure upon the panels of a banquet-chamber inPompeii. Nor, again, did he possess that severe and lofty art ofcomposition which seeks the highest beauty of design in architecturalharmony supreme above the melodies of gracefulness in detail. He wasessentially a lyrical as distinguished from an epical or dramatic poet. The unity of his work is derived from the effect of light and atmosphere, the inbreathed soul of tremulous and throbbing life, which bathes andliquefies the whole. It was enough for him to produce a gleeful symphonyby the play of light and colour, by the animation of his figures, and bythe intoxicating beauty of his forms. His angels are genii disimprisonedfrom the chalices of flowers, houris of an erotic Paradise, elementalsprites of nature wantoning in Eden in her prime. They belong to thegeneration of the fauns. Like fauns, they combine a certain wildness, adithyrambic ecstasy, a delight in rapid motion as they revel amid cloudsand flowers, with the permanent and all-pervading sweetness of thepainter's style. Correggio's sensibility to light and colour--that qualitywhich makes him unique among painters--was on a par with his feeling forform. Brightness and darkness are woven together on his figures like animpalpable veil, aërial and transparent, enhancing the palpitations ofvoluptuous movement which he loved. His colouring does not glow or burn;blithesome and delicate, it seems exactly such a beauty-bloom as senserequires for its satiety. That cord of jocund colour which may fitly becombined with the smiles of daylight, the clear blues found in laughingeyes, the pinks that tinge the cheeks of early youth, and the warm yetsilvery tones of healthy flesh, mingle, as in a pearl-shell, on hispictures. Within his own magic circle Correggio reigns supreme; no otherartist having blent the witcheries of colouring, _chiaroscuro_, and wantonloveliness of form, into a harmony so perfect in its sensuous charm. Tofeel his influence, and at the same moment to be the subject of strongpassion, or intense desire, or heroic resolve, or profound contemplation, or pensive melancholy, is impossible. The Northern traveller, standingbeneath his master-works in Parma, may hear from each of those radiant andlaughing faces what the young Italian said to Goethe: _Perchè pensa?pensando s' invecchia_. Michael Angelo is the prophet or seer of the Renaissance. It would beimpossible to imagine a stronger contrast than that which distinguisheshis art from Correggio's, or lives more different in all their details, than those which he and Raphael or Lionardo lived respectively. During theeighty-nine years of his earthly pilgrimage he saw Italy enslaved andFlorence extinguished; it was his exceeding bitter fate to watch the rapiddecay of the arts and to witness the triumph of sacerdotal despotism overliberal thought. To none of these things was he indifferent; and thesorrow they wrought in his soul, found expression in his painting. [264]Michael Angelo was not framed by nature to fascinate like Lionardo or tocharm like Raphael. His manners were severe and simple. When he spoke, hiswords were brief and pungent. When he wrote, whether in poetry or prose, he used the fewest phrases to express the most condensed meaning. Whenasked why he had not married, he replied that the wife he had--hisart--cost him already too much trouble. He entertained few friends, andshunned society. Brooding over the sermons of Savonarola, the text of theBible, the discourses of Plato, and the poems of Dante, he made his spiritstrong in solitude by the companionship with everlasting thoughts. Therefore, when he was called to paint the Sistine Chapel, he utteredthrough painting the weightiest prophecy the world has ever seen expressedin plastic form. His theme is nothing less than the burden of the prophetsand the Sibyls who preached the coming of a light upon the world, and thecondemnation of the world which had rejected it, by an inexorable judge. Michelet says, not without truth, that the spirit of Savonarola livesagain in these frescoes. The procession of the four-and-twenty elders, arraigned before the people of Brescia to accuse Italy of sin--the voicethat cried to Florence, "Behold the sword of the Lord, and that swiftly!Behold I, even I, do bring a deluge on the earth!" are both seen and heardhere very plainly. But there is more than Savonarola in this prophecy ofMichael Angelo's. It contains the stern spirit of Dante, aflame withpatriotism, passionate for justice. It embodies the philosophy of Plato. The creative God, who divides light from darkness, who draws Adam from theclay and calls forth new-born Eve in awful beauty, is the Demiurgus ofthe Greek. Again, it carries the indignation of Isaiah, the wilddenunciations of Ezekiel, the monotonous refrain of Jeremiah--"Ah, Lord, Lord!" The classic Sibyls intone their mystic hymns; the Delphic on hertripod of inspiration, the Erythraean bending over her scrolls, thewithered witch of Cumae, the parched prophetess of Libya--all seem to cry, "Repent, repent! for the kingdom of the spirit is at hand! Repent andawake, for the judgment of the world approaches!" And above these voiceswe hear a most tremendous wail: "The nations have come to the birth; butthere is not strength to bring forth. " That is the utterance of theRenaissance, as it had appeared in Italy. She who was first among thenations was now last; bound and bleeding, she lay prostrate at thetemple-gate she had unlocked. To Michael Angelo was given for hisportion--not the alluring mysteries of the new age, not the joy of therenascent world, not the petulant and pulsing rapture of youth: these hadbeen divided between Lionardo, Raphael, and Correggio--but the bitterburden of the sense that the awakening to life is in itself a pain, thatthe revelation of the liberated soul is itself judgment, that a light isshining, and that the world will not comprehend it. Pregnant as are thepaintings of Michael Angelo with religious import, they are no longerCatholic in the sense in which the frescoes of the Lorenzetti and Orcagnaand Giotto are Catholic. He went beyond the ecclesiastical standing groundand reached one where philosophy includes the Christian faith. Thus thetrue spirit of the Renaissance was embodied in his work of art. Among the multitudes of figures covering the wall above the altar in theSistine Chapel there is one that might well stand for a symbol of theRenaissance. It is a woman of gigantic stature in the act of toilingupwards from the tomb. Grave clothes impede the motion of her body: theyshroud her eyes and gather round her chest. Part only of her face andthroat is visible, where may be read a look of blank bewilderment andstupefaction, a struggle with death's slumber in obedience to some innerimpulse. Yet she is rising slowly, half awake, and scarcely conscious, toawait a doom still undetermined. Thus Michael Angelo interpreted themeaning of his age. FOOTNOTES: [197] "La man che ubbedisce all' intelletto" is a phrase pregnant withmeaning, used by Michael Angelo in one of his sonnets. See Guasti, _LeRime di Michael Angelo_, p. 173. Michael Angelo's blunt criticism ofPerugino, that he was _goffo_, a fool in art, and his rude speech toFrancia's handsome son, that his father made better forms by night thanday, sufficiently indicate the different aims pursued by the painters ofthe two periods distinguished above. [198] Though Mantegna seems to have owed all his training to Padua, it isimpossible to regard him as what is called a Squarcionesque--one amongthe artistic hacks formed and employed by the Paduan _impresario_ ofthird-rate painting. No other eagle like to him was reared in that nest. His greatness belonged to his own genius, assimilating from the meagremeans of study within his reach those elements which enabled him todivine the spirit of the antique and to attempt its reproduction. Inorder to facilitate the explanation of the problem offered by his earlycommand of style, it has been suggested with great show of reason that hereceived a strong impression from the work executed in bas-relief byDonatello for the church of S. Antonio at Padua. Thus Florentineinfluences helped to form even the original genius of this greatest ofthe Lombard masters. [199] Vasari, vol. V. P. 163, may be consulted with regard to Mantegna'spreference for the ideal of statuary when compared with natural beauty, as the model for a painter. [200] See Crowe and Cavalcaselle's _History of Painting in North Italy_, vol. I. P. 334, for an account of his antiquarian researches in companywith Felice Feliciano. His museum was so famous that in 1483 Lorenzo de'Medici, passing through Mantua from Venice, thought it worthy of a visit. In his old age Mantegna fell into pecuniary difficulties, and had to partwith his collection. The forced sale of its chief ornament, a bust ofFaustina, is said to have broken his heart. _Ib. _ p. 415. [201] Painted on canvas in tempera for the Marquis of Mantua, before1488, looted by the Germans in 1630, sold to Charles I. , resold by theCommonwealth, bought back by Charles II. , and now exposed, much spoiledby time and change, but more by villainous re-painting, on the walls ofHampton Court. [202] An oil painting in the National Gallery. [203] The so-called "Triumph of Scipio" in the National Gallery seems tome in every respect feebler than the Hampton Court Cartoons. [204] The "Madonna della Vittoria, " now in the Louvre Gallery, waspainted to commemorate the achievements of Francesco Gonzaga in thebattle of Fornovo. That Francesco, General of the Venetian troops, shouldhave claimed that action, the eternal disgrace of Italian soldiery, for avictory, is one of the strongest signs of the depth to which the sense ofmilitary honour had sunk in Italy. But though the occasion of itspainting was so mean, the impression made by this picture is too powerfulto be described. It is in every detail grandiose: masculine energy beingcombined with incomparable grace, religious feeling with athleticdignity, and luxuriance of ornamentation with severe gravity ofcomposition. It is worth comparing this portrait of Francesco Gonzagawith his bronze medal, just as Piero della Francesco's picture ofSigismondo Malatesta should be compared with Pisanello's medallion. [205] Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning_, p. 212. [206] Nothing is known about Mantegna's stay in Florence. He went to meetthe Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at Bologna. This Cardinal, a great amateurof music and connoisseur in relics of antiquity, came to Mantua inAugust, 1472, where the "Orfeo" of Messer Angelo Poliziano was producedfor his amusement. [207] That he could conceive a stern and tragic subject, with all thepassion it required, is, however, proved not only by the frescoes atOrvieto, but also by the powerful oil-painting of the "Crucifixion" atBorgo San Sepolcro. [208] This story has been used for verse in a way to heighten itsromantic colouring. Such as the lines are, I subjoin them for the sake oftheir attempt to emphasize and illustrate Renaissance feeling:-- "Vasari tells that Luca Signorelli, The morning star of Michael Angelo, Had but one son, a youth of seventeen summers, Who died. That day the master at his easel Wielded the liberal brush wherewith he painted At Orvieto, on the Duomo's walls, Stern forms of Death and Heaven and Hell and Judgment. Then came they to him, cried: 'Thy son is dead, Slain in a duel: but the bloom of life Yet lingers round red lips and downy cheek. ' Luca spoke not, but listened. Next they bore His dead son to the silent painting-room, And left on tip toe son and sire alone. Still Luca spoke and groaned not; but he raised The wonderful dead youth, and smoothed his hair, Washed his red wounds, and laid him on a bed, Naked and beautiful, where rosy curtains Shed a soft glimmer of uncertain splendour Life-like upon the marble limbs below. Then Luca seized his palette: hour by hour Silence was in the room; none durst approach: Morn wore to noon, and noon to eve, when shyly A little maid peeped in and saw the painter Painting his dead son with unerring hand-stroke, Firm and dry-eyed before the lordly canvas. " [209] See the article on Orvieto in my _Sketches in Italy and Greece_. [210] The earlier frescoes of Fra Angelico, on the roof, depict Christ asJudge. But there is nothing in common with these works and Signorelli's. [211] This is the conjecture of Signor Luzi (_Il Duomo di Orvieto_, p. 168). He bases it upon the Dantesque subjects illustrated, and quotesfrom the "Inferno":-- "Omero poeta sovrano; L' altro è Orazio satiro che viene, Ovidio è il terzo, e l' ultimo Lucano. " Nothing is more marked or more deeply interesting than the influenceexercised by Dante over Signorelli, an influence he shared with Giotto, Orcagna, Botticelli, Michael Angelo, the greatest imaginative painters ofCentral Italy. [212] The background to the circular "Madonna" in the Uffizzi, the"Flagellation of Christ" in the Academy at Florence and in the Brera atMilan, and the "Adam" at Cortona, belong to this grade. [213] We may add the pages in a predella representing the "Adoration ofthe Magi" in the Uffizzi. [214] Vasari mentions the portraits of Nicolo, Paolo, and VitellozzoVitelli, Gian Paolo, and Orazio Baglioni, among others, in the frescoesat Orvieto. [215] Painted for Lorenzo de' Medici. It is now in the Berlin Museumthrough the neglect of the National Gallery authorities to purchase itfor England. [216] I must not omit to qualify Vasari's praise of Luca Signorelli, byreference to a letter recently published from the _Archivio Buonarroti, Lettere a Diversi_, p. 391. Michael Angelo there addresses the Captain ofCortona, and complains that in the first year of Leo's pontificate Lucacame to him and by various representations obtained from him the sum ofeighty Giulios, which he never repaid, although he made profession tohave done so. Michael Angelo was ill at the time, and working with muchdifficulty on a statue of a bound captive for the tomb of Julius. Lucagave a specimen of his renowned courtesy by comforting the sculptor inthese rather sanctimonious phrases: "Doubt not that angels will come fromheaven, to support your arms and help you. " [217] Pietro, known as Perugino from the city of his adoption, was theson of Cristoforo Vannucci, of Città della Pieve. He was born in 1446, and died at Fontignano in 1522. [218] The triptych in the National Gallery. [219] They have been published by the Arundel Society. [220] These frescoes were begun in 1499. It may be mentioned that in thisyear, on the refusal of Perugino to decorate the Cappella di S. Brizio, the Orvietans entrusted that work to Signorelli. [221] Uffizzi and Sala del Cambio. [222] "Fu Pietro persona di assai poca religione, e non se gli potè maifar credere l'immortalità dell' anima: anzi, con parole, accomodate alsuo cervello di porfido, ostinatissimamente ricusò ogni buona vita. Avevaogni sua speranza ne' beni della fortuna, e per danari arebbe fatto ognimale contratto. " Vasari, vol. Vi. P. 50. The local tradition alluded toabove relates to the difficulties raised by the Church against theChristian burial of Perugino: but if he died of plague, as it is believed(see C. And C. , vol. Iii. P. 244), these difficulties were probablycaused by panic rather than belief in his impiety. For Gasparo Celio'snote on Perugino's refusal to confess upon his death-bed, saying that hepreferred to see how an impenitent soul would fare in the other world, the reader may consult Rio's _L'Art Chrétien_, vol. Ii. P. 269. Therecord of Perugino's arming himself in Dec. 1486, together with anotorious assassin, Aulista di Angelo of Perugia, in order to waylay andbeat a private enemy of his near S. Pietro Maggiore at Florence is quotedby Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. Iii. P. 183. [223] "Guadagnò molte ricchezze; e in Fiorenza murò e comprò case; ed inPerugia ed a Castello della Pieve acquistò molti beni stahili. " Vasari, vol. Vi. P. 50. [224] "Goffo nell arte. " See Vasari, vol. Vi. P. 46. See too above, p. 196. [225] I select these for comment rather than the frescoes at Spello, beautiful as these are, because they have more interest in relation tothe style of the Renaissance. [226] The "Assumption" in S. Frediano at Lucca should also be mentionedas one of Francia's masterpieces. [227] His father was a muleteer of Suffignano, who settled at Florence, in a house and garden near the gate of S. Piero Gattolino. He was born in1475, and he died in 1517. [228] In S. Domenico at Prato in 1500. He afterwards resided in S. Marcoat Florence. [229] May 23, 1498. [230] In addition to the pictures mentioned above, I may call attentionto the adoring figure of S. Catherine of Siena, in three largepaintings--now severally in the Pitti, at Lucca, and in the Louvre. [231] In the Uffizzi. As a composition, it is the Frate's masterpiece. [232] See Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, p. 487, for this consequence ofthe sack of Prato. [233] _L'Art Chrétien_, vol. Ii. P. 515. [234] Two of our best portraits of Savonarola, the earlier inscribed"Hieronymi Ferrariensis a Deo Missi Prophetae Effigies, " the later treatedto represent S. Peter Martyr, are from the hand of Fra Bartolommeo. SeeCrowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. Iii. P. 433. [235] See below, chapter vii. [236] This sonnet I have translated into English with such closeness tothe original words as I found possible:-- He who can do not what he wills, should try To will what he can do; for since 'tis vain To will what can't be compassed, to abstain From idle wishing is philosophy. Lo, all our happiness and grief imply Knowledge or not of will's ability: They therefore can, who will what ought to be. Nor wrest true reason from her seat awry. Nor what a man can, should he always will: Oft seemeth sweet what after is not so; And what I wished, when had, hath cost a tear. Then, reader of these lines, if thou wouldst still Be helpful to thyself, to others dear, Will to can alway what thou ought to do. [237] See the letter addressed by Lionardo to Lodovico Sforza enumeratinghis claims as a mechanician, military and civil engineer, architect, &c. It need scarcely be mentioned that he served Cesare Borgia and theFlorentine Republic as an engineer, and that much of his time at Milanwas spent in hydraulic works upon the Adda. It should be added here thatLionardo committed the results of his discoveries to writing; but hepublished very little, and that by no means the most precious portion ofhis thoughts. He founded at Milan an Academy of Arts and Sciences, ifthis name may be given to a reunion of artists, scholars, and men of theworld, to whom it is probable that he communicated his researches inanatomy. The _Treatise on Painting_, which bears his name, is acompilation from notes and MSS. First printed in 1651. [238] The folio volume of sketches in the Ambrosian Library at Milancontains designs for all these works. The collection in the Royal Libraryat Windsor is no less rich. Among Lionardo's scientific drawings in thelatter place may be mentioned a series of maps illustrating the riversystem of Central Italy, with plans for improved drainage. [239] Shelley says of the poet:-- He will watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy bloom; Nor heed nor see what things they be, But from these create he can Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of immortality. [240] See De Stendhal, _Histoire de la Peinture en Italie_, p. 143, forthis story. [241] In the _Treatise on Painting_, da Vinci argues strongly againstisolating man. He regarded the human being as in truth a microcosm to beonly understood in relation to the world around him, expressing, as apainter, the same thought as Pico. (See Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning, _p. 35. ) Therefore he urges the claims of landscape on the attention ofartists. [242] I might refer in detail to four studies of bramble branches, leaves, and flowers and fruit, in the royal collection at Windsor, mostwonderful for patient accuracy and delicate execution: also to drawingsof oak leaves, wild guelder-rose, broom, columbine, asphodel, bull-rush, and wood-spurge in the same collection. These careful studies are asvaluable for the botanist as for the artist. To render the specificcharacter of each plant with greater precision would be impossible. [243] See the series of anatomical studies of the horse in the RoyalCollection. [244] Engraved by Edelinck. The drawing has obvious Lionardesquequalities; but how far it may be from the character of the original wecan guess by Rubens' transcript from Mantegna. (See above, Chapter VI, Mantegna's Biography. ) De Stendhal says wittily of this work, "C'estVirgile traduit par Madame de Staël, " op. Cit. P. 162. [245] In the Royal Collection at Windsor there are anatomical drawingsfor the construction of an imaginary quadruped with gigantic claws. Thebony, muscular, and venous structure of its legs and feet is accuratelyindicated. [246] See the drawings engraved and published by Gerli in his _Disegni diLionardo da Vinci_, Milan, 1784. [247] Vasari is the chief source of these legends. Giraldi Lomazzo, theMilanese historian of painting, and Bandello, the novelist, supplyfurther details. It appears from all accounts that Lionardo impressed hiscontemporaries as a singular and most commanding personality. There is atouch of reverence in even the strangest stories, which is wanting in thelegend of Piero di Cosimo. [248] Even Michael Angelo, meeting him in Florence, flung in his teeththat "he had made the model of a horse to cast in bronze, and could notcast it, and through shame left it as it was unfinished. " See _Arch. St. It. _, serie terza, xvi. 226. [249] In the Royal Collection at Windsor there is a whole series ofstudies for these two statues, together with drawings for the mould inwhich Lionardo intended to cast them. The second of the two is sketchedwith great variety of motive. The horse is rearing; the fallen enemy isvainly striving to defend himself; the victor in one drawing is reiningin his steed, in another is waving a truncheon, in a third is brandishinghis sword, in a fourth is holding the sword in act to thrust. The designsfor the pedestals, sometimes treated as a tomb and sometimes as afountain, are equally varied. [250] "Concevoir, " said Balzac, "c'est jouir, c'est fumer des cigarettesenchantées; mais sans l'exécution tout s'en va en rêve et en fumée. "Quoted by Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du Lundi_, vol. Ii. P. 353. [251] See Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning_, p. 128, 129. [252] It was finished, according to Fra Paciolo, in 1498. [253] Signorelli, with his usual originality, chose the moment whenChrist broke bread and gave it to His disciples. In that rare picture atCortona, we see not the betrayed chief but the founder of a new religion. [254] The Cenacolo alone will not enable the student to understandLionardo. He must give his attention to the master's sketch books, thosestudies in chalk, in tempera, on thin canvas and paper, prepared for thestylus or the pen, which Vasari calls the final triumphs of designing, and of which, in spite of the loss of many of his books, the survivingspecimens are very numerous. Some are easily accessible in Gerli, Chamberlaine, and the autotype reproductions. It is possible that asympathetic student may get closer to the all-embracing and all-daringgenius of the magician through these drawings than if he had before himan elaborate work in fresco or in oils. They express the many-sided, mobile, curious, and subtle genius of the man in its entirety. [255] "Raffaello, che era la gentilezza stessa . .. Restavano vinti dallacortesia e dall' arte sua, ma più dal genio della sua buona natura; laquale era si piena di gentilezza e si colma di carità, che egli si vedevache fino agli animali l'onoravano, non che gli uomini. "--Vasari, vol. Viii. Pp. 6, 60. [256] See above, Chapter VI, Fra Bartolommeo. [257] The "Holy Family" at Munich, and the "Madonna del Baldacchino" inthe Pitti, might be mentioned as experiments on Raphael's part to perfectthe Frate's scheme of composition. [258] See Vasari, vol. Viii. P. 60, for a description of the concord thatreigned in this vast workshop. The genius and the gentle nature ofRaphael penetrated the whole group of artists, and seemed to give them asingle soul. [259] The fresco of "Alexander" in the Palazzo Borghese is by animitator. [260] The "Madonna di San Sisto" was painted for a banner to be borne inprocessions. It is a subtle observation of Rio that the banner, aninvention of the Umbrian school, corresponds in painting to the hymn inpoetry. [261] See Vol. II. , _Revival of Learning_, p. 316, for Raphael's letteron this subject to Leo X. [262] "La Spasimo di Sicilia" is the single Passion picture of Raphael'smaturity. The predella of "Christ carrying the Cross" at Leigh Court, andthe "Christ showing His Wounds" in the Tosi Gallery at Brescia, are bothearly works painted under Umbrian influence. The Borghese "Entombment, "painted for Atalanta Baglioni, a pen-and-ink drawing of the "Pietà" inthe Louvre collection, Marc Antonio's engraving of the "Massacre of theInnocents, " and an early picture of the "Agony in the Garden, " are allthe other painful subjects I can now remember. [263] For a fuller working out of this analysis I must refer to my_Sketches in Italy_, article "Parma. " Much that follows is a quotationfrom that essay. [264] Much of the controversy about Michael Angelo, which is continuallybeing waged between his admirers and his detractors, might be set at restif it were acknowledged that there are two distinct ways of judging worksof art. We may regard them simply as appealing to our sense of beauty, and affording harmonious intellectual pleasure. Or we may regard them asexpressing the thought and spirit of their age, and as utterances made bymen whose hearts burned within them. Critics trained in the study of goodGreek sculpture, or inclined by temperament to admire the earlierproducts of Italian painting, are apt to pursue the former pathexclusively. They demand serenity and simplicity. Perturbation andviolence they denounce as blemishes. It does not occur to them that, though the phenomenon is certainly rare, it does occasionally happen thata man arises whose art is for him the language of his soul, and who livesin sympathetic relation to the sternest interests of his age. If such anartist be born when tranquil thought and serene emotions are impossiblefor one who feels the meaning of his times with depth, he must eitherpaint and carve lies, or he must abandon the serenity that was bothnatural and easy to the Greek and the earlier Italian. Michael Angelo wasone of these select artistic natures. He used his chisel and his pencilto express, not merely beautiful artistic motives, but what he felt andthought about the world in which he had to live: and this world was fullof the ruin of republics, the corruption and humiliation of society, thesubjection of Italy to strangers. In Michael Angelo the student of bothart and history finds an inestimably precious and rare point of contactbetween the inner spirit of an age, and its external expression insculpture and painting. CHAPTER VII VENETIAN PAINTING Painting bloomed late in Venice--Conditions offered by Venice toArt--Shelley and Pietro Aretino--Political circumstances ofVenice--Comparison with Florence--The Ducal Palace--Art regarded as anadjunct to State Pageantry--Myth of Venezia--Heroic Deeds ofVenice--Tintoretto's Paradise and Guardi's Picture of a Ball--EarlyVenetian Masters of Murano--Gian Bellini--Carpaccio's little Angels--TheMadonna of S. Zaccaria--Giorgione--Allegory, Idyll, Expression ofEmotion--The Monk at the Clavichord--Titian, Tintoret, andVeronese--Tintoretto's attempt to dramatise Venetian Art--Veronese'sMundane Splendour--Titian's Sophoclean Harmony--Their Schools--FurtherCharacteristics of Veronese--of Tintoretto--His ImaginativeEnergy--Predominant Poetry--Titian's Perfection of Balance--Assumption ofMadonna--Spirit common to the Great Venetians. It was a fact of the greatest importance for the development of the finearts in Italy that painting in Venice reached maturity later than inFlorence. Owing to this circumstance one chief aspect of the Renaissance, its material magnificence and freedom, received consummate treatment atthe hands of Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. To idealise thesensualities of the external universe, to achieve for colour what theFlorentines had done for form, to invest the worldly grandeur of humanlife at one of its most gorgeous epochs with the dignity of the highestart, was what these great artists were called on to accomplish. Their taskcould not have been so worthily performed in the fifteenth century as inthe sixteenth, if the development of the aesthetic sense had been morepremature among the Venetians. Venice was precisely fitted for the part her painters had to play. Free, isolated, wealthy, powerful; famous throughout Europe for the pomp of herstate equipage, and for the immorality of her private manners; ruled by aprudent aristocracy, who spent vast wealth on public shows and on themaintenance of a more than imperial civic majesty: Venice, with herpavement of liquid chrysoprase, with her palaces of porphyry and marble, her frescoed façades, her quays and squares aglow with the costumes of theLevant, her lagoons afloat with the galleys of all nations, her churchesfloored with mosaics, her silvery domes and ceilings glittering withsculpture bathed in molten gold: Venice luxurious in the light and colourof a vaporous atmosphere, where sea-mists rose into the mounded summerclouds; arched over by the broad expanse of sky, bounded only by thehorizon of waves and plain and distant mountain ranges, and reflected inall its many hues of sunrise and sunset upon the glassy surface of smoothwaters: Venice asleep like a miracle of opal or of pearl upon the bosom ofan undulating lake:--here and here only on the face of the whole globe wasthe unique city wherein the pride of life might combine with the lustre ofthe physical universe to create and stimulate in the artist a sense of allthat was most sumptuous in the pageant of the world of sense. There is colour in flowers. Gardens of tulips are radiant, and mountainvalleys touch the soul with the beauty of their pure and gemlike hues. Therefore the painters of Flanders and of Umbria, John van Eyck andGentile da Fabriano, penetrated some of the secrets of the world ofcolour. But what are the purples and scarlets and blues of iris, anemone, or columbine, dispersed among deep meadow grasses or trained in quietcloister garden-beds, when compared with that melodrama of flame and goldand rose and orange and azure, which the skies and lagoons of Venice yieldalmost daily to the eyes? The Venetians had no green fields and trees, nogarden borders, no blossoming orchards, to teach them the tendersuggestiveness, the quaint poetry of isolated or contrasted tints. Theirmeadows were the fruitless furrows of the Adriatic, hued like a peacock'sneck; they called the pearl-shells of their Lido flowers, _fior di mare_. Nothing distracted their attention from the glories of morning and ofevening presented to them by their sea and sky. It was in consequence ofthis that the Venetians conceived colour heroically, not as a matter ofmissal-margins or of subordinate decoration, but as a motive worthy initself of sublime treatment. In like manner, hedged in by no limitaryhills, contracted by no city walls, stifled by no narrow streets, but opento the liberal airs of heaven and ocean, the Venetians understood spaceand imagined pictures almost boundless in their immensity. Light, colour, air, space: those are the elemental conditions of Venetian art; of thosethe painters weaved their ideal world for beautiful and proud humanity. Shelley's description of a Venetian sunset strikes the keynote to Venetianpainting:[265]-- As those who pause on some delightful way, Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood Looking upon the evening and the flood, Which lay between the city and the shore, Paved with the image of the sky: the hoar And airy Alps, towards the north appeared, Through mist, a heaven-sustaining bulwark, reared Between the east and west; and half the sky Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry, Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew Down the steep west into a wondrous hue Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent Among the many-folded hills--they were Those famous Euganean hills, which bear, As seen from Lido through the harbour piles, The likeness of a clump of peaked isles-- And then, as if the earth and sea had been Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen Those mountains towering, as from waves of flame, Around the vaporous sun, from which there came The inmost purple spirit of light, and made Their very peaks transparent. "Ere it fade, " Said my companion, "I will show you soon A better station. " So, o'er the lagune We glided: and from that funereal bark I leaned, and saw the city; and could mark How from their many isles, in evening's gleam, Its temples and its palaces did seem Like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven. With this we may compare the following extract from a letter, addressed inMay 1544 to Titian, by one of the most unprincipled of literary banditswho have ever disgraced humanity, but who nevertheless was solemnised tothe spirit of true poetry by the grandiose aspect of nature as it appearedto him in Venice. That Pietro Aretino should have so deeply felt the charmof natural beauty in an age when even the greatest artists and poetssought inspiration in human life rather than the outer world, is asignificant fact. It seems to illustrate the necessity whereby Venicebecame the cradle of the art of nature. [266] "Having, dear Sir, and mybest gossip, supped alone to the injury of my custom, or, to speak moretruly, supped in the company of all the boredoms of a cursed quartanfever, which will not let me taste the flavour of any food, I rose fromtable sated with the same disgust with which I had sat down to it. In thismood I went and leaned my arms upon the sill outside my window, andthrowing my chest and nearly all my body on the marble, abandoned myselfto the contemplation of the spectacle presented by the innumerable boats, filled with foreigners as well as people of the city, which gave delightnot merely to the gazers, but also to the Grand Canal itself, thatperpetual delight of all who plough its waters. From this animated scene, all of a sudden, like one who from mere _ennui_ knows not how to occupyhis mind, I turned my eyes to heaven, which, from the moment when God madeit, was never adorned with such painted loveliness of lights and shadows. The whole region of the air was what those who envy you, because they areunable to be you, would fain express. To begin with, the buildings ofVenice, though of solid stone, seemed made of some ethereal substance. Then the sky was full of variety--here clear and ardent, there dulled andoverclouded. What marvellous clouds there were! Masses of them in thecentre of the scene hung above the house-roofs, while the immediate partwas formed of a grey tint inclining to dark. I gazed astonished at thevaried colours they displayed. The nearer masses burned with flames ofsunset; the more remote blushed with a blaze of crimson less afire. Oh, how splendidly did Nature's pencil treat and dispose that airy landscape, keeping the sky apart from the palaces, just as Titian does! On one sidethe heavens showed a greenish-blue, on another a bluish-green, inventedverily by the caprice of Nature, who is mistress of the greatest masters. With her lights and her darks, there she was harmonising, toning, andbringing out into relief, just as she wished. Seeing which, I who knowthat your pencil is the spirit of her inmost soul, cried aloud thrice orfour tines, 'Oh, Titian! where are you now?'" In order to understand the destiny of Venice in art, it is not enough toconcentrate attention on the peculiarities of her physical environment. Potent as these were in the creation of her style, the political andsocial conditions of the Republic require also to be taken into account. Among Italian cities Venice was unique. She alone was tranquil in herempire, unimpeded in her constitutional development, independent of Churchinterference, undisturbed by the cross purposes and intrigues of theDespots, inhabited by merchants who were princes, and by a free-bornpeople who had never seen war at their gates. The serenity of undisturbedsecurity, the luxury of wealth amassed abroad and liberally spent at home, gave a physiognomy of ease and proud self-confidence to all her edifices. The grim and anxious struggles of the Middle Ages left no mark on Venice. How different was this town from Florence, every inch of whose domaincould tell of civic warfare, whose passionate aspirations afterindependence ended in the despotism of the bourgeois Medici, whoserepeated revolutions had slavery for their climax, whose grey palaces boreon their fronts the stamp of mediaeval vigilance, whose spirit wasincarnated in Dante the exile, whose enslavement forced from MichaelAngelo those groans of a chained Titan expressed in the marbles of S. Lorenzo! It is not an insignificant, though a slight, detail, that thepredominant colour of Florence is brown, while the predominant colour ofVenice is that of mother-of-pearl, concealing within its general whitenessevery tint that can be placed upon the palette of a painter. Theconditions of Florence stimulated mental energy and turned the forces ofthe soul inwards. Those of Venice inclined the individual to accept lifeas he found it. Instead of exciting him to think, they disposed him toenjoy, or to acquire by industry the means of manifold enjoyment. Torepresent in art the intellectual strivings of the Renaissance was thetask of Florence and her sons; to create a monument of Renaissancemagnificence was the task of Venice. Without Venice the modern world couldnot have produced that flower of sensuous and unreflective loveliness inpainting, which is worthy to stand beside the highest product of the Greekgenius in sculpture. For Athena from her Parthenon stretches the hand toVenezia enthroned in the ducal palace. The broad brows and earnest eyes ofthe Hellenic goddess are of one divine birth and lineage with the goldenhair and superb carriage of the sea-queen. It is in the heart of Venice, in the House of the Republic, that theVenetian painters, considered as the interpreters of worldly splendour, fulfilled their function with the most complete success. Centuriescontributed to make the Ducal Palace what it is. The massive colonnadesand Gothic loggias of the external basement date from the thirteenthcentury; their sculpture belongs to the age when Niccola Pisano's geniuswas in the ascendant. The square fabric of the palace, so beautiful in theirregularity of its pointed windows, so singular in its mosaic diaper ofpink and white, was designed at the same early period. The inner court andthe façade that overhangs the lateral canal, display the handiwork ofSansovino. The halls of the palace--spacious chambers where the Senateassembled, where ambassadors approached the Doge, where the Savideliberated, where the Council of Ten conducted their inquisition--arewalled and roofed with pictures of inestimable value, encased in frameworkof carved oak; overlaid with burnished gold. Supreme art--the art of theimagination perfected with delicate and skilful care in detail--is made inthese proud halls the minister of mundane pomp. In order that the goldbrocade of the ducal robes, that the scarlet and crimson of the Venetiansenator, might, be duly harmonised by the richness of their surroundings, it was necessary that canvases measured by the square yard, and renderedpriceless by the authentic handiwork of Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese, should glow upon the walls and ceilings. A more insolent display of publicwealth--a more lavish outpouring of human genius in the service of Statepageantry, cannot be imagined. Sublime over all allegories and histories depicted in those multitudes ofpaintings, sits Venezia herself enthroned and crowned, the personificationof haughtiness and power. Figured as a regal lady, with yellow hairtightly knotted round a small head poised upon her upright throat andample shoulders, Venice takes her chair of sovereignty--as mistress of theocean to whom Neptune and the Tritons offer pearls, as empress of theglobe at whose footstool wait Justice with the sword and Peace with theolive branch, as a queen of heaven exalted to the clouds. They have madeher a goddess, those great painters; they have produced a mythus, andpersonified in native loveliness that bride of the sea, their love, theirlady. The beauty of Venetian women and the glory of Venetian empire findtheir meeting point in her, and live as the spirit of Athens lived inPallas Promachos. On every side, above, around, wherever the eye falls inthose vast rooms, are seen the deeds of Venice--painted histories of hertriumphs over emperors and popes and infidels, or allegories of hergreatness--scenes wherein the Doges perform acts of faith, with S. Markfor their protector, and with Venezia for their patroness. The saints inParadise, massed together by Tintoretto and by Palma, mingle withmythologies of Greece and Rome, and episodes of pure idyllic painting. Religion in these pictures was a matter of parade, an adjunct to thecostly public life of the Republic. We need not, therefore, conclude thatit was unreal. Such as it was, the religion of the Venetian masters isindeed as genuine as that of Fra Angelico or Albert Dürer. But it was thefaith, not of humble men or of mystics, not of profound thinkers orecstatic visionaries, so much as of courtiers and statesmen, of senatorsand merchants, for whom religion was a function among other functions, nota thing apart, not a source of separate and supreme vitality. Even asChristians, the Venetians lived a life separate from the rest of Italy. Their Church claimed independence of the see of Rome, and the enthusiasmof S. Francis was but faintly felt in the lagoons. Siena in her hour ofneed dedicated herself to Madonna; Florence in the hour of herregeneration gave herself to Christ; Venice remained under the ensign ofthe leonine S. Mark. While the cities of Lombardy and Central Italy ranwild with revivalism and religious panics, the Venetians maintained theircalm, and never suffered piety to exceed the limits of political prudence. There is, therefore, no mystical exaltation in the faith depicted by herartists. That Tintoretto could have painted the saints in glory--acountless multitude of congregated forms, a sea whereof the waves aresouls--as a background for State ceremony, shows the positive andrealistic attitude of mind from which the most imaginative of Venetianmasters started, when he undertook the most exalted of religious themes. Paradise is a fact, we may fancy Tintoretto reasoned; and it is easier tofill a quarter of an acre of canvas with a picture of Paradise than withany other subject, because the figures can be arranged in concentric tiersround Christ and Madonna in glory. There is a little sketch by Guardi representing a masked ball in theCouncil Chamber where the "Paradise" of Tintoretto fills a wall. The menare in periwigs and long waistcoats; the ladies wear hoops, patches, fans, high heels, and powder. Bowing, promenading, intriguing, exchangingcompliments or repartees, they move from point to point; while from thebillowy surge of saints, Moses with the table of the law and the Magdalenwith her adoring eyes of penitence look down upon them. Tintoretto couldnot but have foreseen that the world of living pettiness and passion wouldperpetually jostle with his world of painted sublimities and sanctities inthat vast hall. Yet he did not on that account shrink from the task orfail in its accomplishment. Paradise existed: therefore it could bepainted; and he was called upon to paint it here. If the fine gentlemenand ladies below felt out of harmony with the celestial host, so much theworse for them. In this practical spirit the Venetian masters approachedreligious art, and such was the sphere appointed for it in the pageantryof the Republic. When Paolo Veronese was examined by the Holy Officerespecting some supposed irreverence in a sacred picture, his answersclearly proved that in planning it he had thought less of its spiritualsignificance than of its aesthetic effect. [267] In the Ducal Palace the Venetian art of the Renaissance culminates; andhere we might pause a moment to consider the difference between thesepaintings and the mediaeval frescoes of the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena. [268]The Sienese painters consecrated all their abilities to the expression ofthoughts, theories of political self-government in a free State, anddevotional ideas. The citizen who read the lesson of the Sala della Pacewas instructed in his duties to God and to the State. The Venetianpainters, as we have seen, exalted Venice and set forth her acts of power. Their work is a glorification of the Republic; but no doctrine isinculcated, and no system of thought is conveyed to the mind through theeye. Daily pacing the saloons of the palace, Doge and noble were remindedof the greatness of the State they represented. They were not invited toreflect upon the duties of the governor and governed. Their imaginationswere dilated and their pride roused by the spectacle of Venice seatedlike a goddess in her home. Of all the secular States of Italy theRepublic of S. Mark's alone produced this mythical ideal of the bodypolitic, self-sustained and independent of the citizens, compelling theirallegiance, and sustaining them through generations with the life of itsorganic unity. [269] The artists had no reason to paint thoughts andtheories. It was enough to set forth Venice and to illustrate her acts. Long before Venetian painting reached a climax in the decorative triumphsof the Ducal Palace, the masters of the school had formed a styleexpressive of the spirit of the Renaissance, considered as the spirit offree enjoyment and living energy. To trace the history of Venetianpainting is to follow through its several stages the growth of thatmastery over colour and sensuous beauty which was perfected in the worksof Titian and his contemporaries. [270] Under the Vivarini of Murano theVenetian school in its infancy began with a selection from the naturalworld of all that struck them as most brilliant. No other painters oftheir age in Italy employed such glowing colours, or showed a more markedpredilection for the imitation of fruits, rich stuffs, architecturalcanopies, jewels, and landscape backgrounds. Their piety, unlike themysticism of the Sienese and the deep thought of the Florentine masters, is somewhat superficial and conventional. The merit of their devotionalpictures consists of simplicity, vivacity, and joyousness. Our Lady andher court of saints seem living and breathing upon earth. There is noatmosphere of tranced solemnity surrounding them, like that which givespeculiar meaning to similar works of the Van Eycks and Memling--artists, by the way, who in many important respects are more nearly allied than anyothers to the spirit of the first age of Venetian painting. [271] What the Vivarini began, the three Bellini, [272] with Crivelli, Carpaccio, Mansueti, Basaiti, Catena, Cima da Conegliano, Bissolo, Cordegliaghi, continued. Bright costumes, distinct and sunny landscapes, broadbackgrounds of architecture, large skies, polished armour, gildedcornices, young faces of fisherboys and country girls, [273] grave faces ofold men brown with sea-wind and sunlight, withered faces of women heartyin a hale old age, the strong manhood of Venetian senators, the dignity ofpatrician ladies, the gracefulness of children, the rosy whiteness andamber-coloured tresses of the daughters of the Adriatic and lagoons--theseare the source of inspiration to the Venetians of the second period. Mantegna, a few miles distant, at Padua, was working out his ideal ofseverely classical design. Yet he scarcely touched the manner of theVenetians with his influence, though Gian Bellini was his brother-in-lawand pupil, and though his genius, in grasp of matter and in management ofcomposition, soared above his neighbours. Lionardo da Vinci at Milan wasperfecting his problems of psychology in painting, offering to the worldsolutions of the greatest difficulties in the delineation of the spirit byexpression. Yet not a trace of Lionardo's subtle play of light and shadowupon thoughtful features can be discerned in the work of the Bellini. Forthem the mysteries of the inner and the outer world had no attraction. Theexternals of a full and vivid existence fascinated their imagination. Their poetry and their piety were alike simple and objective. How todepict the world as it is seen--a miracle of varying lights and meltinghues, a pageant substantial to the touch and concrete to the eyes, acombination of forms defined by colours more than outlines--was theirtask. They did not reach their end by anatomy, analysis, andreconstruction. They undertook to paint just what they felt and saw. Very instructive are the wall-pictures of this period, painted not infresco but on canvas by Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini, for the decorationof the Scuole of S. Ursula and S. Croce. [274] Not only do these bringbefore us the life of Venice in its manifold reality, but they illustratethe tendency of the Venetian masters to express the actual world, ratherthan to formulate an ideal of the fancy or to search the secrets of thesoul. This realism, if the name can be applied to pictures so poetical asthose of Carpaccio, is not, like the Florentine realism, hard andscientific. A natural feeling for grace and a sense of romance inspire theartist, and breathe from every figure that he paints. The type of beautyproduced is charming by its negligence and _naïveté_; it is not thoughtout with pains or toilsomely elaborated. [275] Among the loveliest motives used in the altar-pieces of this period mightbe mentioned the boy-angels playing flutes and mandolines beneath Madonnaon the steps of her throne. There are usually three of them, seated, orsometimes standing. They hold their instruments of music as though theyhad just ceased from singing, and were ready to recommence at the pleasureof their mistress. Meanwhile there is a silence in the celestial company, through which the still voice of the praying heart is heard, a silencecorresponding to the hushed mood of the worshipper. [276] The children areaccustomed to the holy place; therefore their attitudes are both reverentand natural. They are more earthly than Fra Angelico's melodists, and yetthey are not precisely of human lineage. It is not, perhaps, too much tosay that they strike the keynote of Venetian devotion, at once real anddevoid of pietistic rapture. Gian Bellini brought the art of this second period to completion. In hissacred pictures the reverential spirit of early Italian painting iscombined with a feeling for colour and a dexterity in its manipulationpeculiar to Venice. Bellini cannot be called a master of the fullRenaissance. He falls into the same class as Francia and Perugino, whoadhered to _quattrocento_ modes of thought and sentiment, while attainingat isolated points to the freedom of the Renaissance. In him thecolourists of the next age found an absolute teacher; no one has surpassedhim in the difficult art of giving tone to pure tints in combination. There is a picture of Bellini's in S. Zaccaria at Venice--Madonnaenthroned with Saints--where the skill of the colourist may be said toculminate in unsurpassable perfection. The whole painting is bathed in asoft but luminous haze of gold; yet each figure has its individuality oftreatment, the glowing fire of S. Peter contrasting with the pearlycoolness of the drapery and flesh-tints of the Magdalen. No brush-work isperceptible. Surface and substance have been elaborated into oneharmonious richness that defies analysis. Between this picture, so strongin its smoothness, and any masterpiece of Velasquez, so rugged in itsstrength, what a wide abyss of inadequate half-achievement, of smoothfeebleness and feeble ruggedness, exists! Giorgione, did we but possess enough of his authentic works to judge by, would be found the first painter of the true Renaissance among theVenetians, the inaugurate of the third and great period. [277] He died atthe age of thirty-six, the inheritor of unfulfilled renown. Time hasdestroyed the last vestige of his frescoes. Criticism has reduced thenumber of his genuine easel pictures to half a dozen. He exists as a greatname. The part he played in the development of Venetian art was similar tothat of Marlowe in the history of our drama. He first cut paintingaltogether adrift from mediaeval moorings, and launched it on the waves ofthe Renaissance liberty. While equal as a colourist to Bellini, though ina different and more sensuous region, Giorgione, by the variety andinventiveness of his conception, proved himself a painter of the calibreof Titian. Sacred subjects he seems to have but rarely treated, unlesssuch purely idyllic pictures as the "Finding of Moses" in the Uffizzi, andthe "Meeting of Jacob and Rachel" at Dresden deserve the name. Allegoriesof deep and problematic meaning, the key whereof has to be found in statesof the emotion rather than, in thoughts, delighted him. He may be said tohave invented the Venetian species of romance picture, where an episode ina novella forms the motive of the painting. [278] Nor was he deficient intragic power, as the tremendous study for a Lucrece in the Uffizzicollection sufficiently proves. In his drawings he models the form withoutoutline by massive distribution of light and dark. In style they are thevery opposite of Lionardo's clearly defined studies touched with the metalpoint upon prepared paper. They suggest colouring, and are indeed thedesigns of a great colourist, who saw things under the conditions of theirtints and tone. Of the undisputed pictures by Giorgione, the grandest is the "Monk at theClavichord, " in the Pitti Palace at Florence. [279] The young man has hisfingers on the keys; he is modulating in a mood of grave and sustainedemotion; his head is turned away towards an old man standing near him. Onthe other side of the instrument is a boy. These two figures are but foilsand adjuncts to the musician in the middle; and the whole interest of hisface lies in its concentrated feeling--the very soul of music, asexpressed in Mr. Robert Browning's "Abt Vogler, " passing through his eyes. This power of painting the portrait of an emotion, of depicting by thefeatures a deep and powerful but tranquil moment of the inner life, musthave been possessed by Giorgione in an eminent degree. We find it again inthe so-called "Begrüssung" of the Dresden Gallery. [280] The picture is alarge landscape, Jacob and Rachel meet and salute each other with a kiss. But the shepherd lying beneath the shadow of a chestnut tree beside a wellhas a whole Arcadia of intense yearning in the eyes of sympathy he fixeson the lovers. Something of this faculty, it may be said in passing, descended to Bonifazio, whose romance pictures are among the most charmingproducts of Venetian art, and one of whose singing women in the feast ofDives has the Giorgionesque fulness of inner feeling. Fate has dealt less unkindly with Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese than withGiorgione. The works of these artists, in whom the Venetian Renaissanceattained completion, have been preserved in large numbers and in excellentcondition. Chronologically speaking, Titian, the contemporary ofGiorgione, precedes Tintoretto, and Tintoretto is somewhat earlier thanVeronese. [281] But for the purpose of criticism the three painters may beconsidered together as the representatives of three marked aspects in thefully developed Venetian style. Tintoretto, called by the Italians the thunderbolt of painting, because ofhis vehement impulsiveness and rapidity of execution, soars above hisbrethren by the faculty of pure imagination. It was he who brought to itsperfection the poetry of _chiaroscuro_, expressing moods of passion andemotion by brusque lights, luminous half-shadows, and semi-opaquedarkness, no less unmistakably than Beethoven by symphonic modulations. Hetoo engrafted on the calm and natural Venetian manner something of theMichael Angelesque sublimity, and sought to vary by dramatic movement theromantic motives of his school. In his work, more than in that of hiscontemporaries, Venetian art ceased to be decorative and idyllic. Veronese elevated pageantry to the height of serious art. His domain isnoonday sunlight ablaze on sumptuous dresses and Palladian architecture. Where Tintoretto is dramatic, he is scenic. Titian, in a wise harmony, without either the Æschylean fury of Tintoretto, or the materialgorgeousness of Veronese, realised an ideal of pure beauty. Continuing thetraditions of Bellini and Giorgione, with a breadth of treatment, and avigour of well-balanced faculties peculiar to himself, Titian gave tocolour in landscape and the human form a sublime yet sensuous poetry noother painter in the world has reached. Tintoretto and Veronese are, both of them, excessive. The imagination ofTintoretto is too passionate and daring; it scathes and blinds likelightning. The sense of splendour in Veronese is overpoweringly pompous. Titian's exquisite humanity, his large and sane nature, gives proper valueto the imaginative and the scenic elements of the Venetian style, withoutexaggerating either. In his masterpieces thought, colour, sentiment, andcomposition--the spiritual and technical elements of art--exist in perfectbalance; one harmonious tone is given to all the parts of his production, nor can it be said that any quality asserts itself to the injury of therest. Titian, the Sophocles of painting, has infused into his pictures thespirit of music, the Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders, makingpower incarnate in a form of grace. Round these great men are grouped a host of secondary but distinguishedpainters--Palma with his golden-haired large-bosomed sirens; idyllicBonifazio; dramatic Pordenone, whose frescoes are all motion andexcitement; Paris Bordone, who mingled on his canvas cream and mulberryjuice and sunbeams; the Robusti, the Caliari, the Bassani, and otherswhom it would be tedious to mention. One breath, one afflatus, inspiredthem all; and it is due to this coherence in their style and inspirationthat the school of Venice, taken as a whole, can show more masterpieces byartists of the second class than any other in Italy. Superior or inferioras they may relatively be among themselves, each bears the indubitablestamp of the Venetian Renaissance, and produces work of a quality thatraises him to high rank among the painters of the world. In the same waythe spirit of the Renaissance, passing over the dramatists of ourElizabethan age, enabled intellects of average force to take rank in thecompany of the noblest. Ford, Massinger, Heywood, Decker, Webster, Fletcher, Tourneur, Marston, are seated round the throne at the feet ofShakspere, Marlowe, and Jonson. In order to penetrate the characteristics of Venetian art more thoroughly, it will be needful to enter into detailed criticism of the three chiefmasters who command the school. To begin with Veronese. His canvases arenearly always large--filled with figures of the size of life, massedtogether in groups or extended in long lines beneath white marblecolonnades, which enclose spaces of clear sky and silvery clouds. Armour, shot silks and satins, brocaded canopies, banners, plate, fruit, sceptres, crowns, all things, in fact, that burn and glitter in the sun, form thehabitual furniture of his pictures. Rearing horses, dogs, dwarfs, cats, when occasion serves, are used to add reality, vivacity, grotesqueness tohis scenes. His men and women are large, well proportioned, vigorous--eminent for pose and gesture rather than for grace orloveliness--distinguished by adult more than adolescent qualities. Veronese has no choice type of beauty for either sex. We find in him, onthe contrary, a somewhat coarse display of animal force in men, and ofsuperb voluptuousness in women. He prefers to paint women draped ingorgeous raiment, as if he had not felt the beauty of the nude. Theirfaces are too frequently unrefined and empty of expression. His noblestcreatures are men of about twenty-five, manly, brawny, crisp-haired, fullof nerve and blood. In all this Veronese resembles Rubens. But he doesnot, like Rubens, strike us as gross, sensual, fleshly;[282] he remainsproud, powerful, and frigidly materialistic. He raises neither repulsionnor desire, but displays with the calm strength of art the empire of themundane spirit. All the equipage of wealth and worldliness, the lust ofthe eye, and the pride of life--such a vision as the fiend offered toChrist on the mountain of temptation; this is Veronese's realm. Again, hehas no flashes of poetic imagination like Tintoretto; but his grip on therealities of the world, his faculty for idealising prosaic magnificence, is even greater. Veronese was precisely the painter suited to a nation of merchants, inwhom the associations of the counting-house and the exchange mingled withthe responsibilities of the Senate and the passions of princes. He neverportrayed vehement emotions. There are no brusque movements, no extendedarms, like those of Tintoretto's Magdalen in the "Pietà" at Milan, in hispictures. His Christs and Maries and martyrs of all sorts are composed, serious, courtly, well-fed personages, who, like people of the worldaccidentally overtaken by some tragic misfortune, do not stoop todistortions or express more than a grave surprise, a decorous sense ofpain. [283] His angelic beings are equally earthly. The Venetian Rothschilds no doubt preferred the ceremonial to theimaginative treatment of sacred themes; and to do him justice, Veronesedid not make what would in his case have been the mistake of choosing thetragedies of the Bible for representation. It is the story of Esther, withits royal audiences, coronations, and processions; the marriage feast atCana; the banquet in the house of Levi, that he selects by preference. Even these themes he removes into a region far from Biblical associations. His _mise en scène_ is invariably borrowed from luxurious Italianpalaces--large open courts and _loggie_, crowded with guests andlacqueys--tables profusely laden with gold and silver plate. The same loveof display led him to delight in allegory--not allegory of the deep andmystic kind, but of the pompous and processional, in which Venice appearsenthroned among the deities, or Jupiter fulminates against the vices, orthe genii of the arts are personified as handsome women and blooming boys. In dealing with mythology, again, it is not its poetry that he touches; heuses the tale of Europa, for example, as the motive for rich toilettes anddelightful landscape, choosing the moment that has least in it of pathos. These being the prominent features of his style, it remains to be saidthat what is really great in Veronese is the sobriety of his imaginationand the solidity of his workmanship. Amid so much that is distracting, henever loses command over his subject; nor does he degenerate into fulsomerhetoric. Tintoretto is not at home in this somewhat vulgar region of ceremonialgrandeur. He requires both thought and fancy as the stimulus to hiscreative effort. He cannot be satisfied with reproducing, even in thenoblest combinations, merely what he sees around him of resplendent andmagnificent. There must be scope for poetry in the conception and foraudacity in the projection of his subject, something that shall rouse theprophetic faculty and evoke the seer in the artist, or Tintoretto does notrise to his own altitude. Accordingly we find that, in contrast withVeronese, he selects by preference the most tragic and dramatic subjectsto be found in sacred history. The Crucifixion, with its agonising deityand prostrate groups of women, sunk below the grief of tears;--theTemptation in the wilderness, with its passionate contrast of thegrey-robed Man of Sorrows and the ruby-winged, voluptuous fiend;--theTemptation of Adam in Eden, a glowing allegory of the fascination of thespirit by the flesh;--Paradise, a tempest of souls, whirled like Lucretianatoms or gold dust in sunbeams by the celestial forces that perform themovement of the spheres;--the Destruction of the world, where all thefountains and rivers and lakes and seas of earth have formed one cataract, that thunders with cities and nations on its rapids down a bottomlessgulf; while all the winds and hurricanes of the air have grown into oneblast, that carries men like dead leaves up to judgment;--the Plague ofthe fiery serpents, with multitudes encoiled and writhing on a burningwaste of sand;--the Massacre of the Innocents, with its spilth of blood onslippery pavements of porphyry and serpentine;--the Delivery of the tablesof the law to Moses amid clouds on Sinai, a white ascetic, lightning-smitten man emerging in the glory of apparent godhead;--theanguish of the Magdalen above her martyred God;--the solemn silence ofChrist before the throne of Pilate;--the rushing of the wings of Seraphim, and the clangour of the trumpet that awakes the dead;--these are thesoul-stirring themes that Tintoretto handles with the ease ofmastery. [284] Meditating upon Tintoretto's choice of such subjects, we feel that theprofoundest characteristic of his genius is the determination towardmotives pre-eminently poetic rather than proper to the figurative arts. The poet imagines a situation in which the intellectual or emotional lifeis paramount, and the body is subordinate. The painter selects situationsin which physical form is of the first importance, and a feeling or athought is suggested. But Tintoretto grapples immediately with poeticalideas; and he often fails to realise them fully through the inadequacy ofpainting as a medium for such matter. Moses, in the drama of the "GoldenCalf, " for instance, is a poem, not a true picture. [285] The pale ecstaticstretching out emaciated arms, presents no beauty of attitude or outline. Energy of thought is conspicuous in the figure; and reflection is neededto bring out the purpose of the painter. [286] It is not, however, only in the region of the vast, tempestuous, andtragic that Tintoretto finds himself at home. He is equal to every taskthat can be imposed upon the imagination. Provided only that the spiritualfount be stirred, the jet of living water gushes forth, pure, inexhaustible, and limpid. In his "Marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne, " thatmost perfect lyric of the sensuous fancy from which sensuality isabsent;[287] in his "Temptation of Adam, " that symphony of grey and brownand ivory more lustrous than the hues of sunset; in his "Miracle of S. Agnes, " that lamb-like maiden with her snow-white lamb among the soldiersand the priests of Rome, Tintoretto has proved beyond all question thatthe fiery genius of Titanic artists can pierce and irradiate the placidand the tender secrets of the soul with more consummate mastery than fallsto the lot of those who make tranquillity their special province. [288] Paolo Veronese never penetrated to this inner shrine of beauty, thisHoliest of Holies where the spiritual graces dwell. He could not paintwaxen limbs, with silver lights and golden and transparent mysteries ofshadow, like those of Bacchus, Eve, and Ariadne. Titian himself waspowerless to imagine movement like that of Aphrodite floating in the air, or of Madonna adjuring Christ in the "Paradiso, " or of Christ Himselfjudging by the silent simplicity of his divine attitude the worldly judgeat whose tribunal He stands, or of the tempter raising his jewelled armsaloft to dazzle with meretricious brilliancy the impassive God above him, or of Eve leaning in irresistible seductiveness against the fatal tree, orof S. Mark down-rushing through the sky to save the slave that cried tohim, or of the Mary who has fallen asleep with folded hands from utterlassitude of agony at the foot of the cross. It is in these attitudes, movements, gestures, that Tintoretto makes thehuman form an index and symbol of the profoundest, most tragic, mostdelicious thought and feeling of the inmost soul. In daylight radiancy andequable colouring he is surpassed perhaps by Veronese. In mastery of everyportion of his art, in solidity of execution, and in unwavering hold uponhis subject, he falls below the level of Titian. Many of his pictures areunworthy of his genius--hurriedly designed, rapidly dashed upon thecanvas, studied by candlelight from artificial models, with abnormaleffects of light and dark, hastily daubed with pigments that have notstood the test of time. He was a gigantic _improvitsatore_: that is theworst thing we can say of him. But in the swift intuitions of theimagination, in the purities and sublimities of the prophet-poet's soul, neither Veronese nor yet even Titian can approach him. The greatest difficulty meets the critic who attempts to speak of Titian. To seize the salient characteristics of an artist whose glory it is tooffer nothing over-prominent, and who keeps the middle path of perfection, is impossible. As complete health may be termed the absence of obtrusivesensation, as virtue has been called the just proportion between twoopposite extravagances, so is Titian's art a golden mean of joy unbrokenby brusque movements of the passions--a well-tempered harmony in which nothrilling note suggests the possibility of discord. In his work the worldand men cease to be merely what they are; he makes them what they ought tobe: and this he does by separating what is beautiful in sensuous life fromits alloy of painful meditation and of burdensome endeavour. The diseaseof thought is unknown in his kingdom; no divisions exist between thespirit and the flesh; the will is thwarted by no obstacles. When we thinkof Titian, we are irresistibly led to think of music. His "Assumption ofMadonna" (the greatest single oil-painting in the world, if we exceptRaphael's "Madonna di San Sisto") can best be described as a symphony--asymphony of colour, where every hue is brought into harmoniouscombination--a symphony of movement, where every line contributes tomelodious rhythm--a symphony of light without a cloud--a symphony of joyin which the heavens and earth sing Hallelujah. Tintoretto, in the Scuoladi San Rocco, painted an "Assumption of the Virgin" with characteristicenergy and impulsiveness. A group of agitated men around an open tomb, arush of air and clash of seraph wings above, a blaze of glory, a womanborne with sideways-swaying figure from darkness into light;--that is hispicture, all _brio_, excitement, speed. Quickly conceived, hastilyexecuted, this painting (so far as clumsy restoration suffers us to judge)bears the impress of its author's impetuous genius. But Titian worked by adifferent method. On the earth, among the Apostles, there is action enoughand passion; ardent faces straining upward, impatient men raising impotentarms and vainly divesting themselves of their mantles, as though they toomight follow her they love. In heaven is radiance, half eclipsing thearchangel who holds the crown, and revealing the father of spirits in anaureole of golden fire. Between earth and heaven, amid choirs of angelicchildren, rises the mighty mother of the faith of Christ, who was Mary andis now a goddess, ecstatic yet tranquil, not yet accustomed to the skies, but far above the grossness and the incapacities of earth. Her womanhoodis so complete that those for whom the meaning of her Catholic legend islost, may hail in her humanity personified. The grand manner can reach no further than in this picture--serene, composed, meditated, enduring, yet full of dramatic force and of profoundfeeling. Whatever Titian chose to touch, whether it was classicalmythology or portrait, history or sacred subject, he treated in this largeand healthful style. It is easy to tire of Veronese; it is possible to befatigued by Tintoretto. Titian, like nature, waits not for moods orhumours in the spectator. He gives to the mind joy of which it can neverweary, pleasures that cannot satiate, a satisfaction not to be repentedof, a sweetness that will not pall. The least instructed and the simplefeel his influence as strongly as the wise or learned. In the course of this attempt to describe the specific qualities ofTintoretto, Veronese, and Titian, I have been more at pains to distinguishdifferences than to point out similarities. What they had in common wasthe Renaissance spirit as this formed itself in Venice. Nowhere in Italywas art more wholly emancipated from obedience to ecclesiasticaltraditions, without losing the character of genial and natural piety. Nowhere was the Christian history treated with a more vivid realism, harmonised more simply with pagan mythology, or more completely purged ofmysticism. The Umbrian devotion felt by Raphael in his boyhood, theprophecy of Savonarola, and the Platonism of Ficino absorbed by MichaelAngelo at Florence, the scientific preoccupations of Lionardo and theantiquarian interests of Mantegna, were all alike unknown at Venice. Amongthe Venetian painters there was no conflict between art and religion, orart and curiosity--no reaction against previous pietism, no perplexity ofconscience, no confusion of aims. Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese werechildren of the people, men of the world, men of pleasure; wealthy, urbane, independent, pious:--they were all these by turns; but they werenever mystics, scholars, or philosophers. In their aesthetic ideal religionfound a place, nor was sensuality rejected; but the religion was sane andmanly, the sensuality was vigorous and virile. Not the intellectualgreatness of the Renaissance, but its happiness and freedom, was what theyrepresented. FOOTNOTES: [265] From the beginning of _Julian and Maddalo_, which relates a ridetaken by Shelley with Lord Byron, on the Lido, and their visit to themadhouse on its neighbouring island. The description, richly coloured andsomewhat confused in detail, seems to me peculiarly true to Venetianscenery. With the exception of Tunis, I know of no such theatre forsunset-shows as Venice. Tunis has the same elements of broad lagoons anddistant hills, but not the same vaporous atmosphere. [266] _Lettere di Messer Pietro Aretino_, Parigi, MDCIX, lib. Iii. P. 48. I have made a paraphrase rather than a translation of this rare andcurious description. [267] See Yriarte, _Un Patricien de Venise_, p. 439. [268] See above, Chapter IV, Political Doctrine expressed in Fresco. [269] See Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, p. 183. [270] I must refer my readers to Crowe and Cavalcaselle for an estimateof the influence exercised at Venice by Gentile de Fabriano, JohnAlamannus, and the school of Squarcione. Antonello da Messina brought hismethod of oil-painting into the city in 1470, and Gian Bellini learnedsomething at Padua from Andrea Mantegna. The true point about Venice, however, is that the Venetian character absorbed, assimilated, andconverted to its own originality whatever touched it. [271] The conditions of art in Flanders--wealthy, bourgeois, proud, free--were not dissimilar to those of art in Venice. The misty flats ofBelgium have some of the atmospheric qualities of Venice. As Van Eyck isto the Vivarini, so is Rubens to Paolo Veronese. This expresses theamount of likeness and of difference. [272] Jacopo and his sons Gentile and Giovanni. [273] Notice particularly the Contadina type of S. Catherine in a pictureascribed to Cordegliaghi in the Venetian Academy. [274] These Scuole were the halls of meeting for companies called by thenames of patron saints. [275] Notice in particular, from the series of pictures illustrating thelegend of S. Ursula, the very beautiful faces and figures of the saintherself, and her young bridegroom, the Prince of Britain. Attendantsquires and pages in these paintings have all the charm of similarsubordinate personages in Pinturicchio, with none of his affectation. [276] The most beautiful of these _angiolini_, with long flakes of flaxenhair falling from their foreheads, are in a Sacra Conversazione ofCarpaccio's in the Academy. Gian Bellini's, in many similar pictures, areof the same delicacy. [277] What follows above about Giorgione is advanced with diffidence, since the name of no other great painter has been so freely used to coverthe works of his inferiors. [278] Lord Lansdowne's Giorgionesque picture of a young man crowned withvine, playing and singing to two girls in a garden, for example. Thecelebrated Concert of the Louvre Gallery, so charming for its landscapeand so voluptuous in its dreamy sense of Arcadian luxury, is given byCrowe and Cavalcaselle to an imitator of Sebastian del Piombo. See_History of Painting in North Italy_, vol. Ii. P. 147. [279] Under the fire of Crowe and Cavalcaselle's destructive criticism, it would require more real courage than I possess to speak of the"Entombment" in the Monte di Pietà at Treviso as genuine. Coarse andunselect as are the types of the boy angels, as well as of the youngathletic giant, who plays the part in it of the dead Christ, this is atruly grandiose and striking picture. Nothing proves the averagegreatness of the Venetian masters more than the possibility ofattributing such compositions to obscure and subordinate craftsmen of theschool. [280] Crowe and Cavalcaselle assign this picture with some confidence andwith fair show of reason, to Cariani, on whom again they father thefrescoes at Colleoni's Castle of Malpaga. I have ventured to notice itabove in connection with Giorgione, since it exhibits some of the moststriking Giorgionesque qualities, and shows the ascendency of hisimagination over the Venetian School. [281] Giorgione, b. 1478; d. 1511. Titian, b. 1477, d. 1576. Tintoretto, b. 1512; d. 1594. Veronese, b. 1530; d. 1588. [282] I cannot, for example, imagine Veronese painting anything likeRubens' two pictures of the "Last Judgment" at Munich. [283] For his sacred types see the "Marriage at Cana" in the Louvre, thelittle "Crucifixion" and the "Baptism" of the Pitti, and the "Martyrdomof S. Agata" in the Uffizzi. [284] These examples are mostly chosen from the Scuola di S. Rocco andthe church of S. Maria dell' Orto at Venice; also from "Pietàs, " in theBrera and the Pitti, the "Paradise" of the Ducal Palace, and a sketch for"Paradise" in the Louvre. [285] S. Maria dell' Orto. [286] What is here said about Tintoretto is also true of Michael Angelo. His sculpture in S. Lorenzo, compared with Greek sculpture, the norm andcanon of the perfect in that art, may be called an invasion of the realmof poetry or music. [287] There are probably not few of my readers who, after seeing thispainting in the Ducal Palace, will agree with me that it is, if not thegreatest, at any rate the most beautiful, oil picture in existence. In noother picture has a poem of feeling and of fancy, a romance of variedlights and shades, a symphony of delicately blended hues, a play ofattitude and movement transitory but in no sense forced or violent, beenmore successfully expressed by means more simple or with effect moresatisfying. Something of the mythopoeic faculty must have survived inTintoretto, and enabled him to inspire the Greek tale with this intensevitality of beauty. [288] The first of these pictures is in the Ducal Palace, the other twoin the Academy at Venice. CHAPTER VIII LIFE OF MICHAEL ANGELO Contrast of Michael Angelo and Cellini--Parentage and Boyhood of MichaelAngelo--Work with Ghirlandajo--Gardens of S. Marco--The MediceanCircle--Early Essays in Sculpture--Visit to Bologna--First Visit toRome--The "Pietà" of S. Peter's--Michael Angelo as a Patriot and a Friendof the Medici--Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa--Michael Angelo and JuliusII. --The Tragedy of the Tomb--Design for the Pope's Mausoleum--Visit toCarrara--Flight from Rome--Michael Angelo at Bologna--Bronze Statue ofJulius--Return to Rome--Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel--Greek and ModernArt--Raphael--Michael Angelo and Leo X. --S. Lorenzo--The newSacristy--Circumstances under which it was designed and partlyfinished--Meaning of the Allegories--Incomplete state of Michael Angelo'sMarbles--Paul III. --The "Last Judgment"--Critiques of Contemporaries--TheDome of S. Peter's--Vittoria Colonna--Tommaso Cavalieri--Personal Habitsof Michael Angelo--His Emotional Nature--Last Illness. The life of Italian artists at the time of the Renaissance may beillustrated by two biographies. Michael Angelo Buonarroti and BenvenutoCellini were almost opposite in all they thought and felt, experienced andaimed at. The one impressed his own strong personality on art; the otherreflected the light and shadow of the age in the record of his manifoldexistence. Cellini hovered, like some strong-winged creature, on thesurface of human activity, yielding himself to every impulse, seekingevery pleasure, and of beauty feeling only the rude animal compulsion. Deep philosophic thoughts, ideas of death and judgment, the sternstruggles of the soul, encompassed Michael Angelo; the service of beautywas with him religion. Cellini was the creature of the moment--the glassand mirror of corrupt, enslaved, yet still resplendent Italy. In MichaelAngelo the genius of the Renaissance culminated; but his character wasrather that of an austere Republican, free and solitary amid themultitudes of slaves and courtiers. Michael Angelo made art the vehicle oflofty and soul-shaking thought. Cellini brought the fervour of aninexhaustibly active nature to the service of sensuality, and taught hisart to be the handmaid of a soulless paganism. In these two men, therefore, we study two aspects of their age. How far both wereexceptional, need not here be questioned; since their singularity consistsnot so much in being different from other Italians of the sixteenthcentury as in concentrating qualities elsewhere scattered and imperfect. Michael Angelo was born in 1475 at Caprese, among the mountains of theCasentino, where his father Lodovico held the office of Podestà. Hisancestry was honourable: the Buonarroti even claimed descent, butapparently without due reason, from the princely house of Canossa. [289]His mother gave him to be suckled by a stone-cutter's wife at Settignano, so that in after days he used to say that he had drawn in the love ofchisels and mallets with his nurse's milk. As he grew, the boy developedan invincible determination towards the arts. Lodovico from motives ofpride and prudence opposed his wishes, but without success. Michael Angelomade friends with the lad Granacci, who was apprenticed to DomenicoGhirlandajo, and at last induced his father to sign articles for him tothe same painter. In Ghirlandajo's workshop he learned the rudiments ofart, helping in the execution of the frescoes at S. Maria Novella, untilsuch time as the pupil proved his superiority as a draughtsman to histeacher. The rupture between Michael Angelo and Ghirlandajo might becompared with that between Beethoven and Haydn. In both cases a proud, uncompromising, somewhat scornful student sought aid from a master greatin his own line but inferior in fire and originality of genius. [290] Inboth cases the moment came when pupil and teacher perceived that the eaglecould no longer be confined within the hawk's nest, and that henceforth itmust sweep the skies alone. After leaving Ghirlandajo's _bottega_ at theage of sixteen, Michael Angelo did in truth thenceforward through his lifepursue his art alone. Granacci procured him an introduction to the Medici, and the two friends together frequented those gardens of S. Marco whereLorenzo had placed his collection of antiquities. There the youthdiscovered his vocation. Having begged a piece of marble and a chisel, hestruck out the Faun's mask that still is seen in the Bargello. It is worthnoticing that Michael Angelo seems to have done no merely prentice-work. Not a fragment of his labour from the earliest to the latest wasinsignificant, and only such thoughts as he committed to the perishablematerials of bronze or paper have been lost. There was nothing tentativein his genius. Into art, as into a rich land, he came and conquered. Inlike manner, the first sonnet composed by Dante is scarcely less preciousthan the last lines of the "Paradiso. " This is true of all the highestartistic natures, who need no preparations and have no period of groping. Lorenzo de' Medici discerned in Michael Angelo a youth of eminent genius, and took the lad into his own household. The astonished father foundhimself suddenly provided with a comfortable post and courted for the sakeof the young sculptor. In Lorenzo's palace the real education of MichaelAngelo began. He sat at the same table with Ficino, Pico, and Poliziano, listening to dialogues on Plato and drinking in the golden poetry ofGreece. Greek literature and philosophy, expounded by the men who haddiscovered them, and who were no less proud of their discovery thanColumbus of his passage to the Indies, first moulded his mind to thoselofty thoughts which it became the task of his life to express in form. Atthe same time he heard the preaching of Savonarola. In the Duomo and thecloister of S. Marco another portion of his soul was touched, and heacquired that deep religious tone which gives its majesty and terror tothe Sistine. Much in the same way was Milton educated by the classics inconjunction with the Scriptures. Both of these austere natures assimilatedfrom pagan art and Jewish prophecy the twofold elements they needed fortheir own imaginative life. Both Michael Angelo and Milton, in spite oftheir parade of classic style, were separated from the Greek world by agulf of Hebrew and of Christian feeling. While Michael Angelo was thus engaged in studying antique sculpture and inlistening to Pico and Savonarola, he carved his first bas-relief--a"Battle of Hercules with the Centaurs, " suggested to him byPoliziano. [291] Meantime Lorenzo died. His successor Piero set the youngman, it is said, to model a snow statue, and then melted like a shape ofsnow himself down from his pedestal of power in Florence. Upon theexpulsion of the tyrant and the proclamation of the new republic, it wasdangerous for house-friends of the Casa Medici to be seen in the city. Michael Angelo, therefore, made his way to Bologna, where he spent somemonths in the palace of Gian Francesco Aldovrandini, studying Dante andworking at an angel for the shrine of S. Dominic. As soon, however, as itseemed safe to do so, he returned to Florence; and to this period belongsthe statue of the "Sleeping Cupid, " which was sold as an antique to theCardinal Raffaello Riario. A dispute about the price of this "Cupid" took Michael Angelo in 1496 toRome, where it was destined that the greater portion of his life should hespent, and his noblest works of art should be produced. Here, while theBorgias were turning the Vatican into a den of thieves and harlots, heexecuted the purest of all his statues--a "Pietà" in marble. [292] Christis lying dead upon his mother's knees. With her right arm she supports hisshoulders; her left hand is gently raised as though to say, "Behold andsee!" All that art can do to make death beautiful and grief sublime, isachieved in this masterpiece, which was never surpassed by Michael Angeloin later years. Already, at the age of four-and-twenty, he had matured his"terrible manner. " Already were invented in his brain that race ofsuperhuman beings, who became the hieroglyphs of his impassionedutterance. Madonna has the small head and heroic torso used by this masterto symbolise force. We feel she has no difficulty in holding the deadChrist upon her ample lap and in her powerful arms. Yet while the "Pietà"is wholly Michael Angelesque, we find no lack of repose, none of thosecontorted lines that are commonly urged against his manner. It is a soberand harmonious composition, combining the profoundest religious feelingwith classical tranquillity of expression. Again, though the group isforcibly original, this effect of originality is produced, as in all thebest work of the golden age, not by new and startling conception, but bythe handling of an old and well-worn motive with the grandeur ofconsummate style. What the genius of Italian sculpture had for generationsbeen striving after, finds its perfect realisation here. It was preciselyby thus crowning the endeavours of antecedent artists--by bringing theopening buds of painting and sculpture to full blossom, and exhausting theresources of a long sustained and common inspiration, that the greatmasters proved their supremacy and rendered an advance beyond theirvantage ground impossible. To those who saw and comprehended this "Pietà"in 1500, it must have been evident that a new power of portraying the verysoul had been manifested in sculpture--a power unknown to the Greeksbecause it lay outside the sphere of their spiritual experience, andunknown to modern artists because it was beyond their faculties ofexecution and conception. Yet who in Rome, among the courtiers of theBorgias, had brain or heart to understand these things? In 1501 Michael Angelo returned to Florence, where he stayed until theyear 1505. This period was fruitful of results on which his after famedepended. The great statue of "David, " the two unfinished medallions ofMadonna in relief, the "Holy Family of the Tribune" painted for AngeloDoni, and the Cartoon of the "Battle of Pisa" were now produced; and noman's name, not even Lionardo's, stood higher in esteem thenceforward. Itwill be remembered that Savonarola was now dead, but that his constitutionstill existed under the presidency of Pietro Soderini--the _non maiabbastanza lodato Cavaliere_, as Pitti calls him, the _anima sciocca_ ofMachiavelli's epigram. [293] Since Michael Angelo at this time was employedin the service of masters who had superseded his old friends and patrons, it may be well to review here his attitude in general toward the house ofMedici. Throughout his lifetime there continued a conflict between theartist and the citizen--the artist owing education and employment tosuccessive members of that house, the citizen resenting their despotismand doing all that in him lay at times to keep them out of Florence. As apatriot, as the student of Dante and the disciple of Savonarola, MichaelAngelo detested tyrants. [294] One of his earliest madrigals, conceived asa dialogue between Florence and her exiles, expresses his mind sodecidedly that I have ventured to translate it;[295] the exiles firstaddress Florence, and she answers:-- "Lady, for joy of lovers numberless Thou wast created fair as angels are. Sure God hath fallen asleep in heaven afar, When one man calls the boon of many his. Give back to streaming eyes The daylight of Thy face, that seems to shun Those who must live defrauded of their bliss!" "Vex not your pure desire with tears and sighs; For he who robs you of my light, hath none. Dwelling in fear, sin hath no happiness; Since amid those who love, their joy is less Whose great desire great plenty still curtails, Than theirs who, poor, have hope that never fails. " As an artist, owing his advancement to Lorenzo, he had accepted favoursbinding him by ties of gratitude to the Medici, and even involving him inthe downfall of their house. For Leo X. He undertook to build the façadeof S. Lorenzo and the Laurentian Library. For Clement VII. He began thestatues of the Dukes of Urbino and Nemours. Yet, while accepting thesecommissions from Medicean Popes, he could not keep his tongue fromspeaking openly against their despotism. After the sack of Prato itappears from his correspondence that he had exposed himself to danger bysome expression of indignation. [296] This was in 1512, when Soderini fledand left the gates of Florence open to the Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici. During the siege of Florence in 1529 he fortified Samminiato, and allowedhimself to be named one of the Otto di Guerra chosen for the expresspurpose of defending Florence against the Medici. [297] After the fall ofthe city he made peace with Clement by consenting to finish the tombs ofS. Lorenzo. Yet, while doing all he could to save those insignificantdukes from oblivion by the immortality of his art, Michael Angelo wasconscious of his own and his country's shame. The memorable lines placedin the mouth of his "Night, " sufficiently display his feeling after thefinal return of the Medici in 1530:[298]-- Sweet is my sleep, but more to be mere stone, So long as ruin and dishonour reign; To hear nought, to feel nought, is my great gain: Then wake me not, speak in an under-tone. When Clement VII. Died, the last real representative of Michael Angelo'sold patrons perished, and the sculptor was free to quit Florence for ever. During the reign of Duke Cosimo he never set foot in his native city. Itis thus clear that the patriot, the artist, and the man of honour were atodds in him. Loyalty obliged him to serve the family to whom he owed somuch; he was, moreover, dependent for opportunities of doing great work onthe very men whose public policy he execrated. Hence arose a compromiseand a confusion, hard to accommodate with our conception of his uprightand unyielding temper. Only by voluntary exile, and after age had made himstubborn to resist seductive offers, could Michael Angelo act up to thepromptings of his heart and declare himself a citizen who held no trucewith tyrants. I have already in this work had occasion to compare Dante, Michael Angelo, and Machiavelli. [299] In estimating the conduct of the twolast, it must not be forgotten that, by the action of inevitable causes, republican freedom had become in Italy a thing of the past; and in judgingbetween Machiavelli and Michael Angelo, we have to remember that thesculptor's work involved no sacrifice of principle or self-respect. Carving statues for the tombs of Medicean dukes was a different matterfrom dedicating the "Prince" to them. This digression, though necessary for the right understanding of MichaelAngelo's relation to the Medici, has carried me beyond his Florentineresidence in 1501-1505. The great achievement of that period was not the"David" but the Cartoon for the "Battle of Pisa. "[300] The hall of theConsiglio Grande had been opened, and one wall had been assigned toLionardo. Michael Angelo was now invited by the Signory to prepare adesign for another side of the state-chamber. When he displayed hiscartoon to the Florentines, they pronounced that Da Vinci, hitherto theundisputed prince of painting, was surpassed. It is impossible for us toform an opinion on this matter, since both cartoons are lost beyondrecovery. [301] We only know that, as Cellini says, "while they lasted, they formed the school of the whole world, "[302] and made an epoch in thehistory of art. When we inquire what was the subject of Michael Angelo'sfamous picture, we find that he had aimed at representing nothing of moremoment than a group of soldiers suddenly surprised by a trumpet-call tobattle, while bathing in the Arno--a crowd of naked men in every postureindicating haste, anxiety, and struggle. Not for its intellectual meaning, not for its colour, not for its sentiment, was this design so highlyprized. Its science won the admiration of artists and the public. At thisperiod of the Renaissance the bold and perfect drawing of the body gave anexquisite delight. Hence, perhaps, Vasari's vapid talk about "stravagantiattitudini, " "divine figure, " "scorticamenti, " and so forth--as if thesoul of figurative art were in such matters. The science of MichaelAngelo, which in his own mind was sternly subordinated to thought, hadalready turned the weaker heads of his generation. [303] A false ideal tookpossession of the fancy, and such criticism as that of Vasari and PietroAretino became inevitable. Meanwhile, a new Pope had been elected, and in 1505 Michael Angelo wasonce more called to Rome. Throughout his artist's life he oscillated thusbetween Rome and Florence--Florence the city of his ancestry, and Rome thecity of his soul; Florence where he learnt his art, and Rome where hedisplayed what art can do of highest. Julius was a patron of differentstamp from Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was not learned in book-lore:"Place a sword in my hand!" he said to the sculptor at Bologna: "ofletters I know nothing. " Yet he was no less capable of discerningexcellence than the Medici himself, and his spirit strove incessantlyafter the accomplishment of vast designs. Between Julius and MichaelAngelo there existed a strong bond of sympathy due to community oftemperament. Both aimed at colossal achievements in their respectivefields of action. The imagination of both was fired by large and simple, rather than luxurious and subtle thoughts. Both were _uomini terribili_, to use a phrase denoting vigour of character made formidable by an abruptuncompromising temper. Both worked _con furia_, with the impetuosity ofdaemonic natures; and both left the impress of their individuality gravenindelibly upon their age. Julius ordered the sculptor to prepare his mausoleum. Michael Angeloasked, "Where am I to place it?" Julius replied, "In S. Peter's. " But theold basilica of Christendom was too small for this ambitious pontiff'ssepulchre, designed by the audacious artist. It was therefore decreed thata new S. Peter's should be built to hold it. In this way the two greatlabours of Buonarroti's life were mapped out for him in a moment. But, bya strange contrariety of fate, to Bramante and San Gallo fell respectivelythe planning and the spoiling of S. Peter's. It was only in extreme oldage that Michael Angelo crowned it with that world's miracle, the dome. The mausoleum, to form a canopy for which the building was designed, dwindled down at last to the statue of "Moses" thrust out of the way inthe church of S. Pietro in Vincoli. "La tragedia della Sepoltura, " asCondivi aptly terms the history of Giulio's monument, began thus in 1505and dragged on till 1545. [304] Rarely did Michael Angelo undertake a workcommensurate with his creative power, but something came to interrupt itsexecution; while tasks outside his sphere, for which he neverbargained--the painting of the Sistine Chapel, the façade of S. Lorenzo, the fortification of Samminiato--were thrust upon him in the midst ofother more congenial labours. What we possess of his achievement, is a_torso_ of his huge designs. Giulio's tomb, as he conceived it, would have been the most stupendousmonument of sculpture in the world. [305] That mountain of marble coveredwith figures wrought in stone and bronze, was meant to be the sculpturedpoem of the thought of Death; no mere apotheosis of Pope Julius, but apageant of the soul triumphant over the limitations of mortality. All thatdignifies humanity--arts, sciences, and laws; the victory that crownsheroic effort; the majesty of contemplation, and the energy ofaction--was symbolised upon ascending tiers of the great pyramid; whilethe genii of heaven and earth upheld the open tomb, where lay the dead manwaiting for the Resurrection. Of this gigantic scheme only one imperfectdrawing now remains. [306] The "Moses" and the "Bound Captives"[307] areall that Michael Angelo accomplished. For forty years the "Moses" remainedin his workshop. For forty years he cherished a hope that his plan mightstill in part be executed, complaining the while that it would have beenbetter for him to have made sulphur matches all his life than to havetaken up the desolating artist's trade. "Every day, " he cries, "I amstoned as though I had crucified Christ. My youth has been lost, boundhand and foot to this tomb. "[308] It was decreed apparently that MichaelAngelo should exist for after ages as a fragment; and such might Pheidiasamong the Greeks have been, if he had worked for ephemeral Popes andbankrupt princes instead of Pericles. Italy in the sixteenth century, dislocated, distracted, and drained of her material resources, gave noopportunity to artists for the creation of monuments colossal in theirunity. Michael Angelo spent eight months at this period among the stone quarriesof Carrara, selecting marble for the Pope's tomb. [309] There his brain, always teeming with gigantic conceptions, suggested to him a new fancy. Could not the headland jutting out beyond Sarzana into the Tyrrhene Seabe carved by his workmen into a Pharos? To transmute a mountain into astatue, holding a city in either hand, had been the dream of a Greekartist. Michael Angelo revived the bold thought; but to execute it wouldhave been almost beyond his power. Meanwhile, in November 1505, the marblewas shipped, and the quays of Rome were soon crowded with blocks destinedfor the mausoleum. But when the sculptor arrived, he found that enemieshad been poisoning the Pope's mind against him, and that Julius hadabandoned the scheme of the mausoleum. On six successive days he wasdenied entrance to the Vatican, and the last time with such rudeness thathe determined to quit Rome. [310] He hurried straightway to his house, soldhis effects, mounted, and rode without further ceremony toward Florence, sending to the Pope a written message bidding him to seek for MichaelAngelo elsewhere in future than in Rome. It is related that Julius, anxious to recover what had been so lightly lost, sent several couriers tobring him back. [311] Michael Angelo announced that he intended to acceptthe Sultan's commission for building a bridge at Pera, and refused to bepersuaded to return to Rome. This was at Poggibonsi. When he had reachedFlorence, Julius addressed, himself to Soderini, who, unwilling todisplease the Pope, induced Michael Angelo to seek the pardon of themaster he had so abruptly quitted. By that time Julius had left the cityfor the camp; and when Michael Angelo finally appeared before him, fortified with letters from the Signory of Florence, it was at Bolognathat they met. "You have waited thus long, it seems, " said the Pope, wellsatisfied but surly, "till we should come ourselves to seek you. " Theprelate who had introduced the sculptor now began to make excuses for him, whereupon Julius turned in a fury upon the officious courtier, and had himbeaten from his presence. A few days after this encounter Michael Angelowas ordered to cast a bronze statue of Julius for the frontispiece of S. Petronio. The sculptor objected that brass-foundry was not his affair. "Never mind, " said Julius; "get to work, and we will cast your statue tillit comes out perfect. "[312] Michael Angelo did as he was bid, and thestatue was set up in 1508 above the great door of the church. The Pope wasseated, with his right hand raised; in the other were the keys. WhenJulius asked him whether he was meant to bless or curse the Bolognese withthat uplifted hand, Buonarroti found an answer worthy of a courtier: "YourHoliness is threatening this people, if it be not wise. " Less than fouryears afterwards Julius lost his hold upon Bologna, the party of theBentivogli returned to power, and the statue was destroyed. A bronzecannon, called the "Giulia, " was made out of Michael Angelo's masterpieceby the best gunsmith of his century, Alfonso Duke of Ferrara. It seems that Michael Angelo's flight from Rome in 1506 was due not onlyto his disappointment about the tomb, but also to his fear lest Juliusshould give him uncongenial work to do. Bramante, if we may believe theold story, had whispered that it was ill-omened for a man to build his ownsepulchre, and that it would be well to employ the sculptor's genius uponthe ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Accordingly, on his return to Rome in1508, this new task was allotted him. In vain did Michael Angelo remindhis master of the months wasted in the quarries of Carrara; in vain hepointed to his designs for the monument, and pleaded that he was not apainter by profession. [313] Julius had made up his mind that he shouldpaint the Sistine. Was not the cartoon at Florence a sufficient proof thathe could do this if he chose, and had he not learned the art of fresco inthe _bottega_ of his master Ghirlandajo? Whatever his original reluctancemay have been, it was speedily overcome; and the cartoons for the ceiling, projected with the unity belonging to a single great conception, wereready by the summer of 1508. [314] The difficulty of his new task aroused the artist's energy. If we couldaccept the legend, whereby contemporaries expressed their admiration forthis Titanic labour, we should have to believe the impossible--thatMichael Angelo ground his own colours, prepared his own plaster, andcompleted with his own hand the whole work, after having first conqueredthe obstacles of scaffolding and vault-painting by machines of his owninvention, [315] and that only twenty months were devoted to the executionof a series of paintings almost unequalled in their delicacy, andsurpassed by few single masterpieces in extent. What may be called themythus of the Sistine Chapel has at last been finally disproved, partly bythe personal observations of Mr. Heath Wilson, and partly by thepublication of Michael Angelo's correspondence. [316] Though someuncertainty remains as to the exact dates of the commencement andcompletion of the vault, we now know that Michael Angelo continuedpainting it at intervals during four successive years; and though we arenot accurately informed about his helpers, we no longer can doubt thatable craftsmen yielded him assistance. On May 10, 1508, he signed areceipt for five hundred ducats advanced by Julius for the necessaryexpenses of the undertaking; and on the next day he paid ten ducats to amason for rough plastering and surface-finishing applied to the vault. There is good reason to believe that he began his painting during theautumn of 1508. On November 1, 1509, a certain portion was uncovered tothe public; and before the end of the year 1512 the whole was completed. Thus, though the legend of Vasari and Condivi has been stripped of themiraculous by careful observation and keen-sighted criticism, enoughremains to justify the sense of wonder that expressed itself in theirexaggerated statements. No one but Michael Angelo could have done what hedid in the Sistine Chapel. The conception was entirely his own. Theexecution, except in subordinate details and in matters pertaining to themason's craft, was also his. The rapidity with which he laboured wasastounding. Mr. Heath Wilson infers from the condition of the plaster andthe joinings observable in different parts, that the figure of Adam, highly finished as it is, was painted in three days. Nor need we stripthe romance from that time-honoured tale of the great master's solitude. Lying on his back beneath the dreary vault, communing with Dante, Savonarola, and the Hebrew prophets in the intervals of labour, locking upthe chapel-doors in order to elude the jealous curiosity of rivals, eatingbut little and scarcely sleeping, he accomplished in sixteen months thefirst part of his gigantic task. [317] From time to time Julius climbed thescaffold and inspected the painter's progress. Dreading lest death shouldcome before the work were finished, he kept crying, "When will you make anend?" "When I can, " answered the painter. "You seem to want, " rejoined thepetulant old man, "that I should have you thrown down from the scaffold. "Then Michael Angelo's brush stopped. The machinery was removed, and thefrescoes were uncovered in their incompleteness to the eyes of Rome. Entering the Cappella Sistina, and raising our eyes to sweep the roof, wehave above us a long and somewhat narrow oblong space, vaulted with roundarches, and covered from end to end, from side to side, with a network ofhuman forms. The whole is coloured like the dusky, tawny, blueish cloudsof thunderstorms. There is no luxury of decorative art;--no gold, nopaint-box of vermilion or emerald green, has been lavished here. Sombreand aërial, like shapes condensed from vapour, or dreams begotten by Ixionupon mists of eve or dawn, the phantoms evoked by the sculptor throng thatspace. Nine compositions, carrying down the sacred history from thecreation of light to the beginning of sin in Noah's household, fill thecentral compartments of the roof. Beneath these, seated on the spandrils, are alternate prophets and sibyls, twelve in all, attesting to the futuredeliverance and judgment of the world by Christ. The intermediate spacesbetween these larger masses, on the roof and in the lunettes of thewindows, swarm with figures, some naked and some draped--women andchildren, boys and young men, grouped in tranquil attitudes, or adaptingthemselves with freedom to their station on the curves and angles of thearchitecture. In these subordinate creations Michael Angelo deigned todrop the terrible style, in order that he might show how sweet and full ofcharm his art could be. The grace of colouring, realised in some of thoseyouthful and athletic forms, is such as no copy can represent. Everyposture of beauty and of strength, simple or strained, that it is possiblefor men to assume, has been depicted here. Yet the whole is governed by astrict sense of sobriety. The restlessness of Correggio, the violentattitudinising of Tintoretto, belong alike to another and less noblespirit. To speak adequately of these form-poems would be quite impossible. Buonarroti seems to have intended to prove by them that the human body hasa language, inexhaustible in symbolism--every limb, every feature, andevery attitude being a word full of significance to those who comprehend, just as music is a language whereof each note and chord and phrase hascorrespondence with the spiritual world. It may be presumptuous after thisfashion to interpret the design of him who called into existence theheroic population of the Sistine. Yet Michael Angelo has written lineswhich in some measure justify the reading. This is how he closes one ofhis finest sonnets to Vittoria Colonna: Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere More clearly than in human forms sublime; Which, since they image Him, compel my love. Therefore to him a well-shaped hand, or throat, or head, a neck superblypoised on an athletic chest, the sway of the trunk above the hips, thestarting of the muscles on the flank, the tendons of the ankle, theoutline of the shoulder when the arm is raised, the backward bending ofthe loins, the curves of a woman's breast, the contours of a body carelessin repose or strained for action, were all words pregnant with profoundestmeaning, whereby fit utterance might be given to the thoughts that raiseman near to God. But, it may be asked, what poems of action as well asfeeling are to be expressed in this form-language? The answer is simple. Paint or carve the body of a man, and, as you do it nobly, you will givethe measure of both highest thought and most impassioned deed. This is thekey to Michael Angelo's art. He cared but little for inanimate nature. Thelandscapes of Italy, so eloquent in their sublimity and beauty, wereapparently a blank to him. His world was the world of ideas, takingvisible form, incarnating themselves in man. One language the master hadto serve him in all need--the language of plastic human form; but it wasto him a tongue as rich in its variety of accent and of intonation asBeethoven's harmonies. In the Sistine Chapel, where plastic art is so supreme, we are bound toask the further question. What was the difference between Michael Angeloand a Greek? The Parthenon with its processions of youths and maidens, itsgods and heroes, rejoicing in their strength, and robed with raiment thatrevealed their living form, made up a symphony of meaning as full as thisof Michael Angelo, and far more radiant. The Greek sculptor embracedhumanity in his work no less comprehensively than the Italian; and what hehad to say was said more plainly in the speech they both could use. Butbetween Pheidias and Michael Angelo lay Christianity, the travail of theworld through twenty centuries. Clear as morning, and calm in theunconsciousness of beauty, are those heroes of the youth of Hellas. Allis grace, repose, strength shown but not asserted. Michael Angelo's Sibylsand Prophets are old and wrinkled, bowed with thought, consumed by vigils, startled from tranquillity by visions, overburdened with the messages ofGod. The loveliest among them, the Delphic, lifts dilated eyes, as thoughto follow dreams that fly upon the paths of trance. Even the young menstrain their splendid limbs, and seem to shout or shriek, as if the lifein them contained some element of pain. "He maketh his angels spirits, andhis ministers a flame of fire:" this verse rises to our lips when we seekto describe the genii that crowd the cornice of the Sistine Chapel. Thehuman form in the work of Pheidias wore a joyous and sedate serenity; inthat of Michael Angelo it is turbid with a strange and awful sense ofinbreathed agitation. Through the figure-language of the one was spokenthe pagan creed, bright, unperturbed, and superficial. The sculpture ofthe Parthenon accomplished the transfiguration of the natural man. In theother man awakes to a new life of contest, disillusionment, hope, dread, and heavenward striving. It was impossible for the Greek and the Italian, bearing so different a burden of prophecy, even though they used the samespeech, to tell the same tale; and this should be remembered by thosecritics who cast exaggeration and contortion in the teeth of MichaelAngelo. Between the birth of the free spirit in Greece and its secondbirth in Italy, there yawned a sepulchre wherein the old faiths of theworld lay buried and whence Christ had risen. [318] The star of Raphael, meanwhile, had arisen over Rome. Between the twogreatest painters of their age the difference was striking. Michael Angelostood alone, his own master, fashioned in his own school. A band ofartists called themselves by Raphael's name; and in his style we trace theinfluence of several predecessors. Michael Angelo rarely received visits, frequented no society, formed no pupils, and boasted of no friends atCourt. Raphael was followed to the Vatican by crowds of students; hislevées were like those of a prince; he counted among his intimates thebest scholars and poets of the age; his hand was pledged in marriage to acardinal's niece. It does not appear that they engaged in petty rivalries, or that they came much into personal contact with each other. WhileMichael Angelo was so framed that he could learn from no man, Raphaelgladly learned of Michael Angelo; and after the uncovering of the Sistinefrescoes, his manner showed evident signs of alteration. Julius, who hadgiven Michael Angelo the Sistine, set Raphael to work upon the Stanze. ForJulius were painted the "Miracle of Bolsena" and the "Expulsion ofHeliodorus from the Temple, " scenes containing courtly compliments for theold Pope. No such compliments had been paid by Michael Angelo. Like hisgreat parallel in music, Beethoven, he displayed an almost arrogantcontempt for the conventionalities whereby an artist wins the favour ofhis patrons and the world. After the death of Julius, Leo X. , in character the reverse of his fierypredecessor, and by temperament unsympathetic to the austere MichaelAngelo, found nothing better for the sculptor's genius than to set him atwork upon the façade of S. Lorenzo at Florence. The better part of theyears between 1516 and 1520 was spent in quarrying marble at Carrara, Pietra Santa, and Seravezza. This is the most arid and unfruitful periodof Michael Angelo's long life, a period of delays and thwarted schemes andservile labours. What makes the sense of disappointment greater, is thatthe façade of S. Lorenzo was not even finished. [319] We hurry over thiswilderness of wasted months, and arrive at another epoch of artisticproduction. Already in 1520 the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici had conceived the notion ofbuilding a sacristy in S. Lorenzo to receive the monuments of Cosimo, thefounder of the house, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Giuliano Duke of Nemours, Lorenzo Duke of Urbino, Leo X. , and himself. [320] To Michael Angelo wascommitted the design, and in 1521 he began to apply himself to the work. Nine years had now elapsed since the roof of the Sistine chapel had beenfinished, and during this time Michael Angelo had produced little exceptthe "Christ" of S. Maria sopra Minerva. This new undertaking occupied himat intervals between 1521 and 1534, a space of time decisive for thefortunes of the Medici in Florence. Leo died, and Giulio after a few yearssucceeded him as Clement VII. The bastards of the house, Ippolito andAlessandro, were expelled from Florence in 1527. Rome was sacked by theImperial troops; then Michael Angelo quitted the statues and helped todefend his native city against the Prince of Orange. After the failure ofthe Republicans, he was recalled to his labours by command of Clement. Sullenly and sadly he quarried marbles for the sacristy. Sadly andsullenly he used his chisel year by year, making the very stones cry thatshame and ruin were the doom of his country. At last in 1534 Clement died. Then Michael Angelo flung down his mallet. The monuments remainedunfinished, and the sculptor set foot in Florence no more. [321] The Sacristy of S. Lorenzo was built by Michael Angelo and panelled withmarbles to receive the sculpture he meant to place there. [322] Thus thecolossal statues of Giuliano and Lorenzo were studied with a view to theirlight and shadow as much as to their form; and this is a fact to beremembered by those who visit the chapel where Buonarroti laboured both asarchitect and sculptor. Of the two Medici, it is not fanciful to say thatthe "Duke of Urbino" is the most immovable of spectral shapes eternalisedin marble; while the "Duke of Nemours, " more graceful and elegant, seemsintended to present a contrast to this terrible thought-burdenedform. [323] The allegorical figures, stretched on segments of ellipsesbeneath the pedestals of the two dukes, indicate phases of darkness and oflight, of death and life. They are two women and two men; tradition namesthem "Night" and "Day, " "Twilight" and "Dawning. " Thus in the statuesthemselves and in their attendant genii we have a series of abstractions, symbolising the sleep and waking of existence, action and thought, thegloom of death, the lustre of life, and the intermediate states of sadnessand of hope that form the borderland of both. Life is a dream between twoslumbers; sleep is death's twin-brother; night is the shadow of death;death is the gate of life:--such is the mysterious mythology wrought bythe sculptor of the modern world in marble. All these figures, by theintensity of their expression, the vagueness of their symbolism, force usto think and question. What, for example, occupies Lorenzo's brain?Bending forward, leaning his chin upon his wrist, placing the other handupon his knee, on what does he for ever ponder? The sight, as Rogers saidwell, "fascinates and is intolerable. " Michael Angelo has shot the beaverof the helmet forward on his forehead, and bowed his head, so as to clothethe face in darkness. But behind the gloom there is no skull, as Rogersfancied. The whole frame of the powerful man is instinct with someimperious thought. Has he outlived his life and fallen upon everlastingcontemplation? Is he brooding, injured and indignant, over his own doomand the extinction of his race? Is he condemned to witness in immortalimmobility the woes of Italy he helped to cause? Or has the sculptorsymbolised in him the burden of that personality we carry with us in thislife and bear for ever when we wake into another world? Beneath thisincarnation of oppressive thought there lie, full-length and naked, thefigures of Dawn and Twilight, Morn and Evening. So at least they arecommonly called: and these names are not inappropriate; for the breakingof the day and the approach of night are metaphors for many transientconditions of the soul. It is only as allegories in a large sense, comprehending both the physical and intellectual order, and capable ofvarious interpretation, that any of these statues can be understood. Eventhe Dukes do not pretend to be portraits: and hence in part perhaps theuncertainty that has gathered round them. Very tranquil and noble isTwilight: a giant in repose, he meditates, leaning upon his elbow, lookingdown. But Dawn starts from her couch, as though some painful summons hadreached her sunk in dreamless sleep, and called her forth to suffer. Herwaking to consciousness is like that of one who has been drowned, and whofinds the return to life agony. Before her eyes, seen even through themists of slumber, are the ruin and the shame of Italy. Opposite liesNight, so sorrowful, so utterly absorbed in darkness and the shade ofdeath, that to shake off that everlasting lethargy seems impossible. Yetshe is not dead. If we raise our voices, she too will stretch her limbsand, like her sister, shudder into sensibility with sighs. Only we mustnot wake her; for he who fashioned her, has told us that her sleep ofstone is great good fortune. Both of these women are large and brawny, unlike the Fates of Pheidias in their muscular maturity. The burden ofMichael Angelo's thought was too tremendous to be borne by virginal orgraceful beings. He had to make women no less capable of suffering, noless world-wearied, than his country. Standing before these statues, we do not cry. How beautiful! We murmur, How terrible, how grand! Yet, after long gazing, we find them gifted withbeauty beyond grace. In each of them there is a palpitating thought, tornfrom the artist's soul and crystallised in marble. It has been said thatarchitecture is petrified music. In the sacristy of S. Lorenzo we feelimpelled to remember phrases of Beethoven. Each of these statues becomesfor us a passion, fit for musical expression, but turned like Niobe tostone. They have the intellectual vagueness, the emotional certainty, thatbelong to the motives of a symphony. In their allegories, left without akey, sculpture has passed beyond her old domain of placid concrete form. The anguish of intolerable emotion, the quickening of the consciousness toa sense of suffering, the acceptance of the inevitable, the strife of thesoul with destiny, the burden and the passion of mankind:--that is whatthey contain in their cold chisel-tortured marble. It is open to criticsof the school of Lessing to object that here is the suicide of sculpture. It is easy to remark that those strained postures and writhen limbs mayhave perverted the taste of lesser craftsmen. Yet if Michael Angelo wascalled to carve Medicean statues after the sack of Rome and the fall ofFlorence--if he was obliged in sober sadness to make sculpture a fitlanguage for his sorrow-laden heart--how could he have wrought moretruthfully than thus? To imitate him without sharing his emotions orcomprehending his thoughts, as the soulless artist of the decadenceattempted, was without any doubt a grievous error. Surely also we mayregret, not without reason, that in the evil days upon which he hadfallen, the fair antique "Heiterkeit" and "Allgemeinheit" were beyond hisreach. Michael Angelo left the tombs of the Medici unfinished; nor, in spite ofDuke Cosimo's earnest entreaties, would he afterwards return to Florenceto complete them. Lorenzo's features are but rough-hewn; so is the face ofNight. Day seems struggling into shape beneath his mask of rock, andTwilight shows everywhere the tooth-dint of the chisel. To leaveunfinished was the fate of Michael Angelo--partly too, perhaps, hispreference; for he was easily deterred from work. Many of his marbles areonly just begun. The two medallion "Madonnas, " the "Madonna and Child" inS. Lorenzo, the "Head of Brutus, " the "Bound Captives, " and the "Pietà" inthe Duomo of Florence, are instances of masterpieces in the rough. Heloved to fancy that the form dwelt within the stone, and that the chiseldisencumbered it of superfluity. Therefore, to his eye, foreseeing whatthe shape would be when the rude envelope was chipped away, the marblemask may have taken the appearance of a veil or mantle. He may have foundsome fascination in the incompleteness that argued want of will but not ofart, and a rough-hewn Madonna may have been to him what a Dryad stillenclosed within a gnarled oak was to a Greek poet's fancy. We are not, however, justified in therefore assuming, as a recent critic hassuggested, that Michael Angelo sought to realise a certain preconceivedeffect by want of finish. There is enough in the distracted circumstancesof his life and in his temper, at once passionate and downcast, to accountfor fragmentary and imperfect performance; nor must it be forgotten thatthe manual labour of the sculptor in the sixteenth century was by no meansso light as it is now. A decisive argument against this theory is thatBuonarroti's three most celebrated statues--the "Pietà" in S. Peter's, the"Moses" and the "Dawn"--are executed with the highest polish it ispossible for stone to take. [324] That he always aimed at this high finish, but often fell below it through discontent and _ennui_ and the importunityof patrons, we have the best reason to believe. Michael Angelo had now reached his fifty-ninth year. Lionardo and Raphaelhad already passed away, and were remembered as the giants of a bygone ageof gold. Correggio was in his last year. Andrea del Sarto was dead. Nowhere except at Venice did Italian art still flourish; and the mundanestyle of Titian was not to the sculptor's taste. He had overlived thegreatness of his country, and saw Italy in ruins. Yet he was destined tosurvive another thirty years, another lifetime of Masaccio or Raphael, andto witness still worse days. When we call Michael Angelo the interpreterof the burden and the pain of the Renaissance, we must remember this longweary old age, during which in solitude and silence he watched theextinction of Florence, the institution of the Inquisition, and theabasement of the Italian spirit beneath the tyranny of Spain. His sonnets, written chiefly in this latter period of life, turn often on the thoughtof death. His love of art yields to religious hope and fear, and hebemoans a youth and manhood spent in vanity. Once when he injured his legby a fall from the scaffolding in the Sistine Chapel, he refusedassistance, shut himself up at home, and lay waiting for deliverance indeath. His life was only saved by the forcible interference of friends. In 1534 a new Eurystheus arose for our Hercules. The Cardinal AlessandroFarnese, a fox by nature and infamous through his indulgence for a viciousbastard, was made Pope under the name of Paul III. [325] Michael Angelo hadshed lustre on the reigns of three Popes, his predecessors. For thirtyyears the Farnese had watched him with greedy eyes. After Julius, Leo, andClement, the time was now come for the heroic craftsman to serve Paul. ThePope found him at work in his _bottega_ on the tomb of Julius; for the"tragedy of the mausoleum" still dragged on. The statue of Moses wasfinished. "That, " said Paul, "is enough for one Pope. Give me yourcontract with the Duke of Urbino; I will tear it. Have I waited all theseyears; and now that I am Pope at last, shall I not have you for myself? Iwant you in the Sistine Chapel. " Accordingly Michael Angelo, who hadalready made cartoons for the "Last Judgment" in the life of Clement, oncemore laid aside the chisel and took up the brush. For eight years, between1534 and 1542, he laboured at the fresco above the high altar of thechapel, devoting his terrible genius to a subject worthy of the times inwhich he lived. Since he had first listened while a youth to theprophecies of Savonarola, the woes announced in that apocalypse had allcome true. Italy had been scourged, Rome sacked, the Church chastised. And yet the world had not grown wiser; vice was on the increase, virtuegrew more rare. [326] It was impossible after the experience of theimmediate past and within view of the present and the future, to conceiveof God as other than an angry judge, vindictive and implacable. The "Last Judgment" has long been the most celebrated of Michael Angelo'spaintings; partly no doubt because it was executed in the plenitude of hisfame, with the eyes of all Italy upon him; partly because its size arousesvulgar wonder, and its theme strikes terror into all who gaze on it. Yetit is neither so strong nor so beautiful as the vault-paintings of theSistine. The freshness of the genius that created Eve and Adam, unrivalledin their bloom of primal youth, has passed away. Austerity and gloom havetaken possession of the painter. His style has hardened into mannerism, and the display of barren science in difficult posturing and strainedanatomy has become wilful. Still, whether we regard this fresco as closingthe long series of "Last Judgments" to be studied on Italian church-wallsfrom Giotto downwards; or whether we confine our attention, ascontemporaries seem to have done, to the skill of its foreshortenings andgroupings;[327] or whether we analyse the dramatic energy wherewithtremendous passions are expressed, its triumph is in either case decided. The whole wall swarms with ascending and descending, poised and hovering, shapes--men and women rising from the grave before the judge, taking theirstations among the saved, or sinking with unutterable anguish to the placeof doom--a multitude that no man can number, surging to and fro in dimtempestuous air. In the centre at the top, Christ is rising from Histhrone with the gesture of an angry Hercules, hurling ruin on the guilty. He is such as the sins of Italy have made Him. Squadrons of angels, bearing the emblems of His passion, whirl around Him like greythunder-clouds, and all the saints lean forward from their vantage groundto curse and threaten. At the very bottom bestial features take the placeof human lineaments, and the terror of judgment has become the torment ofdamnation. Such is the general scope of this picture. Of all its merits, none is greater than the delineation of uncertainty and gradual awakeningto life. The middle region between vigilance and slumber, reality anddream, Michael Angelo ruled as his own realm; and a painting of the "LastJudgment" enabled him to deal with this metaichmios skotos--thisdarkness in the interval of crossing spears--under its most solemn aspect. When the fresco was uncovered, there arose a general murmur ofdisapprobation that the figures were all nude. As society became morevicious, it grew nice. Messer Biagio, the Pope's master of the ceremonies, remarked that such things were more fit for stews and taverns than achapel. The angry painter placed his portrait in Hell with a mark ofinfamy that cast too lurid a light upon this prudish speech. When Biagiocomplained, Paul wittily answered that, had it been Purgatory, he mighthave helped him, but in Hell is no redemption. Even the foul-mouthed andfoul-hearted Aretino wrote from Venice to the same effect--a letterastounding for its impudence. [328] Michael Angelo made no defence. Perhapshe reflected that the souls of the Pope himself and Messer Biagio andMesser Pietro Aretino would go forth one day naked to appear before thejudge, with the deformities of sin upon them, as in Plato's "Gorgias. " Herefused, however, to give clothes to his men and women. Daniel daVolterra, who was afterwards employed to do this, got the name ofbreeches-maker. We are hardly able to appreciate the "Last Judgment;" it has been sosmirched and blackened by the smoke and dust of centuries. And this istrue of the whole Sistine Chapel. [329] Yet it is here that the genius ofMichael Angelo in all its terribleness must still be studied. In order tocharacterise the impression produced by even the less awful of thesefrescoes on a sympathetic student, I lay my pen aside and beg the readerto weigh what Henri Beyle, the versatile and brilliant critic, pencilledin the gallery of the Sistine Chapel on January 13, 1807:[330] "Greeksculpture was unwilling to reproduce the terrible in any shape; theGreeks had enough real troubles of their own. Therefore, in the realm ofart, nothing can be compared with the figure of the Eternal drawing forththe first man from nonentity. The pose, the drawing, the drapery, all isstriking: the soul is agitated by sensations that are not usuallycommunicated through the eyes. When in our disastrous retreat from Russia, it chanced that we were suddenly awakened in the middle of the dark nightby an obstinate cannonading, which at each moment seemed to gain innearness, then all the forces of a man's nature gathered close around hisheart; he felt himself in the presence of fate, and, having no attentionleft for things of vulgar interest, he made himself ready to dispute hislife with destiny. The sight of Michael Angelo's pictures has brought backto my consciousness that almost forgotten sensation. Great souls enjoytheir own greatness: the rest of the world is seized with fear, and goesmad. " After the painting of the "Last Judgment, " one more great labour wasreserved for Michael Angelo. [331] By a brief of September, 1535, Paul III. Had made him the chief architect as well as sculptor and painter of theHoly See. He was now called upon to superintend the building of S. Peter's, and to this task, undertaken for the repose of his soul withoutemolument, he devoted the last years of his life. The dome of S. Peter's, as seen from Tivoli or the Alban hills, like a cloud upon the Campagna, isBuonarroti's; but he has no share in the façade that screens it from thepiazza. It lies beyond the scope of this chapter to relate once more thehistory of the vicissitudes through which S. Peter's went between the daysof Alberti and Bernini. [332] I can but refer to Michael Angelo's letteraddressed to Bartolommeo Ammanati, valuable both as setting forth hisviews about the structure, and as rendering the fullest and most gloriousmeed of praise to his old enemy Bramante. [333] All ancient jealousies, even had they ever stirred the heart of Michael Angelo, had long been setat rest by time and death. The one wish of his soul was to set a worthydiadem upon the mother-church of Christianity, repairing by the majesty ofart what Rome had suffered at the hands of Germany and Spain, andinaugurating by this visible sign of sovereignty the new age ofCatholicity renascent and triumphant. To the last period of Buonarroti's life (a space of twenty-two yearsbetween 1542 and 1564) we owe some of his most beautifuldrawings--sketches for pictures of the Crucifixion made for VittoriaColonna, and a few mythological designs, like the "Rape of Ganymede, "composed for Tommaso Cavalieri. His thoughts meanwhile were turned moreand more, as time advanced, to piety; and many of his sonnets breathe analmost ascetic spirit of religion. [334] We see in them the old manregretting the years he had spent on art, deploring his enthusiasm forearthly beauty, and seeking comfort in the cross alone. Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest My soul, that turns to His great love on high, Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread. It is pleasant to know that these last years were also the happiest andcalmest. Though he had lost his faithful friend and servant Urbino; thoughhis father had died, an old man, and his brothers had passed away beforehim one by one, his nephew Lionardo had married in Florence, and begottena son called Michael Angelo. Thus he had the satisfaction of hoping thathis name would endure and flourish, as indeed it has done almost to thisvery day in Florence. What consolation this thought must have brought him, is clear to those who have studied his correspondence and observed thetender care and continual anxiety he had for his kinsmen. [335] Wealth nowbelonged to him: but he had never cared for money; and he continued tolive like a poor man, dressing soberly and eating sparely, often takingbut one meal in the day, and that of bread and wine. [336] He slept little, and rose by night to work upon his statues, wearing a cap with a candlestuck in front of it, that he might see where to drive the chisel home. During his whole life he had been solitary, partly by preference, partlyby devotion to his art, and partly because he kept men at a distance byhis manner. [337] Not that Michael Angelo was sour or haughty; but hespoke his mind out very plainly, had no tolerance for fools, and was aptto fly into passions. [338] Time had now softened his temper and removedall causes of discouragement. He had survived every rival, and the worldwas convinced of his supremacy. Princes courted him; the Count of Canossawas proud to claim him for a kinsman; strangers, when they visited Rome, were eager to behold in him its greatest living wonder. [339] His old agewas the serene and splendid evening of a toilsome day. But better than allthis, he now enjoyed both love and friendship. If Michael Angelo could ever have been handsome is more than doubtful. Early in his youth the quarrelsome and vain Torrigiani broke his nose witha blow of the fist, when they were drawing from Masaccio's frescoes in theCarmine together. [340] Thenceforth the artist's soul looked forth from asad face, with small grey eyes, flat nostrils, and rugged weight ofjutting brows. Good care was thus taken that light love should not triflewith the man who was destined to be the prophet of his age in art. LikeBeethoven, he united a loving nature, sensitive to beauty and desirous ofaffection, with a rude exterior. He seemed incapable of attaching himselfto any merely mortal object, and wedded the ideal. In that century ofintrigue and amour, we hear of nothing to imply that Michael Angelo was alover till he reached the age of sixty. How he may have loved in theearlier periods of his life, whereof no record now remains, can only beguessed from the tenderness and passion outpoured in the poems of hislatter years. That his morality was pure and his converse without stain, is emphatically witnessed by both Vasari and Condivi. [341] But that hisemotion was intense, and that to beauty in all its human forms he wasthroughout his life a slave, we have his own sonnets to prove. In the year 1534 he first became acquainted with the noble lady Vittoria, daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, and widow of the Marquis of Pescara. She wasthen aged forty-four, and had nine years survived the loss of a husbandshe never ceased to idolise. [342] Living in retirement in Rome, sheemployed her leisure with philosophy and poetry. Artists and men ofletters were admitted to her society. Among the subjects she had most atheart was the reform of the Church and the restoration of religion to itsevangelical purity. Between her and Michael Angelo a tender affectionsprang up based upon the sympathy of ardent and high-seeking natures. Iflove be the right name for this exalted and yet fervid attachment, MichaelAngelo may be said to have loved her with all the pent-up forces of hisheart. None of his works display a predilection for girlish beauty, and itis probable that her intellectual distinction and mature womanhood touchedhim even more than if she had been younger. When they were together inRome they met frequently for conversation on the themes of art and pietythey both held dear. Of these discourses a charming record has beenpreserved to us by the painter Francis of Holland. [343] When they wereseparated they exchanged poems and wrote letters, some of which remain. Onthe death of Vittoria, in 1547, the light of life seemed to beextinguished for our sculptor. It is said that he waited by her bed-side, and kissed her hand when she was dying. The sonnets he afterwards composedshow that his soul followed her to heaven. Another friend whom Michael Angelo found in this last stage of life, andwhom he loved with only less warmth than Vittoria, was a young Roman ofperfect beauty and of winning manners. Tommaso Cavalieri must be mentionednext to the Marchioness of Pescara as the being who bound this greatestsoul a captive. [344] Both Cavalieri and Vittoria are said to have beenpainted by him, and these are the only two portraits he is reported tohave executed. It may here be remarked that nothing is more characteristicof his genius than the determination to see through nature, to pass beyondthe actual to the abstract, and to use reality only as a stepping-stone tothe ideal. This artistic Platonism was the source both of his greatnessand his mannerism. As men choose to follow Blake or Ruskin, they maypraise or blame him; yet, blame and praise pronounced on such a matterwith regard to such a man are equally impertinent and insignificant. It isenough for the critic to note with reverence that thus and thus the spiritthat was in him worked and moved. When we read the sonnets addressed to Vittoria Colonna and Cavalieri, wefind something inexpressibly pathetic in this pure and fervent worship ofbeauty, when the artist with a soul still young had reached the limit ofthe years of man. Here and there we trace in them an echo of his youth. The Platonic dialogues he heard while yet a young man at the suppers ofLorenzo, reappear converted to the very substance of his thought andstyle. At the same time Savonarola resumes ascendency over his mind; andwhen he turns to Florence, it is of Dante that he speaks. At last the moment came when this strong solitary spirit, much sufferingand much loving, had to render its account. It appears from a letterwritten to Lionardo Buonarroti on February 15, 1564, that his old servantAntonio del Francese, the successor of Urbino in his household, togetherwith Tommaso Cavalieri and Daniello Ricciarelli of Volterra, attended himin his last illness. On the 18th of that month, having bequeathed hissoul to God, his body to the earth, and his worldly goods to his kinsfolk, praying them on their death-bed to think upon Christ's passion, hebreathed his last. His corpse was transported to Florence, and buried inthe church of S. Croce, with great pomp and honour, by the Duke, the city, and the Florentine Academy. FOOTNOTES: [289] See Vasari, vol. Xii. P. 333, and Gotti's _Vita di MichelangeloBuonarroti_, vol. I. P. 4, for a discussion of this claim, and for aletter written by Alessandro Count of Canossa, in 1520, to the artist. [290] That Michael Angelo was contemptuous to brother artists, is provedby what Torrigiani said to Cellini: "Aveva per usanza di uccellare tuttiquelli che dissegnavano. " He called Perugino _goffo_, told Francia's sonthat his father made handsomer men by night than by day, and cast inLionardo's teeth that he could not finish the equestrian statue of theDuke of Milan. It is therefore not improbable that when, according to thelegend, he corrected a drawing of Ghirlandajo's, he may have said thingsunendurable to the elder painter. [291] Engraved in outline in Harford's _Illustrations of the Genius ofMichael Angelo Buonarroti_, Colnaghi, 1857. [292] This group, placed in S. Peter's, was made for the French Cardinalde Saint Denys. It should be said that the first work of Michael Angeloin Rome was the "Bacchus" now in the Florentine Bargello, executed forJacopo Gallo, a Roman gentleman. [293] Pitti approved of the form of government represented by Soderini. Machiavelli despised the want of decision that made him quit Florence, and the euêtheia of the man. Hence their curiously conflictingphrases. [294] See the chapter entitled "Della Malitia e pessíme Conditioni delTyranno, " in Savonarola's "Tractato circa el reggimento e governo dellaCitta di Firenze composto ad instantia delli excelsi Signori al tempo diGiuliano Salviati, Gonfaloniere di Justitia. " A more terrible picture hasnever been drawn by any analyst of human vice and cruelty and weakness. [295] Guasti's edition of the _Rime_, p. 26. [296] He defends himself thus in a letter to Lodovico Buonarroti: "Delcaso dei Medici io non ò mai parlato contra di loro cosa nessuna, se nonin quel modo che s' è parlato generalmente per ogn' uomo, come fu delcaso di Prato; che se le pietre avessin saputo parlare, n' avrebbonoparlato. " [297] It seems clear from the correspondence in the Archivio Buonarroti, recently published, that when Michael Angelo fled from Florence to Venicein 1529, he did so under the pressure of no ignoble panic, but becausehis life was threatened by a traitor, acting possibly at the secretinstance of Malatesta Baglioni. See Heath Wilson, pp. 326-330. [298] See Guasti, p. 4. [299] Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, p. 251. [300] To these years we must also assign the two unfinished medallions of"Madonna and the infant Christ, " the circular oil picture of the "HolyFamily, " painted for Angelo Doni, and the beautiful unfinished picture of"Madonna with the boy Jesus and S. John" in the National Gallery. Thelast of these works is one of the loveliest of Michael Angelo'sproductions, whether we regard the symmetry of its composition or therefinement of its types. The two groups of two boys standing behind thecentral group on either hand of the Virgin, have incomparable beauty ofform. The supreme style of the Sistine is here revealed to us in embryo. Whether the "Entombment, " also unfinished, and also in the NationalGallery, belongs to this time, and whether it be Michael Angelo's at all, is a matter for the experts to decide. To my perception, it is quiteunworthy of the painter of the Doni "Holy family;" nor can I think thathis want of practice in oil-painting will explain its want of charm andvigour. [301] It has long been believed that Baccio Bandinelli destroyed MichaelAngelo's; but Grimm, in his Life of the sculptor (vol. I. P. 376, Eng. Tr. ), adduces solid arguments against this legend. A few studies, together with the engravings of portions by Marc Antonio and AgostinoVeneziano, enable us to form a notion of the composition. At Holkhamthere is an old copy of the larger portion of the cartoon, which has beenengraved by Schiavonetti, and reproduced in Harford's _Illustrations_, plate x. [302] _Vita_, p. 23. Cellini, the impassioned admirer of Michael Angelo, esteemed this cartoon so highly, that he writes: "Sebbene il divinoMichelagnolo fece la gran cappella di Papa Julio da poi, non arrivò mai aquesto segno alla meta: la sua virtù non aggiunse mai da poi alla forzadi quei primi studj. " [303] The cartoon was probably exhibited in 1505. See Gotti, vol. I. P. 35. [304] Gotti, pp. 277-282. [305] Springer, in his essay, _Michael Agnolo in Rome_, p. 21, makes outthat this large design was not conceived till after the death of Julius. It is difficult to form a clear notion of the many changes in the plan ofthe tomb, between 1505 and 1542, when Michael Angelo signed the lastcontract with the heirs of Julius. [306] In the Uffizzi at Florence. See Heath Wilson, plate vi. [307] Boboli Gardens, Bargello, Louvre. These captives are unfinished. The "Rachel" and "Leah" at S. Pietro in Vincoli were committed to pupilsby Michael Angelo. [308] "Che mi fosso messo a fare zolfanelli. .. . Son ogni di lapidato, come se havessi crucifisso Cristo. .. . Io mi truovo avere perduta tutta lamia giovinezza legato a questa sepoltura. " [309] Gotti, p. 42. Grimm makes two visits to Carrara in 1505 and 1506, vol. I. Pp. 239, 243. [310] See his letter. Gotti, p. 44. [311] Our authorities for this episode in Michael Angelo's biography aremainly Vasari and Condivi. Though there may be exaggeration in thelegend, it is certain that a correspondence took place between the Popeand the Gonfalonier of Florence, to bring about his return. See HeathWilson, pp. 79-87, and the letter to Giuliano di San Gallo in Milanesi'sArchivio Buonarroti, p. 377. Michael Angelo appears to have had somereason to fear assassination in Rome. [312] See Michael Angelo's letters to Giovan Francesco Fattucci, and hisfamily. Gotti, pp. 55-65. [313] See the sonnet to Giovanni da Pistoja:-- La mia pittura morta Difendi orma', Giovanni, e 'l mio onore, Non sendo in loco bon, nè io pittore. [314] According to the first plan, Michael Angelo bargained with the Popefor twelve Apostles in the lunettes, and another part to be filled withornament in the usual manner--"dodici Apostoli nelle lunette, e 'l restoun certo partimento ripieno d' adornamenti come si usa. " Michael Angelo, after making designs for this commission, told the Pope he thought theroof would look poor, because the Apostles were poor folk--"perchè furonpoveri anche loro. " He then began his cartoons for the vault as it nowexists. See the letter to Ser Giovan Francesco Fattucci, in the _ArchivioBuonarroti_, Milanesi, pp. 426-427. This seems to be the foundation foran old story of the Pope's complaining that the Sistine roof looked poorwithout gilding, and Michael Angelo's reply that the Biblical personagesdepicted there were but poor people. [315] Bramante, the Pope's architect, did in truth fail to construct theproper scaffolding, whether through inability or jealousy. Michael Angelodesigned a superior system of his own, which became a model for futurearchitects in similar constructions. [316] See chapters vi. Vii. And viii. Of Mr. Charles Heath Wilson'sadmirable _Life of Michel Angelo_. Aurelio Gotti's _Vita di MichelAgnolo_, and Anton Springer's _Michael Agnolo in Rome_, deserve to beconsulted on this passage in the painter's biography. [317] The conditions under which Michael Angelo worked, without a trainedband of pupils, must have struck contemporaries, accustomed to Raphael'scrowds of assistants, with a wonder that justified Vasari's emphaticlanguage of exaggeration as to his single-handed labour. [318] In speaking of the Sistine I have treated Michael Angelo as asculptor, and it was a sculptor who designed those frescoes. _Nè iopittore_ is his own phrase. Compare an autotype of "Adam" in the Sistinewith one of "Twilight" in S. Lorenzo: it is clear that in the formerMichael Angelo painted what he would have been well pleased to carve. Asculptor's genius was needed for the modelling of those many figures; itwas, moreover, not a painter's part to deal thus drily with colour. [319] The Laurentian Library, however, was built in 1524. [320] See Gotti, pp. 150, 155, 158, 159, for the correspondence whichpassed upon the subject, and the various alterations in the plan. As inthe case of all Michael Angelo's works, except the Sistine, only a smallportion of the original project was executed. [321] Cosimo de' Medici found it impossible to induce him to return toFlorence. See B. Cellini's Life, p. 436, for his way of receiving theDuke's overtures. [322] See above, Chapter II, Michael Angelo. [323] Vasari names the gloomy statue, called by the Italians _IlPenseroso_, "Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, " the sprightly one, "Giuliano, Dukeof Nemours;" and this contemporary tradition has been recently confirmedby an inspection of the Penseroso's tomb (see a letter to the _Academy_, March 13, 1875, by Mr. Charles Heath Wilson). Grimm, in his _Life ofMichael Angelo_, gave plausible aesthetic reasons why we should reversethe nomenclature; but the discovery of two bodies beneath the Penseroso, almost certainly those of Lorenzo and his supposed son Alessandro, justifies Vasari. Neither of these statues can be accepted as a portrait. [324] The "Bacchus" of the Bargello, the "David, " the "Christ, " of theMinerva, the "Duke of Nemours, " and the almost finished "Night, " mightalso be mentioned. His chalk drawings of the "Bersaglieri, " the "InfantBacchanals, " the "Fall of Phaëthon, " and the "Punishment of Tityos, " nowin the Royal Collection at Windsor, prove that even in old age MichaelAngelo carried delicacy of execution as a draughtsman to a point notsurpassed even by Lionardo. Few frescoes, again, were ever finished withmore conscientious elaboration than those of the Sistine vault. [325] See Varchi, at the end of the _Storia Fiorentina_, for episodes inthe life of Pier Luigi Farnese, and Cellini for a popular estimate of theCardinal, his father. [326] This extract from Cesare Balbo's _Pensieri sulla Storia d' Italia_, Le Monnier, 1858, p. 57, may help to explain the situation: "E selasciando gli uomini e i nomi grandi de' governanti, noi venissimo aquella storia, troppo sovente negletta, dei piccoli, dei più, deigovernati che sono in somma scopo d' ogni sorta di governo; se, coll'aiuto delle tante memorie rimaste di quell' secolo, noi ci addestrassimoa conoscere la condizione comune e privata degli Italiani di quell' età, noi troveremmo trasmesse dai governanti a' governati, e ritornate daquesti a quelli, tali universali scostumatezze ed immoralità, talifiacchezze e perfidie, tali mollezze e libidini, tali ozi e tali vizi, tali avvilimenti insomma e corruzioni, che sembrano appena credibili inuna età d' incivilmento cristiano. " [327] Vasari's description moves our laughter with its jargon about"attitudini bellissime e scorti molto mirabili, " when the man, in spiteof his honest and enthusiastic admiration, is so little capable ofpenetrating the painter's thought. Mr. Ruskin leaves the same impressionas Vasari: he too makes much talk about attitudes and muscles in MichaelAngelo, and seems to be on Vasari's level as to comprehending him. Thedifference is that Vasari praises, Ruskin blames; both miss the mark. [328] "È possibile che voi, che _per essere divino non degnate ilconsortio degli huomini_, haviate ciò fatto nel maggior tempio diDio?. .. . In un bagno delitioso, non in un choro supremo si conveniva ilfar vostro. " Those who are curious may consult Aretino's correspondencewith Michael Angelo in his published letters (Parigi, 1609), lib. I. P. 153; lib. Ii. P. 9; lib. Iii. Pp. 45, 122; lib. Iv. P. 37. [329] Braun's autotypes of the vault frescoes show what ravage the lapseof time has wrought in them, by the cracking of the plaster, the peelingoff in places of the upper surface, and the deposit of dirt and cobwebs. Mr. Heath Wilson, after careful examination, pronounces that not onlytime, but the wilful hand of man, re-painting and washing the delicatetint-coats with corrosive acids, has contributed to their ruin. [330] _Histoire de la Peinture en Italie_, p. 332. [331] That is not counting the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina in theVatican, painted about 1544, which are now in a far worse state even thanthe "Last Judgment, " and which can never have done more than show hisstyle in decadence. [332] See above, Chapter II, S. Peter's. [333] See Gotti, p. 307, or _Archivio Buonarroti_, p. 535. [334] I have reserved my translation of the sonnets that cast most lightupon Michael Angelo's thought and feeling for an Appendix, No. II. [335] The majority of Michael Angelo's letters are written on domesticmatters--about the affairs of his brothers and his father. When theyvexed him, he would break out into expressions like the following: "Ioson ito, da dodici anni in qua, tapinando per tutta Italia; sopportatoogni vergognia; patito ogni stento; lacerato il corpo mio in ogni fatica;messa la vita propria a mille pericoli, solo per aiutar la casa mia. "They are generally full of good counsel and sound love. How he loved hisfather may be seen in the _terza rima_ poem on his death in 1534. [336] Notice this expression in a letter to his father, written fromRome, about 1512, "Bastivi avere del pane, e vivete ben con Cristo epoveramente; come fo io qua, che vivo meschinamente. " It does not seemthat he ever altered this poor way of living. For his hiring at Bologna, in 1507, a single room with one bed in it, for himself and his threeworkmen, see Gotti, p. 58. His father in 1500 rebuked him for themeanness of his establishment; _ibid_. P. 23. It appears that he wasalways sending money home. [337] "Io sto qua in grande afanno, e con grandissima fatica di corpo, enon ò amici di nessuna sorte, e none voglio: e non ò tanto tempo che iopossa mangiare el bisognio mio. " Letter to Gismondo, published by Grimm. See, too, Sebastian del Piombo's letter to him of November 9, 1520: "Mafate paura a ognuno, insino a' papi. " Compare, too, the letter ofSebastian, Oct. 15, 1512, in which Julius is reported to have said, "Èterribile, come tu vedi, non se pol praticar con lui. " Again, MichaelAngelo writes: "Sto sempesolo, vo poco attorno e non parlo a persona emassino di fiorentini. " Gotti, p. 255. [338] When anything went wrong with him, he became moody and vehement:"Non vi maravigliate che io vi abbi scritto alle volte cosi stizosamente, che io ò alle volte di gran passione, per molte cagioni che avengono achi è fuor di casa. " So he writes to his father in 1498. A letter toLuigi del Riccio of 1545, is signed "Michelagnolo Buonarroti non pittore, nè scultore, nè architettore, ma quel che voi volete, ma none briaco, come vi dissi, in casa. " [339] See the letters of Cosimo de' Medici, Gotti, pp. 301-313, theletter of Count Alessandro da Canossa, _ibid. _ p. 4, and Pier Vettori'sletter to Borghini, about the visit of some German gentlemen, _ibid. _ p. 315. [340] See the story as told by Torrigiani himself in Cellini, ed. LeMonnier, p. 23. [341] After saying that he talked of love like Plato, Condivi continues:"Non senti mai uscir di quella bocca se non parole onestissime, e cheavevan forza d' estinguere nella gioventù ogni incomposto e sfrenatodesiderio che in lei potesse cadere. " Compare Scipione Ammirato, quotedby Guasti, "Le Rime, " p. Xi. [342] Her intense affection for the Marquis of Pescara, to whom she hadbeen betrothed by her father at the age of five, is sufficiently provedby those many sonnets and _canzoni_ in which she speaks of him as herSun. [343] See Grimm, vol. Ii. [344] See the Sonnets translated in my Appendix and in my _Sonnets ofMichael Angelo and Campanella_, London, Smith & Elder, 1878. See also theletters to Cavalieri, quoted by Gotti, pp. 231, 232, 234. It is surelystrained criticism to conjecture, as Gotti has done, that these epistleswere meant for Vittoria, though written to Cavalieri. Taken together withthe sonnets and the letter of Bartolommeo Angiolini (Gotti, p. 233), theyseem to me to prove only Michael Angelo's warm love for this young man. CHAPTER IX LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI His Fame--His Autobiography--Its Value for the Student of History, Manners, and Character, in the Renaissance--Birth, Parentage, andBoyhood--Flute-playing--Apprenticeship to Marcone--Wanderjahr--TheGoldsmith's Trade at Florence--Torrigiani and England--Cellini leavesFlorence for Rome--Quarrel with the Guasconti--Homicidal Fury--Cellini aLaw to Himself--Three Periods in his Manhood--Life in Rome--Diego at theBanquet--Renaissance Feeling for Physical Beauty--Sack of Rome--Miraclesin Cellini's Life--His Affections--Murder of his Brother'sAssassin--Sanctuary--Pardon and Absolution--Incantation in theColosseum--First Visit to France--Adventures on the Way--Accused ofStealing Crown Jewels in Rome--Imprisonment in the Castle of S. Angelo--The Governor--Cellini's Escape--His Visions--The Nature of hisReligion--Second Visit to France--The Wandering Court--Le PetitNesle--Cellini in the French Law Courts--Scene at Fontainebleau--Return toFlorence--Cosimo de' Medici as a Patron--Intrigues of a pettyCourt--Bandinelli--The Duchess--Statue of Perseus--End of Cellini'sLife--Cellini and Machiavelli. Few names in the history of Italian art are more renowned than that ofBenvenuto Cellini. This can hardly be attributed to the value of hisextant works; for though, while he lived, he was the greatest goldsmith ofhis time, a skilled medallist and an admirable statuary, few of his manymasterpieces now survive. The plate and armour that bear his name, areonly in some rare instances genuine; and the bronze "Perseus" in theLoggia de' Lanzi at Florence remains almost alone to show how high heranked among the later Tuscan sculptors. If, therefore, Cellini had beenjudged merely by the authentic productions of his art, he would not haveacquired a celebrity unique among his fellow-workers of the sixteenthcentury. That fame he owes to the circumstance that he left behind him athis death a full and graphic narrative of his stormy life. The vivid styleof this autobiography dictated by Cellini while still engaged in thelabour of his craft, its animated picture of a powerful character, thevariety of its incidents, and the amount of information it contains, placeit high both as a life-romance and also as a record of contemporaryhistory. After studying the laboured periods of Varchi, we turn to thesememoirs, and view the same events from the standpoint of an artisanconveying his impressions with plebeian raciness of phrase. The sack ofRome, the plague and siege of Florence, the humiliation of Clement VII. , the pomp of Charles V. At Rome, the behaviour of the Florentine exiles atFerrara, the intimacy between Alessandro de' Medici and his murderer, Lorenzino, the policy of Paul III. , and the method pursued by Cosimo atFlorence, are briefly but significantly touched upon--no longer by thehistorian seeking causes and setting forth the sequence of events, but bya shrewd observer interested in depicting his own part in the great gameof life. Cellini haunted the private rooms of popes and princes; he knewthe chief actors of his day, just as the valet knows the hero; and thepicturesque glimpses into their life we gain from him, add the charm ofcolour and reality to history. At the same time this book presents an admirable picture of an artist'slife at Rome, Paris, and Florence. Cellini was essentially an Italian ofthe Cinque-cento. His passions were the passions of his countrymen; hisvices were the vices of his time; his eccentricity and energy and vitalforce were what the age idealised as _virtù_. Combining rare artisticgifts with a most violent temper and a most obstinate will, he paintshimself at one time as a conscientious craftsman, at another as adesperate bravo. He obeys his instincts and indulges his appetites withthe irreflective simplicity of an animal. In the pursuit of vengeance andthe commission of murder he is self-reliant, coolly calculating, fierceand fatal as a tiger. Yet his religious fervour is sincere; his impulsesare generous; and his heart on the whole is good. His vanity isinordinate; and his unmistakable courage is impaired, to Northernapprehension, by swaggering bravado. The mixture of these qualities in a personality so natural and so clearlylimned renders Cellini a most precious subject for the student ofRenaissance life and character. Even supposing him to have beenexceptionally passionate, he was made of the same stuff as hiscontemporaries. We are justified in concluding this not only fromcollateral evidence and from what he tells us, but also from the meed ofhonour he received. In Europe of the present day he could hardly fail tobe regarded as a ruffian, a dangerous disturber of morality and order. Inhis own age he was held in high esteem and buried by his fellow-citizenswith public ceremonies. A funeral oration was pronounced over his grave"in praise both of his life and works, and also of his excellentdisposition of mind and body. "[345] He dictated the memoirs that paint himas bloodthirsty, sensual, and revengeful, in the leisure of his old age, and left them with complacency to serve as witness of his manly virtues toposterity. Even Vasari, whom he hated, and who reciprocated his ill-will, records that "he always showed himself a man of great spirit and veracity, bold, active, enterprising, and formidable to his enemies; a man, inshort, who knew as well how to speak to princes as to exert himself in hisart. " Enough has been said to prove that Cellini was not inferior to the averagemorality of the Renaissance, and that we are justified in accepting hislife as a valuable historical document. [346] To give a detailed account ofa book pronounced by Horace Walpole "more amusing than any novel, "received by Parini and Tiraboschi as the most delightful masterpiece ofItalian prose, translated into German by Goethe, and placed upon his indexof select works by Auguste Comte, may seem superfluous. Yet I cannotafford to omit from my plan the most singular and characteristic episodein the private history of the Italian Renaissance. I need it for theconcrete illustration of much that has been said in this and the precedingvolumes of my work. Cellini was born of respectable parents at Florence on the night of AllSaints' Day in 1500, and was called Benvenuto to record his father's joyat having a son. [347] It was the wish of Giovanni Cellini's heart that hisson should be a musician. Benvenuto in consequence practised the flute formany years attentively, though much against his will. At the age offifteen so great was his desire to learn the arts of design that hisfather placed him under the care of the goldsmith Marcone. At the sametime he tells us in his memoirs: "I continued to play sometimes throughcomplaisance to my father either upon the flute or the horn; and Iconstantly drew tears and deep sighs from him every time he heard me. "While engaged in the workshop of Marcone, Benvenuto came to blows withsome young men who had attacked his brother, and was obliged to leaveFlorence for a time. At this period he visited Siena, Bologna, and Pisa, gaming his livelihood by working in the shops of goldsmiths, and steadilyadvancing in his art. It must not be thought that this education was a mean one for so great anartist. Painting and sculpture in Italy were regarded as trades, and theartist had his _bottega_ just as much as the cobbler or theblacksmith. [348] I have already had occasion to point out that anapprenticeship to goldsmith's work was considered at Florence an almostindispensable commencement of advanced art-study. [349] Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Orcagna, Verocchio, Ghiberti, Pollajuolo, Ghirlandajo, Lucadella Robbia, all underwent this training before they applied themselvesto architecture, painting, and sculpture. As the goldsmith's craft wasunderstood in Florence, it exacted the most exquisite nicety inperformance as well as design. It forced the student to familiarisehimself with the materials, instruments, and technical processes of art;so that, later on in life, he was not tempted to leave the execution ofhis work to journeymen and hirelings. [350] No labour seemed too minute, nometal was too mean, for the exercise of the master-workman's skill; nordid he run the risk of becoming one of those half-amateurs in whomaccomplishment falls short of first conception. Art ennobled for him allthat he was called to do. Whether cardinals required him to fashion silvervases for their banquet-tables; or ladies wished the setting of theirjewels altered; or a pope wanted the enamelled binding of a book ofprayers; or men-at-arms sent swordblades to be damascened with acanthusfoliage; or kings desired fountains and statues for their palace courts;or poets begged to have their portraits cast in bronze; or generals neededmedals to commemorate their victories, or dukes new coins for their mint;or bishops ordered reliquaries for the altars of their patron saints; ormerchants sought for seals and signet rings engraved with their device; ormen of fashion asked for medallions of Leda and Adonis to fasten in theircaps--all these commissions could be undertaken by a workman like Cellini. He was prepared for all alike by his apprenticeship to _orfevria_; and toall he gave the same amount of conscientious toil. The consequence wasthat, at the time of the Renaissance, furniture, plate, jewels, andarticles of personal adornment were objects of true art. The mind of thecraftsman was exercised afresh in every piece of work. Pretty things werenot bought, machine-made, by the gross in a warehouse; nor was itcustomary, as now it is, to see the same design repeated with mechanicalregularity in every house. In 1518 Benvenuto returned to Florence and began to study the cartoons ofMichael Angelo. He must have already acquired considerable reputation as aworkman, for about this time Torrigiani invited him to go to England inhis company and enter the service of Henry VIII. The Renaissance was nowbeginning to penetrate the nations of the North, and Henry and Francisvied with each other in trying to attract foreign artists to theircapitals. It does not, however, appear that the English king secured theservices of men so distinguished as Lionardo da Vinci, II Rosso, Primaticcio, Del Sarto, and Cellini, who shed an artificial lustre on theCourt of France. Going to London then was worse than going to Russia now, and to take up a lengthy residence among _questi diavoli . .. Quelle bestiedi quegli Inglesi_, as Cellini politely calls the English, did not suit aSouthern taste. He had, moreover, private reasons for dislikingTorrigiani, who boasted of having broken Michael Angelo's nose in aquarrel. "His words, " says Cellini, "raised in me such a hatred of thefellow that, far from wishing to accompany him to England, I could notbear to look at him. " It may be mentioned that one of Cellini's bestpoints was hero-worship for Michael Angelo. He never speaks of him exceptas _quel divino Michel Agnolo, il mio maestro_, and extols _la bellamaniera_ of the mighty sculptor to the skies. Torrigiani, as far as we cangather from Cellini's description of him, must have been a man of his ownkidney and complexion: "he was handsome, of consummate assurance, havingrather the airs of a bravo than a sculptor; above all, his fierce gesturesand his sonorous voice, with a peculiar manner of knitting his brows, wereenough to frighten everyone that saw him; and he was continually talkingof his valiant feats among those bears of Englishmen. " The story ofTorrigiani's death in Spain is worth repeating. A grandee employed him tomodel a Madonna, which he did with more than usual care, expecting a greatreward. His pay, however, falling short of is expectation, in a fit offury he knocked his statue to pieces. For this act of sacrilege, as it wasdeemed, to the work of his own brain and hand, Torrigiani was thrown intothe dungeons of the Inquisition. There he starved himself to death in 1522in order to escape the fate of being burned. This story helps to explainwhy the fine arts were never well developed in Spain, and why theylanguished after the introduction of the Holy Office into Italy. [351] Instead of emigrating to England, Benvenuto, after a quarrel with hisfather about the obnoxious flute-playing, sauntered out one morning towardthe gate of S. Piero Gattolini. There he met a friend called Tasso, whohad also quarrelled with his parents; and the two youths agreed, upon themoment, to set off for Rome. Both were nineteen years of age. Singing andlaughing, carrying their bundle by turns, and wondering "what the oldfolks would say, " they trudged on foot to Siena, there hired a returnhorse between them, and so came to Rome. This residence in Rome onlylasted two years, which were spent by Cellini in the employment of variousmasters. At the expiration of that time he returned to Florence, anddistinguished himself by the making of a marriage girdle for a certainRaffaello Lapaccini. [352] The fame of this and other pieces of jewelleryroused against him the envy and malice of the elder goldsmiths, and led toa serious fray, in the course of which he assaulted a young man of theGuasconti family, and was obliged to fly disguised like a monk to Rome. As this is the first of Cellini's homicidal quarrels, it is worth while totranscribe what he says about it. "One day as I was leaning against theshop of these Guasconti, and talking with them, they contrived that a loadof bricks should pass by at the moment, and Gherardo Guasconti pushed itagainst me in such wise that it hurt me. Turning suddenly and seeing thathe was laughing, I struck him so hard upon the temple that he fell downstunned. Then turning to his cousins, I said, That is how I treat cowardlythieves like you; and when they began to show fight, being many together, I, finding myself on flame, set hand to a little knife I had, and cried, If one of you leaves the shop, let another run for the confessor, for asurgeon won't find anything to do here. " Nor was he contented with thistruculent behaviour; for when Gherardo recovered from his blow, and thematter had come before the magistrates, Cellini went to seek him in hisown house. There he stabbed him in the midst of all his family, ragingmeanwhile, to use his own phrase, "like an infuriated bull. "[353] Itappears that on this occasion no one was seriously hurt; but the affairproved perilous to Cellini, since it was a mere accident that he had notkilled more than one of the Guasconti. These affrays recur continuallyamong the adventures recorded by Cellini in his Life. He says with comicalreservation of phrase that he was "naturally somewhat choleric;" and then, describes the access of his fury as a sort of fever, lasting for days, preventing him from taking food or sleep, making his blood boil in hisveins, inflaming his eyes, and never suffering him to rest till herevenged himself by murder or at least by blows. To enumerate all thepeople he killed or wounded, or pounded to a jelly in public brawls orprivate quarrels, in the pursuit of deliberate _vendetta_ or under asudden impulse of ungovernable rage, would take too long. We are forced byan effort to recall to mind the state of society at that time in Italy, inorder to understand how it is that he can talk with unconcern and evenself-complacency about his homicides. He makes himself accuser, judge, andexecutioner, and is quite satisfied with the goodness of his cause, thejustice of his sentence, and the equity of his administration. In a sonnetwritten to Bandinelli, he compares his own victims with the mangledstatues of that sculptor, much to his own satisfaction. [354] There is the same callousness of conscience in his record of spiteful actsthat we should blush to think of--stabs in the dark, and such a piece ofrevenge as cutting the beds to bits in the house of an innkeeper who hadoffended him. [355] Nor does he speak with any shame of the savage crueltywith which he punished a woman who was sitting to him as a model, and whomhe hauled up and down his room by the hair of her head, kicking andbeating her till he was tired. [356] It is true that on this occasion heregrets having spoiled, in a moment of blind passion, the best arms andlegs that he could find to draw from. Such episodes, to which it isimpossible to allude otherwise than very briefly, illustrate withextraordinary vividness what I have already had occasion to say about theItalian sense of honour at this period. [357] The consciousness of physical courage and the belief in his own moralsuperiority sustained Cellini in all his dangers and in all his crimes. Armed with his sword and dagger, and protected by his coat of mail, he wasready to stand against the world and fight his way towards any object hedesired. When a man opposed his schemes or entered into competition withhim as an artist, he swaggered up with hand on hilt and threatened to runhim through the body if he did not mind his business. At the same time heattributes the success of his own violence in quelling and maltreatinghis opponents to the providence of God. "I do not write this narrative, "he says, "from a motive of vanity, but merely to return thanks to God, whohas extricated me out of so many trials and difficulties; who likewisedelivers me from those that daily impend over me. Upon all occasions I paymy devotions to Him, call upon Him as my defender, and recommend myself toHis care. I always exert my utmost efforts to extricate myself, but when Iam quite at a loss, and all my powers fail me, then the force of the Deitydisplays itself--that formidable force which, unexpectedly, strikes thosewho wrong and oppress others, and neglect the great and honourable dutywhich God has enjoined on them. " I shall have occasion later on to discussCellini's religious opinions; but here it may be remarked that the feelingof this passage is thoroughly sincere and consistent with the spirit ofthe times. The separation between religion and morality was complete inItaly. [358] Men made their own God and worshipped him; and the God ofCellini was one who always helped those who began to help themselves bytaking justice into their own hands. From the date of his second visit to Rome in 1523, Cellini's life dividesitself into three periods, the first spent in the service of Popes ClementVII. And Paul III. , the second in Paris at the Court of Francis, and thethird at Florence under Cosimo de' Medici. On arriving in Rome, his extraordinary abilities soon brought him intonotice at the Court. The Chigi family, the Bishop of Salamanca, and thePope himself employed him to make various jewels, ornaments, and servicesof plate. In consequence of a dream in which his father appeared andwarned him not to neglect music, under pain of the paternal malediction, he accepted a post in the Papal band. The old bugbear of flute-playingfollowed him until his father's death, and then we hear no more of it. Thehistory of this portion of his life is among the most entertainingpassages of his biography. Drawing the Roman ruins, shooting pigeons, scouring the Campagna on a pony like a shaggy bear, fighting duels, prosecuting love-affairs, defending his shop against robbers, skirmishingwith Moorish pirates on the shore by Cerveterra, stabbing, falling ill ofthe plague and the French sickness--these adventures diversify the accounthe gives of masterpieces in gold and silver ware. The literary andartistic society of Rome at this period was very brilliant. Painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths mixed with scholars and poets, passing theirtime alternately in the palaces of dukes and cardinals and in the lodgingsof gay women. Bohemianism of the wildest type was combined with themanners of the great world. A little incident described at some length byCellini brings this varied life before us. There was a club of artists, including Giulio Romano and other pupils of Raphael, who met twice a weekto sup together and to spend the evening in conversation, with music andthe recitation of sonnets. Each member of this company brought with him alady. Cellini, on one occasion, not being provided for the moment with an_innamorata_, dressed up a beautiful Spanish youth called Diego as awoman, and took him to the supper. The ensuing scene is described in themost vivid manner. We see before us the band of painters and poets, thewomen in their bright costumes, the table adorned with flowers and fruit, and, as a background to the whole picture, a trellis of jasmines with darkfoliage and starry blossoms. Diego, called Pomona, with regard doubtlessto his dark and ruddy beauty, is unanimously proclaimed the fairest of thefair. Then a discovery of his sex is made; and the adventure leads, asusual in the doings of Cellini, to daggers, midnight ambushes, andvendettas that only end with bloodshed. An episode of this sort may serve as the occasion for observing that theartists of the late Renaissance had become absorbed in the admiration ofmerely carnal beauty. With the exception of Michael Angelo and Tintoretto, there was no great master left who still pursued an intellectual ideal. The Romans and the Venetians simply sought and painted what was splendidand luxurious in the world around them. Their taste was contented withwell-developed muscles, gorgeous colour, youthful bloom, activity of limb, and grace of outline. The habits of the day, voluptuous yet hardy, fostered this one-sided development of the arts; while the asceticism ofthe Middle Ages had yielded to a pagan cult of sensuality. To draw _un belcorpo ignudo_ with freedom was now the _ne plus ultra_ of achievement. Howto express thought or to indicate the subtleties of emotion, had ceased tobe the artist's aim. We have already noticed the passionate love of beautywhich animated the great masters of the golden age. This, in the lesselevated natures of the craftsmen who succeeded them, and under theconditions of advancing national corruption, was no longer refined orrestrained by delicacy of feeling or by loftiness of aim. It degeneratedinto soulless animalism. The capacity for perceiving and for reproducingwhat is nobly beautiful was lost. Vulgarity and coarseness stampedthemselves upon the finest work of men like Giulio Romano. At this crisisit was proved how inferior was the neo-paganism of the sixteenth centuryto the paganism of antiquity it aped. Mythology preserved Greek art fromdegradation, and connected a similar enthusiasm for corporeal beauty withthe thoughts and aspirations of the Hellenic race. The Italians lackedthis safeguard of a natural religion. To throw the Christian ideal aside, and to strive to grasp the classical ideal in exchange, was easy. Butpaganism alone could give them nothing but its vices; it was incapable ofcommunicating its real source of life--its poetry, its faith, its cult ofnature. Art, therefore, as soon as the artists pronounced themselves forsensuality, merged in a skilful selection and reproduction of elegantforms, and nothing more. A handsome youth upon a pedestal was called agod. A duke's mistress on Titian's canvas passed for Aphrodite. Andrea delSarto's faithless wife figured as Madonna. Cellini himself, thoughsensitive to every kind of physical beauty--as we gather from what hetells us of Cencio, Diego, Faustina, Paolino, Angelica, Ascanio--has notattempted to animate his "Perseus, " or his "Ganymede, " or his "Diana ofFontainebleau, " with a vestige of intellectual or moral loveliness. Thevacancy of their expression proves the degradation of an art that hadceased to idealise anything beyond a faultless body. Not thus did theGreeks imagine even their most sensual divinities. There is at least athought in Faun and Satyr. Cellini's statues have no thought; their blankanimalism corresponds to the condition of their maker's soul. [359] When Rome was carried by assault in 1527, and the Papal Court was besiegedin the castle of S. Angelo, Cellini played the part of bombardier. It iswell known that he claims to have shot the Constable of Bourbon dead withhis own hand, and to have wounded the Prince of Orange; nor does thereseem to be any adequate reason for discrediting his narrative. It iscertain that he was an expert marksman, and that he did Clement goodservice by directing the artillery of S. Angelo. If we believed all hisassertions, however, we should have to suppose that nothing memorablehappened without his intervention. In his own eyes his whole life was amiracle. The very hailstones that fell upon his head could not be graspedin both hands. His guns and powder brought down birds no other marksmanhad a chance of hitting. When he was a child, he grasped a scorpionwithout injury, and saw a salamander "living and enjoying himself in thehottest flames. " After his fever at Rome in 1535, he threw off from hisstomach a hideous worm--hairy, speckled with green, black, and red--thelike whereof the doctors never saw. [360] When he finally escaped from thedungeons of S. Angelo in 1539, a luminous appearance like an aureolesettled on his head, and stayed there for the rest of his life. [361] Thesefacts are related in the true spirit of Jerome Cardan, Paracelsus, LordHerbert of Cherbury, and Sir Thomas Browne. Cellini doubtless believed inthem; but they warn us to be cautious in accepting what he says about hisexploits, since imagination and self-conceit could so far distort hisjudgment. It may be regretted that Cellini has not given a fuller account of thememorable sack of Borne. Yet, confining himself almost wholly to his ownadventures, he presents a very vivid picture of the sad life led by thePope and cardinals, vainly hoping for succour from Urbino, wranglingtogether about the causes of the tragedy, sewing the crown jewels intotheir doublets, and running the perils of the siege with common soldierson the ramparts. When peace at last was signed, Cellini paid a visit toFlorence, and found that his father and some other relatives had died ofplague. [362] His brother Cecchino, however, who was a soldier in the BandeNere of Giovanni de' Medici, and his sister Liperata survived. With themhe spent a pleasant evening; for Liperata having "for a while lamented herfather, her sister, her husband, and a little son that she had beendeprived of, went to prepare supper, and during the rest of the eveningthere was not a word more spoken of the dead, but much about weddings. Thus we supped together with the greatest cheerfulness and satisfactionimaginable. " In these sentences there is no avowal of hard-heartedness;only the careless familiarity with loss and danger, engendered by war, famine, plague, and personal adventures in those riotous times. [363]Cellini gladly risked his life in a quarrel for his friends; but he wouldnot sadden the present by reflecting on inevitable accidents. This elastictemper permeates his character. His affections were strong, but transient. The one serious love-affair he describes, among a multitude of meredebaucheries, made him miserable for a few days. His mistress, Angelica, ran away, and left him "on the point of losing his senses or dying ofgrief. " Yet, when he found her again, a short time sufficed to satisfy hislonging, and he turned his back with jibes upon her when she bargainedabout money. It is worthy of notice that, at the same time, he was an excellent son andbrother. His sister was left a widow with two children; whereupon he tookthem all into his house, without bragging about what appears to have beenthe best action of his life. In the same spirit he conscientiouslyperformed what he conceived to be his duty to Cecchino, murdered by amusketeer in Rome. After nursing his revenge till he was nearly mad, hestole out one evening and stabbed the murderer in the back. [364] Soviolent was the blow that he could not extricate his dagger from the man'sspine, but had to leave it sticking in his nape. Next to his own egotismthe strongest feelings in Cellini were domestic; and he showed them at onemoment by charity to his sister's family, at another by a savageassassination. After killing the musketeer, Cellini retired for refuge to the house ofAlessandro de' Medici, Duke of Cività di Penna, who had been his brother'spatron. The matter reached the Pope's ears, for whom Benvenuto was at workupon crown jewels. Clement sent for him, and simply said: "Now you haverecovered your health, Benvenuto, take care of yourself. " This shows howlittle they thought of homicide in Rome. After killing a man, somepowerful protector had to be sought, who was usually a cardinal, since thecardinals had right of sanctuary in their palaces. There the assassin layin hiding, in order to avoid his victim's friends and relatives, untilsuch time as a pardon and safe-conduct and absolution had been obtainedfrom his Holiness. When Cellini, soon after this occurrence, stabbed aprivate enemy, by name Pompeo, two cardinals were anxious to screen himfrom pursuit, and disputed the privilege of harbouring so talented acriminal. [365] The Pope, with marvellous good-humour, observed: "I havenever heard of the death of Pompeo, but often of Benvenuto's provocation;so let a safe-conduct be instantly made out, and that will secure him fromall manner of danger. " A friend of Pompeo's who was present, ventured toinsinuate that this was dangerous policy. The Pope put him down at once bysaying, "You do not understand these matters; I would have you know thatmen who are unique in their profession, like Benvenuto, are not subject tothe laws. " Whether Paul really said these words, may be doubted; but it isclear that much was conceded to a clever workman, and that the laws were amere _brutum fulmen_. No man of spirit appealed to them. Cellini, forexample, was poisoned by a parish priest near Florence:[366] yet he neverbrought the man to justice; and in the case of his own murders, he onlydreaded the retaliation of his victims' kinsmen. On one occasion, indeed, the civil arm came down upon him; when the city guard attempted to arresthim for Pompeo's assassination. He beat them off with swords and sticks;and, after all, it appeared that they were only acting at the instigationof Pier Luigi Farnese, whom Benvenuto had offended. During his residence at Rome, Cellini witnessed an incantation conductedin the Colosseum by a Sicilian priest and necromancer. The conjurer andthe artist, accompanied by two friends, and by a boy, who was to act asmedium, went by night to the amphitheatre. The magic circle was drawn;fires were lighted, and perfumes scattered on the flames. Then thespirit-seer began his charms, calling in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, or whatpassed for such, upon the leaders of the hosts of hell. The whole hollowspace now filled with phantoms, surging up by legions, rushing down fromthe galleries, issuing from subterranean caverns, and wheeling to and frowith signs of fury. All the party, says Cellini, were thrown intoconsternation, except himself, who, though terribly afraid, kept up thefainting spirits of the rest. At last the conjurer summoned courage toinquire when Cellini might hope to be restored to his lost love, Angelica;--for this was the trivial object of the incantation. The demonsanswered (how we are not told) that he would meet her ere a month hadpassed away. This prophecy, as it happened, was fulfilled. Then theyredoubled their attacks; the necromancer kept crying out that the perilwas most imminent, until the matin bells of Rome swung through thedarkness, freeing them at last from fear. As they walked home, the boy, holding the Sicilian by his robe and Benvenuto by his mantle, told themthat he still saw giants leaping with fantastic gestures on their path, now running along the house roofs, and now dancing on the earth. Each oneof them that night dreamed in his bed of devils. [367] The interest of this incident is almost wholly picturesque. It throws butlittle light upon the superstitions of the age. [368] The magnitude of theColosseum, the popular legends concerning its magical origin, and theterrible uses of blood to which it had been put, invested this buildingwith peculiar mystery. Robbers haunted the huge caves. Rubbish and weedschoked the passages. Sickly trees soared up from darkness into light amongthe porches, and the moon peered through the empty vomitories. If we callimagination to our aid, and place the necromancers and their brazier inthe centre of this space;--if we fancy the priest's chaunted spells, thesacred names invoked in his unholy rites, the shuddering terror of theconscience-stricken accomplices, and Cellini with defiant mien butquailing heart, we can well believe that he saw more than the amphitheatrecontained. Whether the spectres were projected by the conjurer from amagic lantern on the smoke that issued from his heaps of blazing wood, sothat the volumes of vapour, agitated by the wind and rolling in thickspirals, showed them retreating and advancing, and varying in shape andnumber, is a matter for conjecture. Cellini firmly believed that he hadbeen environed by living squadrons of the spirits of the damned. The next four years were spent by Cellini chiefly in Rome, in peril of hislife at several seasons, owing to the animosity of Pier Luigi Farnese. Onejourney he took at this period to Venice, passing through Ferrara, wherehe came to blows with the Florentine exiles. It is interesting to find therespectable historian Jacopo Nardi involved, if only as a peacemaker, inthis affray. [369] He also visited Florence and cast dies for Alessandro'ssilver coinage. It was here that he found opportunities of observing theperilous intimacy between the Duke of Cività di Penna and hiscousin--_quel pazzo malinconico filosofo di Lorenzino. _[370] In April1537, having quarrelled with the Pope, who seems to have adopted PierLuigi's prejudice against him, Cellini set out for France with two of hisworkmen. They passed through Florence, Bologna, Venice, and Padua, stayingin the last place to model a medallion portrait of Pietro Bembo;[371] thenthey crossed the Grisons by the Bernina and Albula passes. We hear nothingabout this part of the journey, except that the snow was heavy, and thatthey ran great danger of their lives. Cellini must have traversed some ofthe most romantic scenery of Switzerland at the best season of the year;yet not a word escapes him about the beauty of the Alps or the wonder ofthe glaciers, which he saw for the first time. The pleasure we derive fromcontemplating savage scenery was unknown to the Italians of the sixteenthcentury; the height and cold, the gloom and solitude of mountains struckthem with a sense of terror or of dreariness. On the Lake of WallenstadtCellini met with a party of Germans, whom he hated as cordially as anAthenian of the age of Pericles might have loathed the Scythians for theirbarbarism. [372] The Italians embarked in one boat, the Germans inanother; Cellini being under the impression that the Northern lakes wouldnot be so likely to drown him as those of his own country. However, when astorm swept down the hills, he took a terrible fright, and compelled theboatmen at the point of the poniard to put him and his company ashore. Thedescription of their struggles to drag their heavily laden horses over theuneven ground near Wesen, is extremely graphic, and gives a good notion ofthe dangers of the road in those days. [373] That night they "heard thewatch sing at all hours very agreeably; and as the houses of that townwere all of wood, he kept bidding them to take care of their fires. " Nextday they arrived, not without other accidents, at Zurich, "a marvellouscity, as clear and polished as a jewel. " Thence by Solothurn, Lausanne, Geneva, and Lyons, they made their way to Paris. This long and troublesome journey led to nothing, for Cellini grew wearyof following the French Court about from place to place; his health toofailed him, and he decided that he would rather die in Italy thanFrance. [374] Accordingly he returned to Rome, and there, not long afterhis arrival, he was arrested by the order of Pope Paul III. [375] Thecharge against him, preferred by one of his own prentices, was this. During the siege of Rome, he had been employed by Clement to melt down thetiaras and papal ornaments, in order that the precious stones might beconveyed away in secrecy. He did so; and afterwards confessed to havingkept a portion of the gold filings found in the cinders of his brazierduring the operation. For this crime Clement gave him absolution. [376]Now, however, he was accused of having stolen gold and jewels to theamount of nearly eighty thousand ducats. "The avarice of the Pope, butmore that of his bastard, then called Duke of Castro, " inclined Paul tobelieve this charge; and Pier Luigi was allowed to farm the case. Celliniwas examined by the Governor of Rome and two assessors; in spite of hisvehement protestations of innocence, the absence of any evidence againsthim, and the sound arguments adduced in his defence, he was committed tothe castle of S. Angelo. When he received his sentence, he called heavenand earth to witness, thanking God that he had "the happiness not to beconfined for some error of his sinful nature, as generally happens toyoung men. " Whereupon "the brute of a Governor replied, Yet you havekilled enough men in your time. " This remark was pertinent; but itprovoked a torrent of abuse and a long enumeration of his services fromthe virtuous Cellini. The account of this imprisonment, and especially of the hypochondriacalGovernor who thought he was a bat and used to flap his arms and squeakwhen night was coming on, is highly entertaining. [377] Not lessinteresting is the description of Cellini's daring escape from the castle. In climbing over the last wall, he fell and broke his leg, and was carriedby a waterman to the palace of the Cardinal Cornaro. There he lay inhiding, visited by all the rank and fashion of Rome, who were not a littlecurious to see the hero of so perilous an escapade. Cornaro promised tosecure his pardon, but eventually exchanged him for a bishopric. Thisremarkable proceeding illustrates the manners of the Papal Court. Thecardinal wanted a benefice for one of his followers, and the Pope wishedto get his son's enemy once more into his power. So the two ecclesiasticsbargained together, and by mutual kind offices attained their severalends. Cellini with his broken leg went back to languish in his prison. He foundthe flighty Governor furious because he had "flown away, " eluding hisbat's eyes and wings. The rigour used towards him made him dread the worstextremities. Cast into a condemned cell, he first expected to be flayedalive; and when this terror was removed, he perceived the crystals of apounded jewel in his food. According to his own account of this mysteriouscircumstance, Messer Durante Duranti of Brescia, one of Cellini's numerousenemies, had given a diamond of small value to be broken up and mixed witha salad served to him at dinner. The jeweller to whom this charge wasentrusted, kept the diamond and substituted a beryl, thinking that theinferior stone would have the same murderous properties. To the avarice ofthis man Cellini attributed his escape from a lingering death byinflammation of the mucous membrane. [378] During his first imprisonment he had occupied a fair chamber in the upperturret of the castle. He was now removed to a dungeon below ground whereFra Fojano, the reformer, had been starved to death. The floor was wet andinfested with crawling creatures. A few reflected sunbeams slanting from anarrow window for two hours of the afternoon, was all the light thatreached him. Here he lay, alone, unable to move because of his broken leg, with his hair and teeth falling away, and with nothing to occupy him but aBible and a volume of Villani's "Chronicles. " His spirit, however, wasindomitable; and the passionate energy of the man, hitherto manifested inungoverned acts of fury, took the form of ecstasy. He began the study ofthe Bible from the first chapter of Genesis, and trusting firmly to therighteousness of his own cause, compared himself to all the saints andmartyrs of Scripture, men of whom the world was not worthy. He sangpsalms, prayed continually, and composed a poem in praise of his prison. With a piece of charcoal he made a great drawing of angels surrounding Godthe Father on the wall. Once only his courage gave way: he determined onsuicide, and so placed a beam that it should fall on him like a trap. Whenall was ready, an unseen hand took violent hold of him, and dashed him onthe ground at a considerable distance. From this moment his dungeon wasvisited by angels, who healed his broken leg, and reasoned with him ofreligion. The mention of these visions reminds us that Cellini had become acquaintedwith Savonarola's writings during his first imprisonment. [379] Impressedwith the grandeur of the prophet's dreams, and exalted by the reading ofthe Bible, he no doubt mistook his delirious fancies for angelic visitors, and in the fervour of his enthusiasm laid claim to inspiration. One ofthese hallucinations is particularly striking. He had prayed that he mightsee the sun at least in trance, if it were impossible that he should lookon it again with waking eyes. But, while awake and in possession of hissenses, he was hurried suddenly away and carried to a room, where theinvisible power sustaining him appeared in human shape, "like a youthwhose beard is but just growing, with a face most marvellous, fair, but ofaustere and far from wanton beauty. " In that room were all the men who hadever lived and died on earth; and thence they two went together, and cameinto a narrow street, one side whereof was bright with sunlight. ThenCellini asked the angel how he might behold the sun; and the angel pointedto certain steps upon the side of a house. Up these Cellini climbed, andcame into the full blaze of the sun, and, though dazzled by itsbrightness, he gazed steadfastly and took his fill. While he looked, therays fell away upon the left side and the disk shone like a bath of moltengold. This surface swelled, and from the glory came the figure of aChrist upon the cross, which moved and stood beside the rays. Again thesurface swelled, and from the glory came the figure of Madonna and herChild; and at the right hand of the sun there knelt S. Peter in hissacerdotal robes, pleading Cellini's cause; and "full of shame that suchfoul wrong should be done to Christians in his house. " This visionmarvellously strengthened Cellini's soul, and he began to hope withconfidence for liberty. When free again, he modelled the figures he hadseen in gold. The religious phase in Cellini's history requires some special comment, since it is precisely at this point that he most faithfully personifiesthe spirit of his age and nation. That he was a devout Catholic there isno question. He made two pilgrimages to Loreto, and another to S. Francisof Vernia. To S. Lucy he dedicated a golden eye after his recovery from anillness. He was, moreover, always anxious to get absolution from the Pope. More than this; he continually sustained himself at the great crises ofhis life, when in peril of imprisonment, while defending himself againstassassins, and again on the eve of casting his "Perseus, " by direct andpassionate appeals to God. Yet his religion had but little effect upon hislife; and he often used it as a source of moral strength in doing deedsrepugnant to real piety. Like love, he put it off and on quite easily, reverting to it when he found himself in danger or bad spirits, andforgetting it again when he was prosperous. Thus in the dungeon of S. Angelo he vowed to visit the Holy Sepulchre if God would grant him tobehold the sun. This vow he forgot until he met with disappointment at theCourt of Francis, and then he suddenly determined to travel to Jerusalem. The offer of a salary of seven hundred crowns restored his spirits, and hethought no more about his vow. While he loved his life so dearly and indulged so freely in the pleasuresof this earth, he made a virtue of necessity as soon as death approached, crying, "The sooner I am delivered from the prison of this world, thebetter; especially as I am sure of salvation, being unjustly put todeath. " His good opinion of himself extended to the certainty he felt ofheaven. Forgetting his murders and debaucheries, he sustained his couragewith devotion when all other sources failed. As to the divine governmentof the world, he halted between two opinions. Whether the stars orProvidence had the upper hand, he could not clearly say; but by the starshe understood a power antagonistic to his will, by Providence a force thathelped him to do what he liked. There is a similar confusion in his mindabout the Pope. He goes to Clement submissively for absolution fromhomicide and theft, saying, "I am at the feet of your Holiness, who havethe full power of absolving, and I request you to give me permission toconfess and communicate, that I may with your favour be restored to thedivine grace. " He also tells Paul that the sight of Christ's vicar, inwhom there is an awful representation of the divine Majesty, makes himtremble. Yet at another time he speaks of Clement being "transformed to asavage beast, " and talks of him as "that poor man Pope Clement. "[380] OfPaul he says that he "believed neither in God nor in any other article ofreligion;" he sincerely regrets not having killed him by accident duringthe siege of Rome, abuses him for his avarice, casts his bastards in histeeth, and relates with relish the crime of forgery for which in his youthhe was imprisoned in the castle of S. Angelo. [381] Indeed, the Italianstreated the Pope as negroes treat their fetishes. If they had cause todislike him, they beat and heaped insults on him--like the Florentines whodescribed Sixtus IV. As "leno matris suae, adulterorum minister, diabolivicarius, " and his spiritual offspring as "simonia, luxus, homicidium, proditio, haeresis. " On the other hand, they really thought that he couldopen heaven and shut the gates of hell. At the end of the year 1539, the Cardinal Ippolito d'Este appeared in Romewith solicitations from Francis I. That the Pope would release Cellini andallow him to enter his service. [382] Upon this the prison door was opened. Cellini returned to his old restless life of violence and pleasure. Wefind him renewing his favourite pastimes--killing, wantoning, disputingwith his employers, and working diligently at his trade. The temporarysaint and visionary becomes once more the bravo and the artist. A morecomplete parallel to the consequences of revivalism in Italy could not befound. [383] Meanwhile the first period of his history is closed and thesecond begins. Cellini's account of his residence in France has much historical interestbesides the charm of its romance. When he first joined the Court, he foundFrancis travelling from city to city with a retinue of eighteen thousandpersons and twelve thousand horses. Frequently they came to places whereno accommodation could be had, and the suite were lodged in wretchedtents. It is not wonderful that Cellini should complain of the Frenchbeing less civilised than the Italians of his time. Francis among hisladies and courtiers, pretending to a knowledge of the arts, saunteringwith his splendid train into the goldsmith's workshop, encouragingCellini's violence with a boyish love of mischief, vain and flattered, peevish, petulant, and fond of show, appears upon these pages with alife-like vividness. [384] When the time came for settling in Paris, theKing presented his goldsmith with a castle called Le Petit Nesle, and madehim lord thereof by letters of naturalisation. This house stood where theInstitute has since been built; of its extent we may judge from the numberof occupations carried on within its precincts when Cellini entered intopossession. He found there a tennis-court, a distillery, a printing press, and a factory of saltpetre, besides residents engaged in other trades. Cellini's claims were resisted. Probably the occupiers did not relish theintrusion of a foreigner. So he stormed the place and installed himself byforce of arms. Similar violence was needed in order to maintain himself inpossession; but this Cellini loved, and had he been let alone, it isprobable he would have died of _ennui_. Difficulties of all kinds, due in part to his ungovernable temper, in partto his ill-regulated life, in part to his ignorance of French habits, gathered round him. He fell into disfavour with Madame d'Estampes, themistress of the King; and here it may be mentioned that many of histroubles arose from his inability to please noble women. [385] Proud, self-confident, overbearing, and unable to command his words or actions, Cellini was unfitted to pay court to princes. Then again he quarrelledwith his brother artists, and made the Bolognese painter, Primaticcio, hisenemy. After being attacked by assassins and robbers on more than oneoccasion, he was involved in two lawsuits. He draws a graphic picture ofthe French courts of justice, with their judge as grave as Plato, theiradvocates all chattering at once, their perjured Norman witnesses, and theushers at the doors vociferating _Paix, paix, Satan, allez, paix_. In thiscry Cellini recognised the gibberish at the beginning of the seventhcanto of Dante's "Inferno. " But the most picturesque group in the wholescene presented to us is that made by Cellini himself, armed and mailed, and attended by his prentices in armour, as they walked into the court tobrowbeat justice with the clamour of their voice. If we are to trust hisnarrative, he fought his way out of one most dangerous trial by simplevociferation. Afterwards he took the law, as usual, into his own hands. One pair of litigants were beaten; Caterina was nearly kicked to death;and the attorneys were threatened with the sword. In the midst of these disturbances, Cellini began some important works forFrancis. At Paris the King employed him to make huge silver candelabra, and at Fontainebleau to restore the castle gate. For the château ofFontainebleau Cellini executed the nymph in bronze, reclining amongtrophies of the chase, which may still be seen in the Louvre. It is along-limbed, lifeless figure, without meaning--a snuff-box ornamentenlarged to a gigantic size. Francis, who cannot have had good taste inart, if what Cellini makes him say be genuine, admired these designs abovethe bronze copies of the Vatican marbles he had recently received. Heseems to have felt some personal regard for Benvenuto, and to have doneall he could to retain him in his service. The animosity of Madamed'Estampes, and a grudge against his old patron, Ippolito d'Este, however, determined the restless craftsman to quit Paris. Leaving his castle, hisunfinished works, and other property behind him in the care of Ascanio, his friend and pupil, he returned alone to Italy. This step, taken in amoment of restless pique, was ever after regretted by Cellini, who lookedback with yearning from Florence to the generosity of Francis. Cosimo de' Medici was indeed a very different patron from Francis. Cautious, little-minded, meddling, with a true Florentine's love ofbargaining and playing cunning tricks, he pretended to protect the arts, but did not understand the part he had assumed. He was always short ofmoney, and surrounded by old avaricious servants, through whose hands hismeagre presents passed. As a connoisseur, he did not trust his ownjudgment, thus laying himself open to the intrigues of inferior artists. Henceforward a large part of Cellini's time was wasted in wrangling withthe Duke's steward, squabbling with Bandinelli and Ammanati, andendeavouring to overcome the coldness or to meet the vacillations of hispatron. Those who wish to gain insight into the life of an artist at Courtin the sixteenth century, will do well to study attentively the chaptersdevoted by Cellini to his difficulties with the Duchess, and his wordywarfares with Bandinelli. [386] This atmosphere of intrigue and animositywas not uncongenial to Benvenuto; and as far as words and blows went, healmost always got the best of it. Nothing, for example, could be keenerand more cutting than the very just criticism he made in Bandinelli'spresence of his "Hercules and Cacus. " "Quel bestial buaccio Bandinello, "as he delights to name him, could do nothing but retort with vulgar termsof insult. [387] The great achievement of this third period was the modelling and castingof the "Perseus. " No episode in Cellini's biography is narrated with moreforce than the climax to his long-protracted labours, when at last, amidthe chaos and confusion of innumerable accidents, the metal in his furnaceliquefied and filled the mould. After the statue was uncovered in theLoggia de' Lanzi, where it now stands, Cellini achieved a triumphadequate to his own highest expectations. Odes and sonnets in Italian, Greek, and Latin, were written in its praise. Pontormo and Bronzino, thepainters, loaded it with compliments. Cellini, ruffling with hand on hiltin silks and satins through the square, was pointed out to foreigners asthe great sculptor who had cast the admirable bronze. It was, in truth, noslight distinction for a Florentine artist to erect a statue beneath theLoggia de' Lanzi in the square of the Signory. Every great event inFlorentine history had taken place on that piazza. Every name ofdistinction among the citizens of Florence was connected with itsmonuments. To this day we may read the course of Florentine art bystudying its architecture and sculpture; and not the least of its manyornaments, in spite of all that may be said against it, is the "Perseus"of Cellini. Cellini completed the "Perseus" in 1554. His autobiography is carried downto the year 1562, when it abruptly terminates. It appears that in 1558 hereceived the tonsure and the first ecclesiastical orders; but two yearslater on he married a wife, and died at the age of sixty-nine, leavingthree legitimate children. He was buried honourably, and a funeral orationwas pronounced above his bier in the Chapter House of the Annunziata. As a man, Cellini excites more interest than as an artist; and for thisreason I have refrained from entering into minute criticism of his fewremaining masterpieces. It has been well said that the two extremes ofsociety, the statesman and the craftsman, find their point of meeting inMachiavelli and Cellini, inasmuch as both recognise no moral authority butthe individual will. [388] The _virtù_, extolled by Machiavelli isexemplified by Cellini. Machiavelli bids his prince ignore the laws;Cellini respects no tribunal and takes justice into his own hands. Theword conscience does not occur in Machiavelli's phraseology of ethics;conscience never makes a coward of Cellini, and in the dungeons of S. Angelo he is visited by no remorse. If we seek a literary parallel for thestatesman and the artist in their idealisation of force and personalcharacter, we find it in Pietro Aretino. In him, too, conscience isextinct; for him, also, there is no respect of King or Pope; he has placedhimself above law, and substituted his own will for justice. With his pen, as Cellini with his dagger, he assassinates; his cynicism serves him for acoat of armour. And so abject is society, so natural has tyranny become, that he extorts blackmail from monarchs, makes princes tremble, andreceives smooth answers to his insults from Buonarroti. These three men, Machiavelli, Cellini, and Aretino, each in his own line, and with theproper differences that pertain to philosophic genius, artistic skill, andribald ruffianism, sufficiently indicate the dissolution of the socialbond in Italy. They mark their age as the age of adventurers, bandits, bullies, Ishmaelites, and tyrants. FOOTNOTES: [345] "In lode e onor della vita sua e opere d'esso, e buona disposizionedella anima e del corpo. " _La Vita di Benvenuto Cellini_, Firenze, LeMonnier, 1852; _Documenti_, p. 578. [346] I do not by this mean to commit myself to the opinion that Celliniis accurate in details or truthful. On the contrary, it is impossible toread his life without feeling that his vanity and self-esteem led him toexaggeration and mis-statement. The value of the biography consists inits picturesqueness, its brilliant and faithful colouring, and itsunconscious self-revelation of an energetic character. [347] With regard to his pedigree Cellini tells a ridiculous story abouta certain Fiorino da Cellino, one of Julius Caesar's captains, who gavehis name to Florence. For the arms of the Cellini family, see lib. I. Cap. 50. [348] To enlarge upon this point is hardly necessary; or it would be easyto prove from documentary evidence that artists so eminent as SimoneMartini, Gentile da Fabriano, Perugino, and Ghirlandajo kept open shops, where customers could buy the products of their craft from ahighly-finished altar-piece down to a painted buckler or a sign to hangabove the street-door. The commercial status of fine art in Italy washighly beneficial to its advancement, inasmuch as it implied a thoroughtechnical apprenticeship for learners. The defective side of the systemwas apparent in great workshops like that of Raphael, who undertookpainting-commissions quite beyond his powers of conscientious execution. [349] See above, Chapter III, Orcagna's Tabernacle. [350] See lib. Ii. Cap. 5, for the description of Francis I. VisitingCellini in his work-room. He finds him hammering away at the metal, andsuggests that he might leave that labour to his prentices. Cellinireplies that the excellence of his work would suffer if he did not do ithimself. [351] See Yriarte, _Vie d'un Gentilhomme de Venise_, p. 439, for aprocess instituted by the Inquisition against Paolo Veronese. [352] He calls it "un chiavaquore di argento, il quale era in quei tempichiamato cosi. Questo si era una cintura di tre dita larga, che allespose novelle s' usava di fare. " [353] "Si come un toro invelenito. " [354] "Living men have felt my blows: those many maimed and mutilatedstones one sees, attest to your disgrace: the earth hides my bad work. "See the lines quoted by Perkins, _Tuscan Sculptors_, vol. Ii. P. 140. [355] Lib. I. Cap. 79. [356] Lib. Ii. Cap. 34. The whole history of this woman Caterina, and ofthe revenge he took upon her and his prentice Paolo, is one of the mostextraordinary passages in the life. [357] See Vol. 1. , _Age of the Despots_, pp. 377-380. [358] See Vol. 1. , _Age of the Despots_, pp. 362-363. [359] This might be further illustrated by analysing Cellini's mode ofloving. He never rises above animal appetite. [360] Lib. I. Cap. 85. "Nel qual vomito mi usci dello stomaco un vermepiloso, grande un quarto di braccio: e' peli erano grandi ed il verme erabruttissimo, macchiato di diversi colori, verdi, neri e rossi. " [361] Lib. I. Cap. 128. [362] Notice lib. I. Cap. 40, p. 90, the dialogue between Cellini and theold woman, on his return to the paternal house: "Oh dimmi, gobbaperversa, " &c. [363] "Per essere il mondo intenebrato di peste e di guerra, " is a phraseof Cellini's, i. 40. [364] Lib. I. Cap. 51. [365] Lib. I. Cap. 74. Clement was dead, and Paul III. Had just beenelected, 1534. Paul sent Cellini a safe-conduct and pardon for Pompeo'smurder to Florence in 1535. Lib. I. Cap. 81. [366] Lib. Ii. Cap. 104. [367] Lib. I. Cap. 64. [368] See, however, what is said about the mountain villages of Norciabeing good for incantations. That district in Roman times was famous forsuch superstitions. Burckhardt, _Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien_, pp. 427-428, gives curious information on this topic. [369] Lib. I. Cap. 76. [370] Lib. I. Cap. 88. "That mad melancholy philosopher Lorenzino. " Cf. I. 80 and 81. "Molte volte lo trovavo a dormicchiare dopo desinare conquel suo Lorenzino, che poi l'ammazzò, e non altri; ed io molto mimaravigliavo che un duca di quella sorte così si fidava . .. Il duca' chelo teneva quando per pazzericcio, e quando per poltrone. " Cf. Again, cap. 89. [371] This glimpse of Bembo in his Paduan villa is very pleasing. Lib. I. Cap. 94. [372] "Quei diavoli di quei gentiluomini tedeschi. " This is, however, thelanguage he uses about nearly all foreigners--Spaniards, French, andEnglish. [373] Lib. I. Cap. 96. "Io ero tutto armato di maglia con istivali grossie con uno scoppietto in mano, e pioveva quanto Iddio ne sapeva mandare, "&c. [374] Lib. I. Cap. 98. [375] _Ib. _ cap. 101. [376] See lib. I. Cap. 38, 43. [377] The Governor, perplexed by Cellini's vaunt that if he only tried hewas sure he could fly, put him under strict guard, saying, "Benvenuto èun pipistrello contrafatto, ed io sono un pipistrello da dovero. " [378] Lib. I. Cap. 125. [379] Lib. I. Cap. 105. [380] "Il Papa diventato così pessima bestia, " lib. I. 58; "Il Papaentrato in un bestial furore, " _ib_. 60; "Quel povero uomo di PapaClemente, " _ib_. 103. [381] _Ib_. 36, 101, 111. [382] The scene is well described, lib. I. 127. The Pope was wont to havea weekly debauch, and the cardinal chose this favourable moment for hisappeal: "Gli usava una volta la settimana di fare una crapula assaigagliarda, perchè da poi la gomitava. .. . Allora il papa, sentendosiappressare all' ora del suo vomito, e perchè la troppa abbundanzia delvino ancora faceva l' ufizio suo, disse, " &c. [383] See Vol. I. , _Age of the Despots_, p. 485. [384] See especially the visit to the Paris workshop, lib. Ii. Cap. 15, and the scene in the Gallery at Fontainebleau, ib. 41. [385] His quarrels, for example, with the Duchess of Florence. [386] Lib. Ii. Cap. 83, 84, 87, 70, 71. [387] "That beastly big ox, Bandinelli. " Cf. Cap. 70 for the critique. Itmay be said here, in passing, that the insult of Bandinelli, "Oh stacheto, soddomitaccio, " seems to have been justified by Benvenuto'sconduct, though of course he carefully conceals it in his memoirs. Afterthe charge brought against him by Cencio, for instance, he thought itbetter to leave Florence. --_Ib_. Cap. 61, 62. [388] Edgar Quinet, _Les Révolutions d'Italie_, p. 358. CHAPTER X THE EPIGONI Full Development and Decline of Painting--Exhaustion of the oldMotives--Relation of Lionardo to his Pupils--His Legacy to theLombard School--Bernardino Luini--Gaudenzio Ferrari--The Devotionof the Sacri Monti--The School of Raphael--Nothing left butImitation--Unwholesome Influences of Rome--Giulio Romano--MichaelAngelesque Mannerists--Misconception of Michael Angelo--Correggio foundsno School--Parmigianino--Macchinisti--The Bolognese--After-growth of Art inFlorence--Andrea del Sarto--His Followers--Pontormo--Bronzino--Revival ofPainting in Siena--Sodoma--His Influence on Pacchia, Beccafumi, Peruzzi--Garofalo and Dosso Dossi at Ferrari--The Campi atCremona--Brescia and Bergamo--The Decadence in the second half of theSixteenth Century--The Counter-Reformation--Extinction of the RenaissanceImpulse. In the foregoing chapters I have not sought to write again the history ofart, so much as to keep in view the relation between Italian art and theleading intellectual impulses of the Renaissance. In the masters of thesixteenth century--Lionardo, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Correggio, and theVenetians--the force inherent in the Italian genius for painting reachedfull development. What remained was but an after-bloom rapidly tending todecadence. To surpass those men in their own line seemed impossible. Whatthey had achieved was so transcendent that imitation satisfied theirsuccessors; and if they refused imitation, originality had to be sought bydeviating into extravagances. Meanwhile no new stock of thoughts had beenacquired; and students of history are now well aware that for reallygreat art ideas common to the nation are essential. The motives suggestedby mediaeval Christianity, after passing through successive stages oftreatment in the _quattrocento_, had received the grand and humanehandling of the golden age. The motives of revived paganism in like mannerwere exhausted, and at this time the feeling for antiquity had lost itsprimal freshness. It might seem superfluous to carry this inquiry further, when we have thus confessedly attained the culminating point of painting. Yet the sketch attempted in this volume would be incomplete and liable tomisinterpretation, if no account were taken of the legacy bequeathed tothe next generation by the great masters. Lionardo da Vinci formed, as we have seen, a school at Milan. It was thespecial good fortune of his pupils that what he actually accomplished, bore no proportion to the suggestiveness of his teaching and the fertilityof his invention. Of finished work he left but little to the world; whilehis sketches and designs, the teeming thoughts of his creative brain, werean inestimable heritage. The whole of this rich legacy of masterpieces, projected, but not executed, was characterised by a feeling for beautywhich has fallen to no other painter. When we examine the sketches in theRoyal Collection at Windsor, we perceive that the exceeding sense ofloveliness possessed by Lionardo could not have failed to animate hispupils with a high spirit of art. At the same time the extraordinaryvariety of his drawing--sometimes reminding us of German method, sometimesmodern in the manner of French and English draughtsmen--by turns bold anddelicate, broad and minute in detail--afforded to his school examples ofperfect treatment in a multiplicity of different styles. There was noformality of fixed unalterable precedent in Lionardo, nothing for hisscholars to repeat with the monotony of mannerism. It remained for his disciples, each in his own sphere, with inferiorpowers and feebler intellect, to perpetuate the genius of their master. Thus the spirit of Lionardo continued to live in Lombardy after he wasdead. There alone imitation was really fruitful, because it did not implymere copying. Instead of attempting to give a fresh and therefore astrained turn to motives that had already received consummate treatment, Lionardo's successors were able to execute what he had planned but had notcarried to completion. Nor was the prestige of his style so oppressivethrough the mass of pictures painted by his hand as to check individualityor to prevent the pupil from working out such portions of the master'svein as suited his own talent. Each found enough suggested, but not used, to give his special faculty free scope. This is in fact the reason why themajority of pictures ascribed to Lionardo are really the production of hisschool. They have the excellence of original work, but not such excellenceas Lionardo could have given them. Their completion is due, as searchingcriticism proves, to lesser men; but the conception belongs to thegreatest. Andrea Salaino, Marco d'Oggiono, Francesco Melzi, Giovanni AntonioBeltraffio, and Cesare da Sesto, are all of them skilled workmen, losingand finding their individuality, as just described, in the manner of theirmaster. Salaino brings exquisite delicacy of execution; d'Oggiono, wildand bizarre beauty; Melzi, the refinements of a miniaturist; Beltraffio, hard brilliancy of light and colour; Cesare da Sesto, somewhat ofeffeminate sweetness; and thus the qualities of many men emerge, to blendthemselves again in what is Lionardo's own. It is surely not withoutsignificance that this metempsychosis of genius should have happened inthe case of Lionardo, himself the magician of Renaissance art, the loverof all things double-natured and twin-souled. Two painters of the Lombard school, Bernardino Luini and GaudenzioFerrari, demand separate notice. Without Lionardo it is difficult to saywhat Luini would have been: so thoroughly did he appropriate his teacher'stype of face, and, in oil-painting, his refinement. And yet Luini standson his own ground, in no sense an imitator, with a genius more simple andidyllic than Da Vinci's. Little conception of his charm can be formed bythose who have not seen his frescoes in the Brera and S. Maurizio Maggioreat Milan, in the church of the Angeli at Lugano, or in the pilgrimagechurch of Saronno. To the circumstance of his having done his best work inplaces hardly visited until of late years, may in part perhaps beattributed the tardy recognition of a painter eminently fitted to bepopular. Luini was essentially a fresco-painter. None, perhaps, of all thegreatest Italian _frescanti_ realised a higher quality of brilliancywithout gaudiness, by the scale of colours he selected and by the puritywith which he used them in simple combinations. His frescoes are neverdull or heavy in tone, never glaring, never thin or chalky. He knew how torender them both luminous and rich, without falling into the extremes thatrender fresco-paintings often less attractive than oil-pictures. Hisfeeling for loveliness of form was original and exquisite. The joy ofyouth found in Luini an interpreter only less powerful and even moretender than in Raphael. While he shared with the Venetians theirsensibility to nature, he had none of their sensuousness or love of pomp. In idyllic painting of a truly great type I know of nothing moredelightful than his figures of young musicians going to the marriage feastof Mary, nothing more graceful than the genius ivy-crowned and seated atthe foot of the cross. [389] The sentiment for naive and artless grace, sofully possessed by Luini, gave freshness to his treatment of conventionalreligious themes. Under his touch they appeal immediately to the mostuntutored taste, without the aid of realistic or sensational effects. EvenS. Sebastian and S. Rocco, whom it is difficult to represent with anynovelty of attitude or expression, became for him the motives of freshpoetry, unsought but truly felt. [390] Among all the Madonnas ever paintedhis picture of Mary with the espalier of white roses, and another whereshe holds the infant Christ to pluck a purple columbine, distinguishthemselves by this engaging spontaneity. The frescoes of the marriage ofthe Virgin and of S. Catherine carried by angels to Mount Sinai might becited for the same quality of freshness and unstudied poetry. [391] When the subject demanded the exercise of grave emotion, Luini rose to theoccasion without losing his simplicity. The "Martyrdom of S. Catherine"and the fresco of Christ after the Flagellation are two masterpieces, wherein the depths of pathos have been sounded, and not a single note ofdiscord is struck. [392] All harsh and disagreeable details are eithereliminated, or so softened that the general impression, as in Pergolese'smusic, is one of profoundest and yet sweetest sorrow. Luini's genius wasnot tragic. The nearest approach to a dramatic motive in his work is thefigure of the Magdalen kneeling before the cross, with her long yellowhair streaming over her shoulders, and her arms thrown backwards in anecstasy of grief. [393] He did well to choose moments that stir tendersympathy--the piety of deep and calm devotion. How truly he feltthem--more truly, I think, than Perugino in his best period--is proved bythe correspondence they awake in us. Like melodies, they create a mood inthe spectator. What Luini did not learn from Lionardo, was the art of composition. Takenone by one, the figures that make up his "Marriage of the Virgin" atSaronno, are beautiful; but the whole picture is clumsily constructed; andwhat is true of this, may be said of every painting in which he attemptedcomplicated grouping. [394] We feel him to be a great artist only where thesubject does not demand the symmetrical arrangement of many parts. Gaudenzio Ferrari was a genius of a different order, more robust, morevaried, but less single-minded than Luini. His style reveals theinfluences of a many-sided, ill-assimilated education; blending themanners of Bramantino, Lionardo, and Raphael without proper fusion. ThoughFerrari travelled much, and learned his art in several schools, he, likeLuini, can only be studied in the Milanese district--at his birthplaceVarallo, at Saronno, Vercelli, and Milan. It is to be regretted that apainter of such singular ability, almost unrivalled at moments in theexpression of intense feeling and the representation of energeticmovement, should have lacked a simpler training, or have been unable toadopt a manner more uniform. There is a strength of wing in hisimaginative flight, a swiftness and impetuosity in his execution, and adramatic force in his conception, that almost justify Lomazzo's choice ofthe eagle for his emblem. Yet he was unable to collect his powers, or torule them. The distractions of an age that had produced its masterpieces, were too strong for him; and what he failed to find was balance. Hispicture of the "Martyrdom of S. Catherine, " where reminiscences of Raphaeland Lionardo mingle with the uncouth motives of an earlier style in amedley without unity of composition or harmony of colouring, might bechosen as a typical instance of great resources misapplied. [395] The most pleasing of Ferrari's paintings are choirs of angels, sorrowingor rejoicing, some of them exquisitely and originally beautiful, allanimated with unusual life, and poised upon wings powerful enough to bearthem--veritable "birds of God. "[396] His dramatic scenes from sacredhistory, rich in novel motives and exuberantly full of invention, crowdthe churches of Vercelli; while a whole epic of the Passion is painted infresco above the altar of S. Maria delle Grazie at Varallo, covering thewall from basement to ceiling. The prodigality of power displayed byFerrari makes up for much of crudity in style and confusion in aim; norcan we refuse the tribute of warmest admiration to a master, who, when theschools of Rome and Florence were sinking into emptiness and bombast, preserved the fire of feeling for serious themes. What was deadly in theneo-paganism of the Renaissance--its frivolity and worldliness, corrodingthe very sources of belief in men who made of art a decoration for theirsensuous existence--had not penetrated to those Lombard valleys whereFerrari and Luini worked. There the devotion of the Sacri Monti stillmaintained an intelligence between the people and the artist, far morefruitful of results to painting than the patronage of splendour-lovingcardinals and nobles. [397] Passing from Lionardo to Raphael, we find exactly the reverse of what hashitherto been noticed. Raphael worked out the mine of his own thought sothoroughly--so completely exhausted the motives of his invention, andcarried his style to such perfection--that he left nothing unused for hisfollowers. We have seen that he formed a school of subordinates in Romewho executed his later frescoes after his designs. Some of these men havenames that can be mentioned--Giulio Romano, of whom more hereafter; Perinodel Vaga, the decorator of Genoese palaces in a style of overblown butgorgeous Raphaelism; Andrea Sabbatini, who carried the Roman traditiondown to Naples; Francesco Penni, Giovanni da Udine, and Polidoro daCaravaggio. Their work, even while superintended by Raphael himself, beganto show the signs of decadence. In his Roman manner the dramatic elementwas conspicuous; and to carry dramatic painting beyond the limits of goodstyle in art is unfortunately easy. The Hall of Constantine, leftunfinished at his death, still further proved how little his pupils coulddo without him. [398] When Raphael died, the breath whose might sustainedand made them potent, ceased. For all the higher purposes of genuine art, inspiration passed from them as colour fades from eastern clouds atsunset, suddenly. It has been customary to account for this rapid decline of the Romanschool by referring to the sack of Rome in 1527. No doubt the artistssuffered at that moment at least as severely as the scholars; theirdispersion broke up a band of eminent painters, who might in combinationand competition have still achieved great things. Yet the secret of theirsubsequent failure lay far deeper; partly in the full development of theirmaster's style, already described; and partly in the social conditions ofRome itself. Patrons, stimulated by the example of the Popes, desired vastdecorative works; but they expected these to be performed rapidly and at acheap rate. Painters, familiarised with the execution of suchundertakings, forgot that hitherto the conception had been not theirs butRaphael's. Mistaking hand-work for brain-work, they audaciously acceptedcommissions that would have taxed the powers of the master himself. Meanwhile moral earnestness and technical conscientiousness were bothextinct. The patrons required show and sensual magnificence far more thanthought and substance. They were not, therefore, deterred by the vacuityand poor conceptive faculty of the artists from employing them. What theage demanded was a sumptuous parade of superficial ornament, and this thepupils of Raphael felt competent to supply without much effort. The resultwas that painters who under favourable circumstances might have done somemeritorious work, became mere journeymen contented with the soullessinsincerity of cheap effects. Giulio Romano alone, by dint of robustenergy and lurid fire of fancy flickering amid the smoke of his coarsernature, achieved a triumph in this line of labour. His Palazzo del Te willalways remain the monument of a specific moment in Renaissance history, since it is adequate to the intellectual conditions of a race demoralisedbut living still with largeness and a sense of grandeur. Michael Angelo formed no school in the strict sense of the word. Yet hisinfluence was not the less felt on that account, nor less powerful thanRaphael's in the same direction. During his manhood the painters Sebastiandel Piombo, Marcello Venusti, and Daniele da Volterra, had endeavoured toadd the charm of oil-colouring to his designs; and long before his death, the seduction of his mighty mannerism had begun to exercise a fatal charmfor all the schools of Italy. Painters incapable of fathoming hisintention, unsympathetic to his rare type of intellect, and gifted withless than a tithe of his native force, set themselves to reproducewhatever may be justly censured in his works. To heighten and enlargetheir style was reckoned a chief duty of aspiring craftsmen; and it wasthought that recipes for attaining to this final perfection of the modernarts might be extracted without trouble from Michael Angelo'smasterpieces. Unluckily, in proportion as his fame increased, hispeculiarities grew with the advance of age more manneristic and defined;so that his imitators fixed precisely upon that which sober critics nowregard as a deduction from his greatness. They failed to perceive that heowed his grandeur to his personality; and that the audacities whichfascinated them, became mere whimsical extravagances when severed from his_terribilità_ and sombre simplicity of impassioned thought. His power andhis spirit were alike unique and uncommunicable, while the admiration ofhis youthful worshippers betrayed them into imitating the externals of astyle that was rapidly losing spontaneity and sense of beauty. Thereforethey fancied they were treading in his footsteps and using the grandmanner when they covered church-roofs and canvases with sprawling figuresin distorted attitudes. Instead of studying nature, they studied MichaelAngelo's cartoons, exaggerating by their unintelligent discipleship hiswilfulness and arbitrary choice of form. Vasari's and Cellini's criticisms of a master they both honestly revered, may suffice to illustrate the false method adopted by these mimics ofMichael Angelo's ideal. To charge him with faults proceeding from theweakness and blindness of the decadence--the faults of men too blind toread his art aright, too weak to stand on their own feet withouthim--would be either stupid or malicious. If at the close of the sixteenthcentury the mannerists sought to startle and entrance the world by emptyexhibitions of muscular anatomy misunderstood, and by a braggadociodisplay of meaningless effects--crowding their compositions with studiesfrom the nude, and painting agitated groups without a discernible causefor agitation--the crime surely lay with the patrons who liked suchdecoration, and with the journeymen who provided it. Michael Angelohimself always made his manner serve his thought. We may fail toappreciate his manner and may be incapable of comprehending his thought;but only insincere or conceited critics will venture to gauge the latterby what they feel to be displeasing in the former. What seems lawless inhim, follows the law of a profound and peculiar genius, with which, whether we like it or not, we must reckon. His imitators were devoid ofthought and too indifferent to question whether there was any law to beobeyed. Like the jackass in the fable, they put on the dead lion's skin ofhis manner, and brayed beneath it, thinking they could roar. Correggio, again, though he can hardly be said to have founded a school, was destined to exercise wide and perilous influence over a host ofmanneristic imitators. Francesco Mazzola, called Il Parmigianino, followedhim so closely that his frescoes at Parma are hardly distinguishable fromthe master's; while Federigo Baroccio at Urbino endeavoured to preservethe sensuous and almost childish sweetness of his style in itsintegrity. [399] But the real attraction of Correggio was only felt whenthe new _barocco_ architecture called for a new kind of decoration. Everycupola throughout the length and breadth of Italy began then to bepainted with rolling clouds and lolling angels. What the wits of Parma hadonce stigmatised as a _ragoût_ of frogs, now seemed the only possibleexpression for celestial ecstasy; and to delineate the joy of heaven uponthose multitudes of domes and semi-domes was a point of religiousetiquette. False lights, dubious foreshortenings, shallow colourings, ill-studied forms, and motiveless agitation suited the taste that caredfor gaudy brightness and sensational effects. The painters, for theirpart, found it convenient to adopt a mannerism that enabled them toconceal the difficult parts of the figure in feather beds of vapour, requiring neither effort of conception nor expenditure of labour ondrawing and composition. At the same time, the Caracci made Correggio'sstyle the object of more serious study; and the history of Bolognesepainting shows what was to be derived from this master by intelligent andconscientious workmen. Hitherto, I have had principally to record the errors of artists copyingthe external qualities of their great predecessors. It is refreshing toturn from the _epigoni_ of the so-called Roman school to masters in whomthe flame of the Renaissance still burned brightly. Andrea del Sarto, thepupil of Piero di Cosimo, but more nearly related in style to FraBartolommeo than to any other of the elder masters, was himself acontemporary of Raphael and Correggio. Yet he must be noticed here;because he gave new qualities to the art of Tuscany, and formed atradition decisive for the subsequent history of Florentine painting. Tomake a just estimate of his achievement is a task of no small difficulty. The Italians called him "il pittore senza errori, " or the faultlesspainter. What they meant by this must have been that in all the technicalrequirements of art, in drawing, composition, handling of fresco and oils, disposition of draperies, and feeling for light and shadow, he was abovecriticism. As a colourist he went further and produced more beautifuleffects than any Florentine before him. His silver-grey harmonies andliquid blendings of hues cool, yet lustrous, have a charm peculiar tohimself alone. We find the like nowhere else in Italy. And yet Andrea delSarto cannot take rank among the greatest Renaissance painters. What helacked was precisely the most precious gift--inspiration, depth ofemotion, energy of thought. We are apt to feel that even his best pictureswere designed with a view to solving an aesthetic problem. Very few havethe poetic charm belonging to the "S. John" of the Pitti or the "Madonna"of the Tribune. Beautiful as are many of his types, like the Magdalen inthe large picture of the "Pietà"[400] we can never be sure that he willnot break the spell by forms of almost vulgar mediocrity. The story thathis wife, a worthless woman, sat for his Madonnas, and the legends of hisworking for money to meet pressing needs, seem justified by numbers of hispaintings, faulty in their faultlessness and want of spirit. Still, aftermaking these deductions, we must allow that Andrea del Sarto notunworthily represents the golden age at Florence. There is no affectation, no false taste, no trickery in his style. His workmanship is always solid;his hand unerring. If Nature denied him the soul of a poet, and the sternwill needed for escaping from the sordid circumstances of his life, shegave him some of the highest qualities a painter can desire--qualities ofstrength, tranquillity, and thoroughness, that in the decline of thecentury ceased to exist outside Venice. Among Del Sarto's followers it will be enough to mention Franciabigio, Vasari's favourite in fresco painting, Rosso de' Rossi, who carried theFlorentine manner into France, and Pontormo, the masterly painter ofportraits. [401] In the historical pictures of these men, whether sacredor secular, it is clear how much was done for Florentine art by FraBartolommeo and Del Sarto independently of Michael Angelo and Lionardo. Angelo Bronzino, the pupil of Pontormo, is chiefly valuable for hisportraits. Hard and cold, yet obviously true to life, they form a galleryof great interest for the historian of Duke Cosimo's reign. His frescoesand allegories illustrate the defects that have been pointed out in thoseof Raphael's and Buonarroti's imitators. [402] Want of thought and feeling, combined with the presumptuous treatment of colossal and imaginativesubjects, renders these compositions inexpressibly chilling. Thepsychologist, who may have read a poem from Bronzino's pen, will beinclined to wonder how far this barren art was not connected with personalcorruption. [403] Such speculations are, however, apt to be misleading. Siena, after a long period of inactivity, received a fresh impulse at thesame time as Florence. Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, or Razzi, called Il Sodoma, was born at Vercelli about 1477. He studied in his youth under Lionardo daVinci, training his own exquisite sense of natural beauty in thatscientific school. From Milan, after a certain interval of time, heremoved to Rome, where he became a friend and follower of Raphael. Thesedouble influences determined a style that never lost its own originality. With what delicacy and _naïveté_, almost like a second Luini, but withmore of humour and sensuousness, he approached historic themes, may beseen in his frescoes at Monte Oliveto. [404] They were executed before hisRoman visit, and show the facility of a most graceful improvisatore. Onepainting representing the "Temptation of Monks by Dancing Women" carriesthe melody of fluent lines and the seduction of fair girlish faces into aregion of pure poetry. These frescoes are superior to Sodoma's work in theFarnesina. Impressed, as all artists were, by the monumental character ofBorne, and fired by Raphael's example, he tried to abandon his sketchy andidyllic style for one of greater majesty and fulness. The deliciousfreshness of his earlier manner was sacrificed; but his best efforts toproduce a grandiose composition ended in a confusion of individuallybeautiful but ill-assorted motives. Like Luini, Sodoma was neversuccessful in pictures requiring combination and arrangement. He lackedsome sense of symmetry and sought to achieve massiveness by crowdingfigures in a given space. When we compare his group of "S. CatherineFainting under the Stigmata" with the medley of agitated forms that makeup his picture of the same saint at Tuldo's execution, we see plainly thathe ought to have confined himself to the expression of very simplethemes. [405] The former is incomparable for its sweetness; the latter isindistinct and wearying, in spite of many details that adorn it. Giftedwith an exquisite feeling for the beauty of the human body, Sodomaexcelled himself when he was contented with a single figure. His "S. Sebastian, " notwithstanding its wan and faded colouring, is still the verybest that has been painted. [406] Suffering, refined and spiritual, withoutcontortion or spasm, could not be presented with more pathos in a form ofmore surpassing loveliness. This is a truly demonic picture in thefascination it exercises and the memory it leaves upon the mind. Part ofits unanalysable charm may be due to the bold thought of combining thebeauty of a Greek Hylas with the Christian sentiment of martyrdom. Onlythe Renaissance could have produced a hybrid so successful, because sodeeply felt. Sodoma's influence at Siena, where he lived a picturesque life, delightingin his horses and surrounding himself with strange four-footed pets of allsorts, soon produced a school of worthy masters. Girolamo del Pacchia, Domenico Beccafumi, and Baldassare Peruzzi, though they owed much to thestimulus of his example, followed him in no servile spirit. Indeed, it maybe said that Pacchia's paintings in the Oratory of S. Bernardino, thoughthey lacked his siren beauty, are more powerfully composed; whilePeruzzi's fresco of "Augustus and the Sibyl, " in the church ofFontegiusta, has a monumental dignity unknown to Sodoma. Beccafumi is aptto leave the spectator of his paintings cold. From inventive powers sorich and technical excellence so thorough, we demand more than he cangive, and are therefore disappointed. His most interesting picture atSiena is the "Stigmatisation of S. Catherine, " famous for its mastery ofgraduated whites. Much of the paved work of the Duomo is attributed to hisdesign. Both Beccafumi and Peruzzi felt the cold and manneristic Romanstyle of rhetoric injuriously. To mention the remaining schools of Italy in detail would be superfluous. True art still flourished at Ferrara, where Garofalo endeavoured to carryon the Roman manner of Raphael without the necessary strength or ideality, but also without the soulless insincerity of the mannerists. His bestquality was colouring, gemlike and rich; but this found little scope forexercise in the dry and laboured style he affected. Dosso Dossi faredbetter, perhaps through having never experienced the seductions of Rome. His glowing colour and quaint fancy give the attraction of romance tomany of his pictures. The "Circe, " for example, of the Borghese Palace, isworthy to rank with the best Renaissance work. It is perfectly original, not even suggesting the influence of Venice by its deep and lustrous hues. No painting is more fit to illustrate the "Orlando Innamorato. " Just so, we feel in looking at it, did Dragontina show herself to Boiardo's fancy. Ariosto's Alcina belongs to a different family of magnificent witches. Cremona, at this epoch, had a school of painters, influenced almostequally by the Venetians, the Milanese, and the Roman mannerists. TheCampi family covered those grave Lombard vaults with stucco, fresco, andgilding in a style only just removed from the _barocco_. [407] Brescia andBergamo remained within the influence of Venice, producing work of nearlyfirst-rate quality in Moretto, Romanino, and Lorenzo Lotto. Moroni, thepupil of Moretto, was destined to become one of the most powerfulcharacter painters of the modern world, and to enrich the studies ofhistorians and artists with a series of portraits impressive by theirfidelity to the spirit of the sixteenth century at its conclusion. Veniceherself at this period was still producing masterpieces of the genuineRenaissance. But the decline into mannerism, caused by circumstancessimilar to those of Rome, was not far distant. It may seem strange to those who have visited the picture galleries ofItaly, and have noticed how very large a number of the painters flourishedafter 1550, that I should have persistently spoken of the last half of thesixteenth century as a period of decadence. This it was, however, in adeep and true sense of the word. The force of the Renaissance wasexhausted, and a time of relaxation had to be passed through, before thereaction known as the Counter-Reformation could make itself felt in art. Then, and not till then, a new spiritual impulse produced a new style. This secondary growth of painting began to flourish at Bologna inaccordance with fresh laws of taste. Religious sentiments of a differentorder had to be expressed; society had undergone a change, and the artswere governed by a genuine, if far inferior, inspiration. Meanwhile, theRenaissance, so far as Italy is concerned, was ended. It is one of the sad features of this subject, that each section has toend in lamentation. Servitude in the sphere of politics; literaryfeebleness in scholarship; decadence in art:--to shun these conclusions isimpossible. He who has undertaken to describe the parabola of aprojectile, cannot be satisfied with tracing its gradual rise anddetermining its culmination. He must follow its spent force, and watch itslowly sink with ever dwindling impetus to earth. Intellectual movements, when we isolate them in a special country, observing the causes that setthem in motion and calculating their retarding influences, may, notunreasonably, be compared to the parabola of a projectile. To shrink fromstudying the decline of mental vigour in Italy upon the close of theRenaissance, would be therefore weak; though the task of tracing theimpulse communicated by her previous energy to other nations, and theirstirring under a like movement, might be more agreeable. FOOTNOTES: [389] Frescoes in the Brera and at Lugano. [390] S. Maurizio, on the Screen, inner church. Lugano in the Angeli. [391] In the Brera. See also the Madonna, with Infant Christ, S. John, and a Lamb, at Lugano. [392] Side chapel of S. Maurizio at Milan. These frescoes are, in myopinion, Luini's very best. The whole church is a wonderful monument ofLombard art. [393] "Crucifixion" at Lugano. [394] See, for example, the oil-paintings in the cathedral of Como, sofascinating in their details, so lame in composition. [395] In the Brera. [396] Frescoes at Saronno and in the Sacro Monte at Varallo. [397] The whole lake-district of Italy, where the valleys of Monte Rosaand the Simplon descend upon the plain of Lombardy, is rich in works ofthis school. At Luino and Lugano, on the island of San Giulio, and in thehill-set chapels of the Val Sesia, may be found traces of frescoes ofincomparable beauty. One of these sites deserves special mention. Just atthe point where the pathway of the Colma leaves the chestnut groves andmeadows to join the road leading to Varallo, there stands a littlechapel, with an open loggia of round Renaissance arches, designed andpainted, according to tradition, by Ferrari, and without doubtrepresentative of his manner. The harmony between its colours, so mellowin their ruin, its graceful arcades and quiet roofing, and the glowingtones of those granite mountains, with their wealth of vineyards, andtheir forests of immemorial chestnut trees, is perfect beyond words. [398] This, the last of the Stanze, was only in part designed by Raphael. In spite of what I have said above, the "Battle of Constantine, " plannedby Raphael, and executed by Giulio, is a grand example of a pupil's powerto carry out his master's scheme. [399] Baroccio had great authority at Florence in the seventeenthcentury, when the cult of Correggio had overspread all Italy. [400] Pitti Palace. [401] Franciabigio's and Rosso's frescoes stand beside Del Sarto's in theatrium of the Annunziata at Florence. Pontormo's portraits of Cosimo andLorenzo de' Medici in the Uffizzi, though painted from busts andmedallions, have a real historical value. [402] The "Christ in Limbo" in S. Lorenzo at Florence, and the detestablepicture of "Time, Beauty, Love, and Folly, " in our National Gallery. [403] _Opere Burlesche_, vol. Iii. Pp. 39-46. [404] Near Siena. These pictures are a series of twenty-four subjectsfrom the life of S. Benedict. [405] In the church of S. Domenico, Siena. [406] In the Uffizzi. See also Sodoma's "Sacrifice of Isaac" in thecathedral of Pisa, and the "Christ Bound to the Pillar" in the Academy atSiena. [407] The church of S. Sigismondo, outside Cremona, is very interestingfor the unity of style in its architecture and decoration. APPENDICES APPENDIX I _The Pulpits of Pisa and Ravello_ Having tried to characterise Niccola Pisano's relation to early Italianart in the second chapter of this volume, I adverted to the recent doubtswhich have been thrown by very competent authorities upon Vasari's legendof this master. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, while discussing thequestion of his birthplace and his early training, observe, what is nodoubt true, that there are no traces of good sculpture in Pisa antecedentto the Baptistery pulpit of 1260, and remark that for such a phenomenon asthe sudden appearance of this masterpiece it is needful to seek someantecedents elsewhere. [408] This leads them to ask whether Niccola did notowe his origin and education to some other part of Italy. Finding atRavello, near Amain, a pulpit sculptured in 1272 by Niccola di Bartolommeoda Foggia, they suggest that a school of stone-carvers may have flourishedat Foggia, and that Niccola Pisano, in spite of his signing himself_Pisanus_ on the Baptistery pulpit, may have been an Apulian trained inthat school. The arguments adduced in favour of that hypothesis are thatNiccola's father, though commonly believed to have been Ser Pietro daSiena, was perhaps called Pietro di Apulia, [409] and that meritoriousartists certainly existed at Foggia and Trani. Yet the resemblance ofstyle between the pulpits at Ravello [1272] and Pisa [1260], if thatindeed exists (whereof hereafter more must be said), might be used toprove that Niccola da Foggia learned his art from Niccola Pisano, insteadof the contrary; nor again, supposing the Apulian school to haveflourished before 1260, is it inconsistent with the tradition of Niccola'slife that he should have learned the sculptor's craft while working in hisyouth at Naples. For the rest, Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle dismiss thestory of Pisano's studying the antique bas-reliefs at Pisa withcontempt;[410] but they omit to notice the actual transcripts from thosemarbles introduced into his first pulpit. Again, they assume that thelunette at Lucca was one of his latest works, giving precedence to thepulpits of Pisa and Siena and the fountain of Perugia. A comparison ofstyle no doubt renders this view plausible; for the lunette at Lucca issuperior to any other of Pisano's works as a composition. The full discussion of these points is rendered impossible by the want ofcontemporary information, and each student must, therefore, remaincontented with his own hypothesis. Yet something can be said with regardto the Ravello pulpit that plays so important a part in the argument ofthe learned historians of Italian painting. Unless a strong similaritybetween it and Pisano's pulpits can be proved, their hypothesis carrieswith it no persuasion. The pulpit in the cathedral of Ravello is formed like an ambo of theantique type. That is to say, it is a long parallelogram with flat sides, raised upon pillars, and approached by a flight of steps. These steps areenclosed within richly-ornamented walls, and stand distinct from thepulpit; a short bridge connects the two. The six pillars supporting theambo itself are slender twisted columns with classic capitals. Three reston lions, three on lionesses, admirably carved in different attitudes. Asmall projection on the north side of the pulpit sustains an eaglestanding on a pillar, and spreading out his wings to bear an open book. Onthe arch over the entrance to the staircase projects the head ofSigelgaita, wife of Niccola Rufolo, the donor of the pulpit to the church, sculptured in the style of the Roman decadence, between two profilemedallions in low relief. [411] The material of the whole is fair whitemarble, enriched with mosaics, and wrought into beautiful scroll-work ofacanthus leaves and other Romanesque adornments. An inscription, "_EgoMagister Nicolaus de Bartholomeo de Fogia Marmorarius hoc opus feci_;" andanother, "_Lapsis millenis bis centum bisque trigenis XPI. Bissenis annisab origine plenis_, " indicate the artist's name and the date of the work. It is difficult to understand how anyone could trace such a resemblancebetween this rectangular ambo and the hexagonal structure in the PisanBaptistery as would justify them in asserting both to be the products ofthe same school. The pulpit of Niccola da Foggia does not materiallydiffer from other ambones in Italy--from several, for instance, in Amalfiand Ravello; while the distinctive features of Niccola Pisano's work--thecombination of classically studied bas-reliefs with Gothic principles ofconstruction, the feeling for artistic unity in the composition of groups, the mastery over plastic form, and the detached allegorical figures--arenoticeable only by their total absence from it. What is left by way ofsimilarity is a sculpturesque refinement in Sigelgaita's portrait, notunworthy of Pisano's own chisel. This, however, is but a slender pointwhereon to base so large a pyramid of pure conjecture. Surely we must lookelsewhere than at Ravello or at Foggia for the origin of Niccola Pisano. Why then should we reject tradition in this instance? Messrs. Crowe andCavalcaselle reply; because the sculpture of no Tuscan city before hisperiod is good enough to have led up to him. Yet this may be contested;and at all events it will not be easy to prove from the Ravello head ofSigelgaita that a more advanced school existed in the south. The fact isthat the art of the stone-carvers or _marmorarii_ had never entirely diedout since the days of Roman greatness; nor was Niccola without respectablepredecessors in the very town of Lucca, where he produced the firstmasterpiece of modern sculpture. The circular font of S. Frediano, forexample, carved with figures in high relief by a certain Robertus of thetwelfth century, combines the Romanesque mannerism with the _naïveté_ ofmediaeval fancy. I might point in particular to two knights seated on onehorse in what I take to be the company of Pharaoh crossing the Red Sea, asan instance of a successful attempt to escape from the formalism of adecayed style. At the same time the general effect of the embossed work ofthis font is fine; nor do we fail to perceive that the artist retainedsome portion of the classic feeling for grandiose and monumentalcomposition. Far less noteworthy, yet still not utterly despicable, isthe bas-relief of Biduinus over the side-door of S. Salvatore at Lucca. What Niccola added of indefeasibly his own to the style of thesecontinuators of a dead tradition, was feeling for the beauty of classicalwork in a good age, and through that feeling a more perfect sympathy withnature. It is just at this point that the old tale about the sarcophagusof the Countess Beatrice conveys not only the letter but the spirit of thefact. Niccola's genius, no less vivid and life-giving than that of Giotto, infused into the hard and formal manner of his immediate predecessors truenature and true art. Between the bas-relief of S. Salvatore and thebas-relief over the north door of the Duomo at Lucca, there is indeed abroad gulf, yet such as might have been passed at one bound by a masterinto whose soul the beauty of a fragment of Greek art had sunk, and whohad received at his birth the gift of a creative genius. FOOTNOTES: [408] _History of Painting in Italy_, vol. I. Chap. Iv. [409] _Loc. Cit_. P. 127, note. [410] _Loc. Cit. _ p. 127. [411] Mr. Perkins, following the suggestion of Panza, in his _Istoriadell' Antica Republica d'Amalfi_, is inclined to think that this headrepresents, not Sigelgaita, but Joanna II. Of Naples, and is thereforemore than a century later in date than the pulpit. See _ItalianSculptors_, p. 51. APPENDIX II _Michael Angelo's Sonnets_ After the death of Michael Angelo, the manuscripts of his sonnets, madrigals, and other poems, written at various periods of his life, andwell known to his intimate friends, passed into the hands of his nephew, Lionardo Buonarroti. From Lionardo they descended to his son, MichaelAngelo, who was himself a poet of some mark. This grand-nephew of thesculptor prepared them for the press, and gave them to the world in 1623. On his redaction the commonly received version of the poems rested until1863, when Signor Cesare Guasti of Florence, having gained access to theoriginal manuscripts, published a critical edition, preserving everypeculiarity of the autograph, and adding a prose paraphrase for theexplanation of the text. The younger Michael Angelo, working in an age of literary pedantry andmoral prudery, fancied that it was his duty to refine the style of hisgreat ancestor, and to remove allusions open to ignorant misconstruction. Instead, therefore, of giving an exact transcript of the original poems, he set himself to soften down their harshness, to clear away theirobscurity, to amplify, transpose, and mutilate according to his own ideasof syntax, taste, and rhetoric. On the Dantesque ruggedness of MichaelAngelo he engrafted the prettiness of the seventeenth Petrarchisti; andwhere he thought the morality of the poems was questionable, especially inthe case of those addressed to Cavalieri, he did not hesitate to introducesuch alterations as destroyed their obvious intention. In order tounderstand the effect of this method, it is only necessary to compare theautograph as printed by Guasti with the version of 1623. In Sonnet xxxi. , for example, the two copies agree in only one line, while the remainingthirteen are distorted and adorned with superfluous conceits by theover-scrupulous but not too conscientious editor of 1623. [412] Michael Angelo's poems, even after his grand-nephew had tried to reducethem to lucidity and order, have always been considered obscure andcrabbed. Nor can it be pretended that they gain in smoothness andclearness by the restoration of the true readings. On the contrary, instances of defective grammar, harsh elisions, strained metaphors, andincomplete expressions are multiplied. The difficulty of comprehending thesense is rather increased than diminished, and the obstacles to atranslator become still more insurmountable than Wordsworth foundthem. [413] This being undoubtedly the case, the value of Guasti's editionfor students of Michael Angelo is nevertheless inestimable. We read nowfor the first time what the greatest man of the sixteenth century actuallywrote, and are able to enter, without the interference of a fictitiousveil, into the shrine of his own thought and feeling. His sonnets form thebest commentary on Michael Angelo's solitary life and on his sublime idealof art. This reflection has guided me in the choice of those now offeredin English, as an illustration of the chapter in this volume devoted totheir author's biography. Though the dates of Michael Angelo's compositions are conjectural, it maybe assumed that the two sonnets on Dante were written when he was himselfin exile. We know that, while sojourning in the house of Gian FrancescoAldovrandini at Bologna, he used to spend a portion of his time in readingDante aloud to his protector;[414] and the indignation expressed againstFlorence, then as ever fickle and ungrateful, the _gente avara, invidiosa, e superba_, to use Dante's own words, seems proper to a period of justresentment. Still there is no certainty that they belong to 1495; forthroughout his long life Michael Angelo was occupied with Dante. A storytold of him in 1506, together with the dialogues reported by DonatoGiannotti, prove that he was regarded by his fellow-citizens as anauthority upon the meaning of the "Divine Comedy. "[415] In 1518, when theFlorentine Academy petitioned Leo X. To transport the bones of Dante fromRavenna to Florence, Michael Angelo subscribed the document and offered toerect a statue worthy of the poet. [416] How deeply the study of Danteinfluenced his art, appears not only in the lower part of the "LastJudgment:" we feel that source of stern and lofty inspiration in his styleat large; nor can we reckon what the world lost when his volume ofdrawings in illustration of the "Divine Comedy" perished at sea. [417] Thetwo following sonnets, therefore, whenever written, may be taken asexpressing his settled feeling about the first and greatest of Italianpoets:[418]-- DAL CIEL DISCESE From heaven his spirit came, and robed in clay The realms of justice and of mercy trod, Then rose a living man to gaze on God, That he might make the truth as clear as day. For that pure star that brightened with his ray The ill-deserving nest where I was born, The whole wide world would be a prize to scorn; None but his Maker can due guerdon pay. I speak of Dante, whose high work remains Unknown, unhonoured by that thankless brood, Who only to just men deny their wage. Were I but he! Born for like lingering pains, Against his exile coupled with his good I'd gladly change the world's best heritage! QUANTE DIRNI SI DE' No tongue can tell of him what should be told, For on blind eyes his splendour shines too strong; 'Twere easier to blame those who wrought him wrong, Than sound his least praise with a mouth of gold. He to explore the place of pain was bold, Then soared to God, to teach our souls by song; The gates heaven oped to bear his feet along, Against his just desire his country rolled. Thankless I call her, and to her own pain The nurse of fell mischance; for sign take this, That ever to the best she deals more scorn: Among a thousand proofs let one remain; Though ne'er was fortune more unjust than his, His equal or his better ne'er was born. About the date of the two next sonnets there is less doubt. The first wasclearly written when Michael Angelo was smarting under a sense of theill-treatment he received from Julius. The second, composed at Rome, isinteresting as the only proof we possess of the impression made upon hismind by the anomalies of the Papal rule. Here, in the capital ofChristendom, he writes, holy things are sold for money to be used inwarfare, and the pontiff, _quel nel manto_, paralyses the powers of thesculptor by refusing him employment. [419] SIGNOR, SE VERO È My Lord! if ever ancient saw spake sooth, Hear this which saith: Who can, doth never will. Lo! thou hast lent thine ear to fables still, Rewarding those who hate the name of truth. I am thy drudge and have been from my youth-- Thine, like the rays which the sun's circle fill; Yet of my dear time's waste thou think'st no ills The more I toil, the less I move thy ruth. Once 'twas my hope to raise me by thy height; But 'tis the balance and the powerful sword Of Justice, not false Echo, that we need. Heaven, as it seems, plants virtue in despite Here on the earth, if this be our reward-- To seek for fruit on trees too dry to breed. QUA SI FA ELMI Here helms and swords are made of chalices: The blood of Christ is sold so much the quart: His cross and thorns are spears and shields; and short Must be the time ere even his patience cease. Nay let Him come no more to raise the fees Of fraud and sacrilege beyond report! For Rome still slays and sells Him at the court, Where paths are closed to virtue's fair increase. Now were fit time for me to scrape a treasure, Seeing that work and gain are gone; while he Who wears the robe, is my Medusa still. Perchance in heaven poverty is a pleasure: But of that better life what hope have we, When the blessed banner leads to nought but ill? A third sonnet of this period is intended to be half burlesque, and, therefore, is composed _a coda_, as the Italians describe the lengthenedform of the conclusion. It was written while Michael Angelo was paintingthe roof of the Sistine, and was sent to his friend Giovanni da Pistoja. The effect of this work, as Vasari tells us, on his eyesight was soinjurious, that, for some time after its completion, he could only read byplacing the book or manuscript above his head and looking up. [420] I' HO GIÀ FATTO UN GOZZO I've grown a goitre by dwelling in this den-- As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy, Or in what other land they hap to be-- Which drives the belly close beneath the chin: My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in, Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin. My loins into my paunch like levers grind; My buttock like a crupper bears my weight; My feet unguided wander to and fro; In front my skin grows loose and long; behind, By bending it becomes more taut and strait; Backward I strain me like a Syrian bow: Whence false and quaint, I know, Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye; For ill can aim the gun that bends awry. Come then, Giovanni, try To succour my dead pictures and my fame; Since foul I fare and painting is my shame. The majority of the sonnets are devoted to love and beauty, conceived inthe spirit of exalted Platonism. They are supposed to have been written inthe latter period of his life, when he was about sixty years of age; andthough we do not know for certain to whom they were in every caseaddressed, they may be used in confirmation of what I have said about hisadmiration for Vittoria Colonna and Tommaso Cavalieri. [421] The following, with its somewhat obscure adaptation of a Platonic theory of creation tohis own art, was probably composed soon after Vittoria Colonna'sdeath. [422] SE 'L MIO ROZZO MARTELLO When my rude hammer to the stubborn stone Gives human shape, now that, now this, at will, Following his hand who wields and guides it still, It moves upon another's feet alone. But He who dwells in heaven all things doth fill With beauty by pure motions of his own; And since tools fashion tools which else were none, His life makes all that lives with living skill. Now, for that every stroke excels the more The closer to the forge it still ascend, Her soul that quickened mine hath sought the skies: Wherefore I find my toil will never end, If God, the great artificer, denies That tool which was my only aid before. The next is peculiarly valuable, as proving with what intense andreligious fervour Michael Angelo addressed himself to the worship ofintellectual beauty. He alone, in that age of sensuality and animalism, pierced through the form of flesh and sought the divine idea itimprisoned:[423]-- PER RITORNAR LÀ As one who will reseek her home of light, Thy form immortal to this prison-house Descended, like an angel piteous, To heal all hearts and make the whole world bright. 'Tis this that thralls my heart in love's delight, Not thy clear face of beauty glorious; For he who harbours virtue, still will choose To love what neither years nor death can blight. So fares it ever with things high and rare, Wrought in the sweat of nature; heaven above Showers on their birth the blessings of her prime; Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere More clearly than in human forms sublime; Which, since they image Him, compel my love. The same Platonic theme is slightly varied in the two followingsonnets:[424]-- SPIRTO BEN NATO Choice soul, in whom, as in a glass, we see, Mirrored in thy pure form and delicate, What beauties heaven and nature can create, The paragon of all their works to be! Fair soul, in whom love, pity, piety, Have found a home, as from thy outward state We clearly read, and are so rare and great That they adorn none other like to thee! Love takes me captive; beauty binds my soul; Pity and mercy with their gentle eyes Wake in my heart a hope that cannot cheat. What law, what destiny, what fell control, What cruelty, or late or soon, denies That death should spare perfection so complete? DAI DOLCE PIANTO From sweet laments to bitter joys, from peace Eternal to a brief and hollow truce, How have I fallen!--when 'tis truth we lose, Mere sense survives our reason's dear decease. I know not if my heart bred this disease, That still more pleasing grows with growing use; Or else thy face, thine eyes, in which the hues And fires of Paradise dart ecstasies. Thy beauty is no mortal thing; 'twas sent From heaven on high to make our earth divine: Wherefore, though wasting, burning, I'm content; For in thy sight what could I do but pine? If God Himself thus rules my destiny, Who, when I die, can lay the blame on thee? The next is saddened by old age and death. Love has yielded to piety, andis only remembered as what used to be. Yet in form and feeling this isquite one of the most beautiful in the series supposed to refer toVittoria Colonna:[425]-- TORNAMI AL TEMPO Bring back the time when blind desire ran free, With bit and rein too loose to curb his flight; Give back the buried face, once angel-bright, That hides in earth all comely things from me; Bring back those journeys ta'en so toilsomely, So toilsome-slow to him whose hairs are white; Those tears and flames that in one breast unite; If thou wilt once more take thy fill of me! Yet Love! Suppose it true that thou dost thrive Only on bitter honey-dews of tears, Small profit hast thou of a weak old man. My soul that toward the other shore doth strive, Wards off thy darts with shafts of holier fears; And fire feeds ill on brands no breath can fan. After this it only remains to quote the celebrated sonnet used by Varchifor his dissertation, the best known of all Michael Angelo's poems. [426]The thought is this: just as a sculptor hews from a block of marble theform that lies concealed within, so the lover has to extract from hislady's heart the life or death of his soul, NON HA L'OTTIMO ARTISTA The best of artists hath no thought to show Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell Doth not include: to break the marble spell Is all the hand that serves the brain can do. The ill I shun, the good I seek, even so In thee, fair lady, proud, ineffable, Lies hidden: but the art I wield so well Works adverse to my wish, and lays me low. Therefore not love, nor thy transcendent face, Nor cruelty, nor fortune, nor disdain, Cause my mischance, nor fate, nor destiny: Since in thy heart thou carriest death and grace Enclosed together, and my worthless brain Can draw forth only death to feed on me. The fire of youth was not extinct, we feel, after reading these lastsonnets. There is, indeed, an almost pathetic intensity of passion in therecurrence of Michael Angelo's thoughts to a sublime love on the verge ofthe grave. Not less important in their bearing on his state of feeling arethe sonnets addressed to Cavalieri; and though his modern editor shrinksfrom putting a literal interpretation upon them, I am convinced that wemust accept them simply as an expression of the artist's homage for theworth and beauty of an excellent young man. The two sonnets I intend toquote next[427] were written, according to Varchi's direct testimony, forTommaso Cavalieri, "in whom"--the words are Varchi's--"I discovered, besides incomparable personal beauty, so much charm of nature, suchexcellent abilities, and such a graceful manner, that he deserved, andstill deserves, to be the better loved the more he is known. " The play ofwords upon Cavalieri's name in the last line of the first sonnet, theevidence of Varchi, and the indirect witness of Condivi, together withMichael Angelo's own letters, [428] are sufficient in my judgment towarrant the explanation I have given above. Nor do I think that the doubtsexpressed by Guasti about the intention of the sonnets, [429] or Gotti'scurious theory that the letters, though addressed to Cavalieri, were meantfor Vittoria Colonna, [430] are much more honourable to Michael Angelo'sreputation than the garbling process whereby the verses were renderedunintelligible in the edition of 1623. A CHE PIÙ DEBB' IO Why should I seek to ease intense desire With still more tears and windy words of grief, When heaven, or late or soon, sends no relief To souls whom love hath robed around with fire? Why need my aching heart to death aspire When all must die? Nay, death beyond belief Unto these eyes would be both sweet and brief, Since in my sum of woes all joys expire! Therefore because I cannot shun the blow I rather seek, say who must rule my breast, Gliding between her gladness and her woe? If only chains and bands can make me blest, No marvel if alone and bare I go An armed Knight's captive and slave confessed. VEGGIO CO' BEI VOSTRI OCCHI With your fair eyes a charming light I see, For which my own blind eyes would peer in vain; Stayed by your feet the burden I sustain Which my lame feet find all too strong for me; Wingless upon your pinions forth I fly; Heavenward your spirit stirreth me to strain; E'en as you will, I blush and blanch again, Freeze in the sun, burn 'neath a frosty sky. Your will includes and is the lord of mine; Life to my thoughts within your heart is given; My words begin to breathe upon your breath: Like to the moon am I, that cannot shine Alone; for lo! our eyes see nought in heaven Save what the living sun illumineth. Whether we are justified in assigning the following pair to the Cavalieriseries is more doubtful. They seem, however, to proceed from a similarmood of the poet's mind. [431] S' UN CASTO AMOR If love be chaste, if virtue conquer ill, If fortune bind both lovers in one bond, If either at the other's grief despond, If both be governed by one life, one will; If in two bodies one soul triumph still, Raising the twain from earth to heaven beyond, If love with one blow and one golden wand Have power both smitten breasts to pierce and thrill; If each the other love, himself foregoing, With such delight, such savour, and so well, That both to one sole end their wills combine; If thousands of these thoughts all thought outgoing Fail the least part of their firm love to tell; Say, can mere angry spite this knot untwine? COLUI CHE FECE He who ordained, when first the world began, Time that was not before creation's hour, Divided it, and gave the sun's high power To rule the one, the moon the other span: Thence fate and changeful chance and fortune's ban Did in one moment down on mortals shower: To me they portioned darkness for a dower; Dark hath my lot been since I was a man. Myself am ever mine own counterfeit; And as deep night grows still more dim and dun, So still of more mis-doing must I rue: Meanwhile this solace to my soul is sweet, That my black night doth make more clear the sun Which at your birth was given to wait on you. A sonnet written for Luigi del Riccio, on the death of his friend CecchinoBracci, is curious on account of its conceit. [432] Michael Angelo says:"Cecchino, whom you loved, is dead; and if I am to make his portrait, Ican only do so by drawing you, in whom he still lives. " Here, again, wetrace the Platonic conception of love as nothing if not spiritual, and ofbeauty as a form that finds its immortality within the lover's soul. ThisCecchino was a boy who died at the age of seventeen. Michael Angelo wrotehis epicedion in several centuries of verses, distributed among hisfriends in the form of what he terms _polizzini_, as though they weretrifles. A PENA PRIMA Scarce had I seen for the first time his eyes Which to thy living eyes are life and light, When closed at last in death's injurious night He opened them on God in Paradise. I know it and I weep, too late made wise: Yet was the fault not mine; for death's fell spite Robbed my desire of that supreme delight, Which in thy better memory never dies. Therefore, Luigi, if the task be mine To make unique Cecchino smile in stone For ever, now that earth hath made him dim, If the beloved within the lover shine, Since art without him cannot work alone, Thee must I carve to tell the world of him. In contrast with the philosophical obscurity of many of the sonnetshitherto quoted, I place the following address to Night--one, certainly, of Michael Angelo's most beautiful and characteristic compositions, as itis also the most transparent in style[433]:-- O NOTT', O DOLCE TEMPO O night, O sweet though sombre span of time!-- All things find rest upon their journey's end-- Whoso hath praised thee, well doth apprehend; And whoso honours thee, hath wisdom's prime. Our cares thou canst to quietude sublime, For dews and darkness are of peace the friend; Often by thee in dreams upborne I wend From earth to heaven, where yet I hope to climb. Thou shade of Death, through whom the soul at length Shuns pain and sadness hostile to the heart, Whom mourners find their last and sure relief! Thou dost restore our suffering flesh to strength, Driest our tears, assuagest every smart, Purging the spirits of the pure from grief. The religious sonnets have been reserved to the last. These were composedin old age, when the early impressions of Savonarola's teaching revived, and when Michael Angelo had grown to regard even his art and the beauty hehad loved go purely, as a snare. If we did not bear in mind the pietyexpressed throughout his correspondence, their ascetic tone, and theremorse they seem to indicate, would convey a painful sense ofcheerlessness and disappointment. As it is, they strike me as the naturalutterance of a profoundly devout and somewhat melancholy man, in whomreligion has survived all other interests, and who, reviewing his pastlife of fame and toil, finds that the sole reality is God. The two firstof these compositions are addressed to Giorgio Vasari. [434] GIUNIO È GIÀ Now hath my life across a stormy sea Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all Are bidden ere the final judgment fall, Of good or evil deeds to pay the fee. Now know I well how that fond phantasy Which made my soul the worshipper and thrall Of earthly art, is vain; how criminal Is that which all men seek unwillingly. Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed, What are they when the double death is nigh? The one I know for sure, the other dread. Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest My soul that turns to His great love on high, Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread. LE FAVOLE DEL MONDO The fables of the world have filched away The time I had for thinking upon God; His grace lies buried deep 'neath oblivion's sod, Whence springs an evil-crop of sins alway. What makes another wise, leads me astray, Slow to discern the bad path I have trod: Hope fades; but still desire ascends that God May free me from self-love, my sure decay. Shorten half-way my road to heaven from earth? Dear Lord, I cannot even half-way rise, Unless Thou help me on this pilgrimage: Teach me to hate the world so little worth, And all the lovely things I once did prize; That endless life, not death, may be my wage. The same note is struck in the following, which breathes the spirit of aPenitential Psalm:[435]-- CARICO D' ANNI Burdened with years and full of sinfulness, With evil custom grown inveterate, Both deaths I dread that close before me wait, Yet feed my heart on poisonous thoughts no less. No strength I find in mine own feebleness To change or life or love or use or fate, Unless Thy heavenly guidance come, though late, Which only helps and stays our nothingness. 'Tis not enough, dear Lord, to make me yearn For that celestial home, where yet my soul May be new made, and not, as erst, of nought: Nay, ere Thou strip her mortal vestment, turn My steps toward the steep ascent, that whole And pure before Thy face she may be brought. In reading the two next, we may remember that, at the end of his life, Michael Angelo was occupied with designs for a picture of the Crucifixion, which he never executed, though he gave a drawing of Christ upon the crossto Vittoria Colonna; and that his last work in marble was the unfinished"Pietà" in the Duomo at Florence. [436] SCARCO D' UN IMPORTUNA Freed from a burden sore and grievous band, Dear Lord, and from this wearying world untied, Like a frail bark I turn me to Thy side, As from a fierce storm to a tranquil land. Thy thorns, Thy nails, and either bleeding hand, With Thy mild gentle piteous face, provide Promise of help and mercies multiplied, And hope that yet my soul secure may stand. Let not Thy holy eyes be just to see My evil past, Thy chastened ears to hear And stretch the arm of judgment to my crime: Let Thy blood only lave and succour me, Yielding more perfect pardon, better cheer As older still I grow with lengthening time. NON FUR MEN LIETI Not less elate than smitten with wild woe To see not them but Thee by death undone, Were those blest souls, when Thou above the sun Didst raise, by dying, men that lay so low: Elate, since freedom from all ills that flow From their first fault for Adam's race was won; Sore smitten, since in torment fierce God's son Served servants on the cruel cross below. Heaven showed she knew Thee, who Thou wert and whence, Veiling her eyes above the riven earth; The mountains trembled and the seas were troubled: He took the Fathers from hell's darkness dense: The torments of the damned fiends redoubled: Man only joyed, who gained baptismal birth. The collection of his poems is closed with yet another sonnet in the samelofty strain of prayer, and faith, and hope in God. [437] MENTRE M' ATTRISTA Mid weariness and woe I find some cheer In thinking of the past, when I recall My weakness and my sins and reckon all The vain expense of days that disappear: This cheers by making, ere I die, more clear The frailty of what men delight miscall; But saddens me to think how rarely fall God's grace and mercies in life's latest year. For though Thy promises our faith compel, Yet, Lord, what man shall venture to maintain That pity will condone our long neglect? Still, from Thy blood poured forth we know full well How without measure was Thy martyr's pain, How measureless the gifts we dare expect. From the thought of Dante, through Plato, to the thought of Christ: so ourstudy of Michael Angelo's sonnets has carried us. In communion with thesehighest souls Michael Angelo habitually lived; for he was born of theirlineage, and was like them a lifelong alien on the earth. FOOTNOTES: [412] See Guasti's _Rime di Michel Agnolo Buonarrote_, Firenzi, 1863, p. 189. The future references will be made to that edition. [413] "I can translate, and have translated, two books of Ariosto at therate nearly of one hundred lines a day; but so much meaning has been putby Michael Angelo into so little room, and that meaning sometimes soexcellent in itself, that I found the difficulty of translating himinsurmountable. "--Note to Wordsworth's English version of some sonnets ofMichael Angelo. [414] See above, Chapter VIII, The Pietà. [415] See Gotti's Life, p. 48, and Giannotti's works (Firenze, LeMonnier, 1850), quoted by Gotti, pp. 249-257. [416] See Appendix to Gotti's Life, No. 25. [417] See Gotti's Life, p. 256. [418] Guasti, pp. 153-155. [419] Guasti, pp. 156, 167. [420] Guasti, p. 158. [421] See above, Chapter VIII, Vittoria Colonna. [422] Guasti, p. 226. [423] Guasti, p. 218. [424] _Ib. _ pp. 182, 210. [425] Guasti, p. 212. [426] Delivered before the Florentine Academy in 1546. See Guasti, p. 173, for the sonnet, and p. Lxxv. For the dissertation. See also Gotti, p. 249, for Michael Angelo's remarks upon the latter. [427] Guasti, pp. 189, 188. [428] See _Archivio Buonarroti_; and above, p. 318, note 2. [429] _Rime_, p. Xlv. [430] Gotti's Life, pp. 231-233. [431] Guasti, pp. 190-202. [432] Ib. P. 162. [433] Guasti, p. 205. [434] Guasti, pp. 230-232. [435] Guasti, pp. 244, 245. [436] Ib. Pp. 241-245. [437] Guasti, p. 246. APPENDIX III _Chronological Tables of the Principal Artists mentioned in this Volume_ The lists which follow have been, drawn up with a view to assisting thereader of my chapters on Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting. I haveonly included the more prominent names; and these I have placed in theorder of their occurrence in the foregoing pages. In compiling them, Ihave consulted the Index to Le Monnier's edition of Vasari (1870), Croweand Cavalcaselle's "History of Painting, " and Milizia's "Dictionary ofArchitects. " _ARCHITECTS_ Name Born DiedArnolfo di Cambio 1210 1311Giotto di Bondone 1276 1337Andrea Orcagna -- about 1369Filippo Brunelleschi 1377 1446Leo Battista Alberti 1405 1472Michellozzo Michellozzi 1391 1472Benedetto da Majano 1442 1497Giuliano di San Gallo 1445 1516Antonio di San Gallo 1455 1534?Antonio Filarete -- 1465?Bramante Lazzari 1444 1514Cristoforo Rocchi -- --Ventura Vitoni -- --Raffaello Santi 1483 1520Giulio Romano 1499 1546Baldassare Peruzzi 1481 1536Jacopo Sansovino 1477 1570Michele Sanmicheli 1484 1559Baccio d'Agnolo 1462 1543Michael Angelo Buonarroti 1475 1564Andrea Palladio 1518 1580Giacomo Barozzi 1507 1573Vincenzo Scamozzi 1552 1616Galeazzo Alessi 1500 1572Bartolommeo Ammanati 1511 1592 _SCULPTORS_ Name Born DiedNiccola Pisano after 1200 1278Giovanni Pisano about 1240 1320Lorenzo Maitani -- 1330Andrea Pisano about 1273 about 1349Giotto di Bondone 1276 1337Nino Pisano -- about 1360Giovanni Balduccio about 1300 about 1347Filippo Calendario -- 1355Andrea Orcagna -- about 1369Lorenzo Ghiberti 1378 1455Giacomo della Quercia 1374 1438Filippo Brunelleschi 1377 1446Donatello 1366 1466Andrea Verocchio 1435 1488Alessandro Leopardi -- after 1522Antonio Pollajuolo 1429 1498Piero Pollajuolo 1441 1489?Luca della Robbia 1400 1482Agostino di Duccio -- after 1461Antonio Rossellino 1427 1478?Matteo Civitali 1435 1501Mino da Fiesole 1431 1484Desiderio da Settignano 1428 1464Guido Mazzoni -- 1518Antonio Begarelli 1479 about 1565Antonio Amadeo 1447? about 1520Andrea Contucci 1460 1529Jacopo Sansovino 1477 1570Michael Angelo Buonarroti 1475 1564Raffaello da Montelupo 1505 1567Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli 1507 1563Baccio Bandinelli 1493 1560Bartolommeo Ammanati 1511 1592Benvenuto Cellini 1500 1571Gian Bologna 1524 1608 _PAINTERS_ Name Born DiedGiovanni Cimabue 1240? 1302?Giotto di Bondone 1276 1337Andrea Orcagna -- about 1369Ambrogio Lorenzetti -- about 1348Pietro Lorenzetti -- about 1350Taddeo Gaddi about 1300 1366Francesco Traini -- after 1378Duccio di Buoninsegna -- about 1320Simone Martini 1285? 1344Taddeo di Bartolo about 1362 1422Spinello Aretino -- 1410Masolino da Panicale 1384 1447?Masaccio 1402 1429Paolo Uccello 1397 1475Andrea del Castagno 1396 1457Piero della Francesca 1420? 1506?Melozzo da Forli about 1438 1494Francesco Squarcione 1394 1474Gentile da Fabriano about 1370 about 1450Fra Angelico 1387 1455Benozzo Gozzoli 1420 1498Lippo Lippi 1412? 1469Filippino Lippi 1457 1504Sandro Botticelli 1447 1510Piero di Cosimo 1462 1521?Domenico Ghirlandajo 1449 before 1498Andrea Mantegna 1431 1506Luca Signorelli about 1441 1523Pietro Perugino 1446 1524Bernardo Pinturicchio 1454 1513Francesco Francia 1450 1517Fra Bartolommeo 1475 1517Mariotto Albertinelli 1474 1515Lionardo da Vinci 1452 1519Raffaello Santi 1483 1520Antonio Allegri da Correggio 1494? 1534Michael Angelo Buonarroti 1475 1564Bartolommeo Vivarini -- after 1499Jacopo Bellini 1400? 1464?Gentile Bellini 1426 1507Vittore Carpaccio -- after 1519Giovanni Bellini 1427 1516Giorgione 1478 1511Tiziano Vecelli 1477 1576Paolo Veronese 1530 1588Tintoretto 1512 1594Giovanni Antonio Beltraffio 1467 1516Marco d' Oggiono about 1470 1530Cesare da Sesto -- about 1524Bernardino Luini about 1460 after 1530Gaudenzio Ferrari 1484 1549Giulio Romano 1499 1546Giovanni da Udine 1487 1564Perino del Vaga 1499 1547Marcello Venusti -- about 1584Sebastian del Piombo 1485 1547Daniele da Volterra about 1509 1566Il Parmigianino 1504 1540Federigo Baroccio 1528 1612Andrea del Sarto 1487 1531Jacopo Pontormo 1494 1557Angelo Bronzino 1502 1572Il Sodoma 1477 1549Baldassare Peruzzi 1481 1536Domenico Beccafumi 1486 1551Benvenuto Garofalo 1481 1559Dosso Dossi about 1479 1542Il Moretto about 1500 after 1556Giovanni Battista Moroni 1510 1578Giorgio Vasari 1511 1574 [Transcribers Note: The references in the Footnotes which contain the text"See Chapter" were depicted in the original text as page numbers. Theyhave been changed to the paragraph heading for that page as marked inthe Chapter Headings in this text version. ]