Renaissance in Italy Volume 3 | Page 3

the Student of History,
Manners, and Character in the Renaissance--Birth, Parentage, and
Boyhood--Flute-playing--Apprenticeship to
Marcone--Wanderjahr--The Goldsmith's Trade at Florence--Torrigiani
and England--Cellini leaves Florence for Rome--Quarrel with the
Guasconti--Homicidal Fury--Cellini a Law to Himself--Three Periods
in his Manhood--Life in Rome--Diego at the Banquet--Renaissance
Feeling for Physical Beauty--Sack of Rome--Miracles in Cellini's
Life--His Affections--Murder of his Brother's
Assassin--Sanctuary--Pardon and Absolution--Incantation in the
Colosseum--First Visit to France--Adventures on the Way--Accused of
stealing Crown Jewels in Rome--Imprisonment in the Castle of S.
Angelo--The Governor--Cellini's Escape--His Visions--The Nature of
his Religion--Second Visit to France--The Wandering Court--Le Petit
Nesle--Cellini in the French Law Courts--Scene at
Fontainebleau--Return to Florence--Cosimo de' Medici as a
Patron--Intrigues of a Petty Court--Bandinelli--The Duchess--Statue of
Perseus--End of Cellini's Life--Cellini and Machiavelli.
CHAPTER X
THE EPIGONI
Full Development and Decline of Painting--Exhaustion of the old
Motives--Relation of Lionardo to his Pupils--His Legacy to the
Lombard School--Bernardino Luini--Gaudenzio Ferrari--The Devotion
of the Sacri Monti--The School of Raphael--Nothing left but
Imitation--Unwholesome Influences of Rome--Giulio
Romano--Michael Angelesque Mannerists--Misconception of Michael
Angelo--Correggio founds no School--Parmigianino--Macchinisti--The
Bolognese--After-growth of Art in Florence--Andrea del Sarto--His
Followers--Pontormo--Bronzino--Revival of Painting in
Siena--Sodoma--His Influence on Pacchia, Beccafumi,
Peruzzi--Garofalo and Dosso Dossi at Ferrari--The Campi at
Cremona--Brescia and Bergamo--The Decadence in the second half of
the Sixteenth Century--The Counter-Reformation--Extinction of the
Renaissance Impulse.

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
of Literature--Painting the Supreme Italian Art--Its Task in the
Renaissance--Christian and Classical Traditions--Sculpture for the
Ancients--Painting for the Romance Nations--Mediaeval Faith and
Superstition--The Promise of Painting--How far can the Figurative Arts
express Christian Ideas?--Greek and Christian Religion--Plastic Art
incapable of solving the Problem--A more Emotional Art
needed--Place of Sculpture in the Renaissance--Painting and Christian
Story--Humanization of Ecclesiastical Ideas by Art--Hostility of the
Spirit of True Piety to Art--Compromises effected by the Church--Fra
Bartolommeo's S. Sebastian--Irreconcilability of Art and Theology, Art
and Philosophy--Recapitulation--Art in the end Paganises--Music--The
Future of Painting after the Renaissance.
It has been granted only to two nations, the Greeks and the Italians, and
to the latter only at the time of the Renaissance, to invest every phase
and variety of intellectual energy with the form of art. Nothing notable
was produced in Italy between the thirteenth and the seventeenth
centuries that did not bear the stamp and character of fine art. If the
methods of science may be truly said to regulate our modes of thinking
at the present time, it is no less true that, during the Renaissance, art
exercised a like controlling influence. Not only was each department of

the fine arts practised with singular success; not only was the national
genius to a very large extent absorbed in painting, sculpture, and
architecture; but the aesthetic impulse was more subtly and widely
diffused than this alone would imply. It possessed the Italians in the
very centre of their intellectual vitality, imposing its conditions on all
the manifestations of their thought and feeling, so that even their
shortcomings may be ascribed in a great measure to their inability to
quit the aesthetic point of view.
We see this in their literature. It is probable that none but artistic
natures will ever render full justice to the poetry of the Renaissance.
Critics endowed with a less lively sensibility to beauty of outline and to
harmony of form than the Italians, complain that their poetry lacks
substantial qualities; nor is it except by long familiarity with the plastic
arts of their contemporaries that we come to understand the ground
assumed by Ariosto and Poliziano. We then perceive that these poets
were not so much unable as instinctively unwilling to go beyond a
certain circle 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
might successfully aspire. A succession of pictures, harmoniously
composed and delicately toned to please the mental eye, satisfied the
taste of the Italians. But, however exquisite in design, rich in colour,
and complete in execution this literary work may be, it strikes a
Northern student as wanting in the highest elements of
genius--sublimity of imagination, dramatic passion, energy and
earnestness of purpose. In like manner, he finds it hard to appreciate
those didactic compositions on trifling or prosaic themes, which
delighted the Italians for the very reason that their workmanship
surpassed their matter. These defects, as we judge them, are still more
apparent in the graver branches of literature. In an essay or a treatise we
do not so much care for well-balanced disposition of parts or
beautifully rounded periods, though elegance may be thought essential
to classic masterpieces, as for weighty matter and trenchant
observations. Having the latter, we can dispense at