An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 35

[Sidenote: The humanists.]

122. Those who devoted themselves to the study and imitation first of Roman, and later of Greek literature, are commonly called _humanists_, a name derived from the Latin word _humanitas_; that is, culture, especially in the sense of literary appreciation. They no longer paid much attention to Peter Lombard's _Sentences_. They had, indeed, little taste for theology, but looked to Cicero for all those accomplishments which go to the making of a man of refinement.

[Sidenote: Reason for the enthusiastic study of the cla.s.sics.]

The _humanities_, as Greek and Latin are still called, became almost a new religion among the Italian scholars during the century following Petrarch's death. In order to understand their exclusive attention to ancient literature we must remember that they did not have a great many of the books that we prize most highly nowadays. Now, every nation of Europe has an extensive literature in its own particular tongue, which all can read. Besides admirable translations of all the works of antiquity, there are innumerable masterpieces, like those of Shakespeare, Voltaire, and Goethe, which were unheard of four centuries ago. Consequently we can now acquaint ourselves with a great part of the best that has been written in all ages without knowing either Latin or Greek. The Middle Ages enjoyed no such advantage. So when men began to tire of theology, logic, and Aristotle's scientific treatises, they naturally turned back with single-hearted enthusiasm to the age of Augustus, and, later, to that of Pericles, for their models of literary style and for their ideals of life and conduct.

[Sidenote: Pagan tendencies of the Italian humanists.]

A sympathetic study of the pagan authors led many of the humanists to reject the mediaeval view of the relation of this life to the next.[225]

They reverted to the teachings of Horace and ridiculed the self-sacrifice of the monk. They declared that it was right to make the most of life's pleasures and needless to worry about the world to come.

In some cases the humanists openly attacked the teachings of the Church, but generally they remained outwardly loyal to it and many of them even found positions among the officers of the papal curia.

[Sidenote: The cla.s.sics become the basis of a liberal education.]

Humanism produced a revolution in the idea of a liberal education. In the sixteenth century, through the influence of those who visited Italy, the schools of Germany, England, and France began to make Latin and Greek literature, rather than logic and other mediaeval subjects, the basis of their college course. It is only within the last generation that Latin and Greek have begun to be replaced in our colleges by a variety of scientific and historical studies; and many would still maintain, with the humanists of the fifteenth century, that Latin and Greek are better worth studying than any other subjects.

[Sidenote: Ignorance of Greek in the Middle Ages.]

The humanists of the fourteenth century ordinarily knew no Greek. Some knowledge of that language lingered in the West all through the Middle Ages, but we hear of no one attempting to read Plato, Demosthenes, aeschylus, or even Homer, and these authors were scarcely ever found in the libraries. Petrarch and his followers were naturally much interested in the constant references to Greek literature which occur in Cicero and Horace, both of whom freely recognized their debt to Athens. Shortly after Petrarch's death the city of Florence called to its university a professor of Greek, Chrysoloras from Constantinople.

[Sidenote: Revival of Greek studies in Italy.]

[Sidenote: Chrysoloras in Florence.]

A young Florentine law student, Leonardo Bruni, tells us of a dialogue which he had with himself when he heard of the coming of Chrysoloras.

"Art thou not neglecting thy best interests if thou failest now to get an insight into Homer, Plato, Demosthenes, and the other great poets, philosophers, and orators of whom they are telling such wonderful things? Thou, too, mightest commune with them and imbue thyself with their wisdom. Wouldst thou let the golden opportunity slip? For seven hundred years no one in Italy has known Greek literature, and yet we agree that all language comes from the Greeks. How greatly would familiarity with that language advantage thee in promoting thy knowledge and in the mere increase of thy pleasure? There are teachers of Roman law to be found everywhere, and thou wilt never want an opportunity to continue that study, but there is but one teacher of Greek, and if he escapes thee there will be no one from whom thou canst learn."

[Sidenote: The knowledge of Greek becomes common in Europe.]

Many students took advantage of the opportunity to study Greek, and Chrysoloras prepared the first modern Greek grammar for their use.

Before long the Greek cla.s.sics became as well known as the Latin.

Italians even went to Constantinople to learn the language; and the diplomatic negotiations which the Eastern Church carried on with the Western, with the hope of gaining help against the Turks, brought some Greek scholars to Italy. In 1423 an Italian scholar arrived at Venice with no less than two hundred and thirty-eight Greek books, thus transplanting a whole literature to a new and fruitful soil.[226] Greek as well as Latin books were carefully copied and edited, and beautiful libraries were established by the Medici, the duke of Urbino, and Pope Nicholas V, who founded the great library of the Vatican,[227] still one of the most important collections of books in the world.

[Sidenote: Advantages of printing with movable types.]

123. It was the glory of the Italian humanists to revive the knowledge and appreciation of the ancient literatures, but it remained for patient experimenters in Germany and Holland to perfect a system by which books could be multiplied rapidly and cheaply. The laborious copying of books by hand[228] had several serious disadvantages. The best copyists were, it is true, incredibly dexterous with their quills, and made their letters as clear and small as if they had been printed. But the work was necessarily very slow. When Cosimo, the father of Lorenzo the Magnificent, wished to form a library, he applied to a book contractor, who procured forty-five copyists. By working hard for nearly two years these men were able to produce only two hundred volumes.

Moreover, it was impossible before the invention of printing to have two books exactly alike. Even with the greatest care a scribe could not hope to avoid all mistakes, and a careless copyist was sure to make a great many. The universities required their students to report immediately any mistakes discovered in their text-books, in order that the error might be promptly rectified and not lead to a misunderstanding of the author.

With the invention of printing it became possible to produce in a short time a great many copies of a given book which were exactly alike.

Consequently, if great care were taken to see that the types were properly set, the whole edition, not simply a single copy, might be relied upon as correct.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Closing Lines of the Psalter of 1459 (much reduced)[229]]

[Sidenote: The earliest printed books.]

[Sidenote: Black letter.]

[Sidenote: Roman letters.]

[Sidenote: Italics.]

The earliest book of any considerable size to be printed was the Bible, which appears to have been completed at Mayence in the year 1456. A year later the famous Mayence Psalter was finished, the first dated book.

There are, however, earlier examples of little books printed with engraved blocks and even with movable types. In the German towns, where the art spread rapidly, the printers adhered to the style of letters which the scribe had found it convenient to make with his quill--the so-called _Gothic_, or black letter.[230] In Italy, where the first printing press was set up in 1466, a type was soon adopted which resembled the letters used in ancient Roman inscriptions. This was quite similar to the style of letter commonly used to-day. The Italians also invented the compressed _italic_ type, which enabled them to get a great many words on a page. The early printers generally did their work conscientiously, and the very first book printed is in most respects as well done as any later book.

[Sidenote: Importance of Italian art in the Renaissance period.]

124. The stimulus of the antique ideals of beauty and the renewed interest in man and nature is nowhere more apparent than in the art of the Renaissance period in Italy. The bonds of tradition, which had hampered mediaeval art,[231] were broken. The painters and sculptors continued, it is true, to depict the same religious subjects which their mediaeval predecessors had chosen. But in the fourteenth century the Italian artists began to draw their inspiration from the fragments of antique art which they found about them and from the world full of life and beauty in which they lived. Above all, they gave freer rein to their own imagination. The tastes and ideals of the individual artist were no longer repressed but became the dominant element in his work. The history of art becomes, during the Renaissance, a history of artists.

[Sidenote: Italian architecture.]

[Sidenote: Italy inherits the art of Greece and Rome.]

The Gothic style in architecture had never taken root in Italy. The Italians had continued to build their churches in a more or less modified Romanesque[232] form. While the soaring arches and delicate tracery of the Gothic cathedral had become the ideal of the North, in Italy the curving lines and harmonious proportions of the dome inspired the best efforts of the Renaissance builders. They borrowed many fine details, such as capitals and cornices, from the antique, and also--what was far more important--the simplicity and beauty of proportion which characterized cla.s.sical architecture. Just as Italy had inherited, in a special sense, the traditions of cla.s.sical literature, so it was natural that it should be more directly affected than the rest of Europe by the remains of Greek and Roman art. It is in harmony of proportion and beauty of detail that the great charm of the best Renaissance buildings consists.

[Sidenote: Niccola of Pisa, 1206-1280.]

It is, perhaps, in sculpture that the influence of the antique models was earliest and most obviously shown. The sculptor, Niccola of Pisa (Niccola Pisano), stands out as the first distinguished leader in the forward movement. It is evident that he studied certain fragments of antique sculpture--a sarcophagus and a marble vase that had been found in Pisa--with the greatest care and enthusiasm. He frankly copied from them many details, and even several whole figures, in the reliefs on his most famous work, the pulpit in the baptistery at Pisa.[233] But while sculpture was the first of the arts to feel the new impetus, its progress was slow; it was not until the fifteenth century that it began, in Italy, to develop on wholly independent and original lines.

[Sidenote: Frescoes and easel pictures.]

The paintings of the period of the early Renaissance were usually frescoes; that is, they were painted directly upon the plaster walls of churches and sometimes of palaces. A few pictures, chiefly altar pieces, were executed on wooden panels, but it was not until the sixteenth century that easel paintings, that is, detached pictures on canvas, wood, or other material, became common.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Relief by Niccola of Pisa from Pulpit at Pisa, showing Influence of Antique Models]

[Sidenote: Giotto, 1266(?)-1337.]

In the fourteenth century there was an extraordinary development in the art of painting under the guidance and inspiration of the first great Italian painter, Giotto. Before his time the frescoes, like the illuminations in the ma.n.u.scripts of which we have spoken in a previous chapter, were exceedingly stiff and unlifelike. With Giotto there comes a change. Antique art did not furnish him with any models to copy, for whatever the ancients had accomplished in painting had been destroyed.[234] He had therefore to deal with the problems of his art unaided, and of course he could only begin their solution. His trees and landscapes look like caricatures, his faces are all much alike, the garments hang in stiff straight folds. But he aimed to do what the earlier painters apparently did not dream of doing--that is, paint living, thinking, feeling men and women. He was not even satisfied to confine himself to the old biblical subjects. Among his most famous frescoes are the scenes from the life of St. Francis,[235] a theme which appealed very strongly to the imagination of people and artists alike all through the fourteenth century.

[Sidenote: Renaissance artists often practiced several arts.]

Giotto's dominating influence upon the art of his century is due partly to the fact that he was a builder as well as a painter, and also designed reliefs for sculpture. This practicing of several different arts by the same artist was one of the striking features of the Renaissance period.

[Sidenote: Italian art in the fifteenth century.]

125. During the fifteenth century, which is known as the period of the Early Renaissance, art in Italy developed and progressed steadily, surely, and with comparative rapidity, toward the glorious heights of achievement which it reached in the following century. The traditions of the Middle Ages were wholly thrown aside, the lessons of ancient art thoroughly learned. As the artists became more complete masters of their tools and of all the technical processes of their art, they found themselves ever freer to express in their work what they saw and felt.

[Sidenote: Florence the art center of Italy.]

Florence was the great center of artistic activity during the fifteenth century. The greatest sculptors and almost all of the most famous painters and architects of the time either were natives of Florence or did their best work there. During the first half of the century sculpture again took the lead. The bronze doors of the baptistery at Florence by Ghiberti, which were completed about 1450, are among the very best products of Renaissance sculpture. Michael Angelo declared them worthy to be the doors of paradise. A comparison of them with the doors of the cathedral of Pisa, which date from the end of the twelfth century, furnishes a striking ill.u.s.tration of the change that had taken place. A contemporary of Ghiberti, Luca della Robbia (1400-1482), is celebrated for his beautiful reliefs in glazed baked clay and in marble, of which many may be seen in Florence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRONZE DOORS OF THE CATHEDRAL AT PISA

(TWELFTH CENTURY)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GHIBERTI'S DOORS AT FLORENCE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Relief by Luca della Robbia]