An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 36

One of the best known painters of the first half of the fifteenth century, Fra[236] Angelico, was a monk. His frescoes on the walls of the monastery of San Marco (and elsewhere) reflect a love of beauty and a cheerful piety, in striking contrast to the fiery zeal of Savonarola,[237] who, later in the century, went forth from this same monastery to denounce the vanities of the art-loving Florentines.[238]

[Sidenote: Rome becomes the center of artistic activity.]

126. Florence reached the height of its preeminence as an art center during the reign of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was an ardent patron of all the arts. With his death (1492), and the subsequent brief but overwhelming influence of Savonarola, this preeminence pa.s.sed to Rome, which was fast becoming one of the great capitals of Europe. The art-loving popes, Julius II and Leo X,[239] took pains to secure the services of the most distinguished artists and architects of the time in the building and adornment of St. Peter's and the Vatican, i.e., the papal church and palace.

[Sidenote: The church of St. Peter.]

The idea of the dome as the central feature of a church, which appealed so strongly to the architects of the Renaissance, reached its highest realization in rebuilding the ancient church of St. Peter. The task was begun in the fifteenth century; in 1506 it was taken up by Pope Julius II with his usual energy, and it was continued all through the sixteenth century and well into the seventeenth, under the direction of a succession of the most famous artist-architects of the time, including Raphael and Michael Angelo. The plan was changed repeatedly, but in its final form the building is a Latin cross surmounted by a great dome, one hundred and thirty-eight feet in diameter. The dimensions and proportions of this greatest of all churches never fail to impress the beholder with something like awe.

[Sidenote: Height of Renaissance art.]

[Sidenote: Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael.]

During the sixteenth century the art of the Renaissance reached its highest development. Among all the great artists of this period three stand out in heroic proportions--Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, and Raphael. The first two not only practiced, but achieved almost equal distinction in, the three arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting.[240] It is impossible to give in a few lines any idea of the beauty and significance of the work of these great geniuses. Both Raphael and Michael Angelo left behind them so many and such magnificent frescoes and paintings, and in the case of Michael Angelo statues as well, that it is easy to appreciate their importance. Leonardo, on the other hand, left but little completed work. His influence on the art of his time, which was probably greater than that of either of the others, came from his many-sidedness, his originality, and his unflagging interest in the discovery and application of new methods. He was almost more experimenter than artist.

[Ill.u.s.tration: St. Peter's and the Vatican, Rome]

[Sidenote: The Venetian school.]

[Sidenote: t.i.tian, 1477-1576.]

While Florence could no longer boast of being the art center of Italy, it still produced great artists, among whom Andrea del Sarto may be especially mentioned.[241] But the most important center of artistic activity outside of Rome in the sixteenth century was Venice. The distinguishing characteristic of the Venetian pictures is their glowing color. This is strikingly exemplified in the paintings of t.i.tian, the most famous of all the Venetian painters.

[Sidenote: Painting in northern Europe.]

[Sidenote: Durer, 1471-1528.]

It was natural that artists from the northern countries should be attracted by the renown of the Italian masters and, after learning all that Italy could teach them, should return home to practice their art in their own particular fashion. About a century after Giotto's time two Flemish brothers, Van Eyck by name, showed that they were not only able to paint quite as excellent pictures as the Italians of their day, but they also discovered a new way of mixing their colors superior to that employed in Italy. Later, when painting had reached its height in Italy, Albrecht Durer and Hans Holbein the Younger[242] in Germany vied with even Raphael and Michael Angelo in the mastery of their art. Durer is especially celebrated for his wonderful woodcuts and copperplate engravings, in which field he has perhaps never been excelled.[243]

[Sidenote: Rubens, 1577-1640, and Rembrandt, 1607-1669.]

[Sidenote: Van Dyck, 1599-1641, and his portraits.]

[Sidenote: Velasquez.]

When, in the seventeenth century, painting had declined south of the Alps, Dutch and Flemish masters,--above all, Rubens and Rembrandt,--developed a new and admirable school of painting. To Van Dyck, another Flemish master, we owe many n.o.ble portraits of historically important persons.[244] Spain gave to the world in the seventeenth century a painter whom some would rank higher than even the greatest artists of Italy, namely, Velasquez (1599-1660). His genius, like that of Van Dyck, is especially conspicuous in his marvellous portraits.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GIOTTO'S MADONNA]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOLY FAMILY BY ANDREA DEL SARTO]

[Sidenote: Geographical knowledge in the Middle Ages.]

[Sidenote: Marco Polo.]

127. Shortly after the invention of printing, which promised so much for the diffusion of knowledge, the horizon of western Europe was further enlarged by a series of remarkable sea voyages which led to the exploration of the whole globe. The Greeks and Romans knew little about the world beyond southern Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia; and much that they knew was forgotten during the Middle Ages. The Crusades took many Europeans as far east as Egypt and Syria. As early as Dante's time two Venetian merchants, the Polo brothers, visited China and were kindly received at Pekin by the emperor of the Mongols. On a second journey they were accompanied by Marco Polo, the son of one of the brothers. When they got safely back to Venice in 1295, after a journey of twenty years, Marco gave an account of his experiences which filled his readers with wonder. Nothing stimulated the interest of the West more than his fabulous description of the golden island of Zipangu (j.a.pan) and of the spice markets of the Moluccas and Ceylon.[245]

[Sidenote: The discoveries of the Portuguese in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.]

About the year 1318 Venice and Genoa opened up direct communication by sea with the towns of the Netherlands.[246] Their fleets, which touched at the port of Lisbon, aroused the commercial enterprise of the Portuguese, who soon began to undertake extended maritime expeditions.

By the middle of the fourteenth century they had discovered the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Azores. Before this time no one had ventured along the coast of Africa beyond the arid region of Sahara. The country was forbidding, there were no ports, and mariners were, moreover, hindered in their progress by the general belief that the torrid region was uninhabitable. In 1445, however, some adventurous sailors came within sight of a headland beyond the desert and, struck by its luxuriant growth of tropical trees, they called it Cape Verde (the green cape). Its discovery put an end once for all to the idea that there were only parched deserts to the south.

For a generation longer the Portuguese continued to venture farther and farther along the coast, in the hope of finding it coming to an end, so that they might make their way by sea to India. At last, in 1486, Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Twelve years later (1498) Vasco da Gama, spurred on by Columbus' great discovery, after sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and northward beyond Zanzibar, steered straight across the Indian Ocean and reached Calicut, in Hindustan, by sea.

[Sidenote: The spice trade.]

These adventurers were looked upon with natural suspicion by the Mohammedan spice merchants, who knew very well that their object was to establish a direct trade between the spice islands and western Europe.

Hitherto the Mohammedans had had the monopoly of the spice trade between the Moluccas and the eastern ports of the Mediterranean, where the products were handed over to Italian merchants. The Mohammedans were unable, however, to prevent the Portuguese from concluding treaties with the Indian princes and establishing trading stations at Goa and elsewhere. In 1512 a successor of Vasco da Gama reached Java and the Moluccas, where the Portuguese speedily built a fortress. By 1515 Portugal had become the greatest among maritime powers; and spices reached Lisbon regularly without the intervention of the Italian towns, which were mortally afflicted by the change.

[Sidenote: Importance of spices in encouraging navigation.]

There is no doubt that the desire to obtain spices was the main reason for the exploration of the globe. This motive led European navigators to try in succession every possible way to reach the East--by going around Africa, by sailing west in the hope of reaching the Indies, before they knew of the existence of America; then, after America was discovered, by sailing around it to the north or south, and even sailing around Europe to the north. It is hard for us to understand this enthusiasm for spices, for which we care much less nowadays. One former use of spices was to preserve food, which could not then as now be carried rapidly, while still fresh, from place to place; nor did our conveniences then exist for keeping it by the use of ice. Moreover, spice served to make even spoiled food more palatable than it would otherwise have been.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Voyages of Discovery]

[Sidenote: Idea of reaching the spice islands by sailing westward.]

It inevitably occurred to thoughtful men that the East Indies could be reached by sailing westward. The chief authority upon the form and size of the earth was still the ancient astronomer, Ptolemy, who lived about A.D. 150. He had reckoned the earth to be about one sixth smaller than it is; and as Marco Polo had given an exaggerated idea of the distance which he and his companions had traveled eastward, it was supposed that it could not be a very long journey from Europe across the Atlantic to j.a.pan.

[Sidenote: Columbus discovers America, 1492.]

The first plan for sailing west was, perhaps, submitted to the Portuguese king in 1474, by Toscanelli, a Florentine physician. In 1492, as we all know, a Genoese navigator, Columbus (b. 1451), who had had much experience on the sea, got together three little ships and undertook the journey westward to Zipangu, which he hoped to reach in five weeks. After thirty-two days from the time he left the Canary Islands he came upon land, the island of San Salvador, and believed himself to be in the East Indies. Going on from there he discovered the island of Cuba, which he believed to be the mainland of Asia, and then Haiti, which he mistook for the longed-for Zipangu. Although he made three later expeditions and sailed down the coast of South America as far as the Orinoco, he died without realizing that he had not been exploring the coast of Asia.[247]

[Sidenote: Magellan's expedition around the world.]

After the bold enterprises of Vasco da Gama and Columbus, an expedition headed by Magellan succeeded in circ.u.mnavigating the globe. There was now no reason why the new lands should not become more and more familiar to the European nations. The coast of North America was explored princ.i.p.ally by English navigators, who for over a century pressed north, still in the vain hope of finding a northwest pa.s.sage to the spice islands.

[Sidenote: The Spanish conquests in America.]

Cortez began the Spanish conquests in the western world by undertaking the subjugation of the Aztec empire in Mexico in 1519. A few years later Pizarro established the Spanish power in Peru. It is hardly necessary to say that Europeans exhibited an utter disregard for the rights of the people with whom they came in contact, and treated them with contemptuous cruelty. Spain now superseded Portugal as a maritime power and her importance in the sixteenth century is to be attributed largely to the wealth which came to her from her possessions in the New World.

[Sidenote: The Spanish main.]

By the end of the century the Spanish main--i.e., the northern coast of South America--was much frequented by adventurous seamen, who combined in about equal parts the occupations of merchant, slaver, and pirate.

Many of these hailed from English ports, and it is to them that England owes the beginning of her commercial greatness.[248]

[Sidenote: Copernicus (1473-1543) discovers that the earth is not the center of the universe.]

128. While Columbus and the Portuguese navigators were bringing hitherto unknown regions of the earth to the knowledge of Europe, a Polish astronomer, Kopernik (commonly known by his Latinized name, Copernicus), was reaching the conclusion that the ancient writers had been misled in supposing that the earth was the center of the universe. He discovered that, with the other planets, the earth revolved about the sun. This opened the way to an entirely new conception of the heavenly bodies and their motions, which has formed the basis of modern astronomy.

It was naturally a great shock to men to have it suggested that their dwelling place, instead of being G.o.d's greatest work to which He had subordinated everything, was but a tiny speck in comparison to the whole universe, and its sun but one of an innumerable host of similar bodies, each of which might have its particular family of planets revolving about it. Theologians, both Protestant and Catholic, declared the statements of Copernicus foolish and wicked and contrary to the teachings of the Bible. He was prudent enough to defer the publication of his great work until just before his death; he thus escaped any persecution to which his discovery might have subjected him.

[Sidenote: Miscellaneous inventions.]

In addition to the various forms of progress of which we have spoken, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the invention or wide application of a considerable number of practical devices which were unknown to the Greeks and Romans. Examples of these are, besides printing, the compa.s.s, gunpowder, spectacles, and a method of not merely softening but of thoroughly melting iron so that it could be cast.

[Sidenote: The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries not merely a period of revival.]