Chapter I: Preface: 1

This third volume of my book on the "Renaissance in Italy" does not pretend to retrace the history of the Italian arts, but rather to define their relation to the main movement of Renaissance culture. Keeping this, the chief object of my whole work, steadily in view, I have tried to explain the dependence of the arts on mediaeval Christianity at their commencement, their gradual emancipation from ecclesiastical control, and their final attainment of freedom at the moment when the classical revival culminated.

Not to notice the mediaeval period in this evolution would be impossible; since the revival of Sculpture and Painting at the end of the thirteenth century was among the earliest signs of that new intellectual birth to which we give the title of Renaissance. I have, therefore, had to deal at some 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 recourse to Fergusson's "Illustrated Handbook of Architecture," to Burckhardt's "Cicerone," to Grüner's "Terra-Cotta Buildings of North Italy," to Milizia's "Memorie degli Architetti," and to many illustrated works on single buildings in Rome, Tuscany, Lombardy, and Venice. For the history of Sculpture I have used Burckhardt's "Cicerone," and the two important works of Charles C. Perkins, entitled "Tuscan Sculptors," and "Italian Sculptors." Such books as "Le Tre Porte del Battistero di Firenze," Grüner's "Cathedral of Orvieto," and Lasinio's "Tabernacolo della Madonna d'Orsammichele" have been helpful by their illustrations. For the history of Painting I have made use principally of Vasari's "Vite de' più eccellenti Pittori," &c., in Le Monnier's edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle's "History of Painting," of Burckhardt's "Cicerone," of Rosini's illustrated "Storia della Pittura Italiana," of Rio's "L'Art Chrétien," and of Henri Beyle's "Histoire de la Peinture en Italie." I should, however, far exceed the limits of a preface were I to make a list of all the books I have consulted with profit on the history of the arts in Italy.

In this part of my work I feel that I owe less to reading than to observation. I am not aware of having mentioned any important building, statue, or picture which I have not had the opportunity of studying. What I have written in this volume about the monuments of Italian art has always been first noted face to face with the originals, and afterwards corrected, modified, or confirmed in the course of subsequent journeys to Italy. I know that this method of composition, if it has the merit of freshness, entails some inequality of style and disproportion in the distribution of materials. In the final preparation of my work for press I have therefore endeavoured, as far as possible, to compensate this disadvantage by adhering to the main motive of my subject--the illustration of the Renaissance spirit as this was manifested in the Arts.

I must add, in conclusion, that Chapters VII. and IX. and Appendix II. are in 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 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.