Durant W. The Renaissance. A History of Civilization in Italy from 1304-1576 A.D

Dionysian Theater of the Greeks, Politian composed- in two days, he

vows- a little lyric drama of 434 lines, which was sung for Cardinal

Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua (1472). It was called La favola di Orfeo-

The Fable of Orpheus - and told how Orpheus' wife Eurydice died of a

snake bite as she fled from an amorous shepherd; how the

disconsolate Orpheus made his way down to Hades, and so charmed

Pluto with his lyre that the lord of the underworld restored

Eurydice to him on condition that he should not look upon her until

quite emerged from Hades. He had led her but a few steps when, in

the ecstasy of his love, he turned to look upon her; whereupon she was

snatched back to Hades, and he was barred from following her. In an

insane reaction Orpheus became a misogynist, and recommended that

men should ignore women and satisfy themselves with boys after the

example of sated Zeus with Ganymede. Woodland maenads, furious at

his contempt of women, beat him to death, flayed him, tore him limb

from limb, and rejoiced tunefully in their revenge. The music that

accompanied the lines is lost; but we may safely rank the Orfeo

among the harbingers of Italian opera.

Politian fell short of greatness as a poet because he avoided the

pitfalls of passion and never plumbed the depths of life or love; he

is always charming and never profound. His love for Lorenzo was the

strongest feeling that he knew. He was at his patron's side when

Giuliano was killed in the cathedral; he saved Lorenzo by slamming and

bolting the doors of the sacristy in the face of the conspirators.

When Lorenzo returned from his perilous journey to Naples Politian

welcomed him with verses almost scandalously affectionate. When

Lorenzo passed away Politian mourned him inconsolably, and then

gradually faded out. He died two years later, like Pico, in the

fateful year 1494, when the French discovered Italy.

Lorenzo would not have been the full man that he was had he not

enjoyed some humor with his philosophy, some doubt with his faith,

some license with his loves. As his son would welcome jesters and

smile at risque comedies at the papal court, so the banker prince of

Florence invited to his friendship and his table Luigi Pulci, and

relished the rough satire of the Morgante maggiore. That famous

poem, so admired by Byron, was read aloud, canto by canto, to

Lorenzo and his household guests. Luigi was a man of robust and

uninhibited wit, who convulsed a palace and a nation by applying the

language, idioms, and views of the bourgeoisie to the romances of

chivalry. The legends of Charlemagne's adventures in France, Spain,

and Palestine had entered Italy in the twelfth century or before,

and had been spread through the peninsula by minstrels and

improvisatori to the delight of every class. But there has always

been, in the common male of the species, a bluff and lusty

self-ridiculing realism, accompanying and checking the romantic spirit

given to literature and art by woman and youth. Pulci combined all

these qualities, and put together- from popular legends, from the

manuscripts in the Laurentian Library, and from the conversation at

Lorenzo's table- an epic that laughs at the giants, demons, and

battles of chivalric tales, and recounts, in sometimes serious,

sometimes mocking verse, the adventures of the Christian knight

Orlando and the Saracen giant who gives the poem half its name. *05014

Attacked by Orlando, Morgante saves himself by announcing his sudden

conversion to Christianity. Orlando teaches him theology; explains

to him that his two brothers, just slain, are now in hell as infidels;

promises him heaven if he becomes a good Christian; but warns him that

in heaven he will be required to look without pity upon his burning

relatives. "The doctors of our Church," says the Christian knight,

"are agreed that if those who are glorified in heaven were to feel

pity for their miserable kindred, who lie in such horrible confusion

in hell, their beatitude would come to nothing." Morgante is not

disturbed. "You shall see," he assures Orlando, "if I grieve for my

brethren, and whether or no I submit to the will of God and behave

myself like an angel... I will cut off the hands of my brothers, and

take the hands to these holy monks, that they may be sure that their

enemies are dead."

In the eighteenth canto Pulci introduces another giant, Margute, a

jolly thief and mild murderer, who ascribes to himself every vice

but that of betraying a friend. To Morgante's question whether he

believes in Christ or prefers Mohammed, Margute answers:

-

I don't believe in black more than in blue,

But in fat capons, boiled or maybe roasted;

And I believe sometimes in butter, too,

In beer and must, where bobs a pippin toasted;...

But mostly to old wine my faith I pin,

And hold him saved who firmly trusts therein....

Faith, like the itch, is catching;...

Faith is as man gets it- this, that, or another.

See then what sort of creed I'm bound to follow:

For you must know a Greek nun was my mother,

My sire, at Brusa mid the Turks, a mullah. `050421

-

Margute dies of laughter after rollicking through two cantos;

Pulci wastes no tear over him, but pulls from his magic fancy a

demon of the first order, Astarotte, who rebelled with Lucifer.

Summoned from hell by the sorcerer Malagigi to bring Rinaldo swiftly

from Egypt to Roncesvalles, he accomplishes the matter deftly, and

wins such affection from Rinaldo that the Christian knight proposes to

beg God to free Astarotte from hell. But the courteous devil is an

excellent theologian, and points out that rebellion against infinite

justice was an infinite crime, requiring eternal punishment.

Malagigi wonders why a God who foresaw everything, including Lucifer's

disobedience and everlasting damnation, proceeded to create him;

Astarotte confesses that this is a mystery which even a wise devil

cannot resolve. `050422

He was in truth a wise devil, for Pulci, writing in 1483, puts

into his mouth an astonishing anticipation of Columbus. Referring to

the old warning, at the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), ne plus

ultra - "go no further"- Astarotte says to Rinaldo:

-

Know that this theory is false; his bark

The daring mariner shall urge far o'er

The western wave, a smooth and level plain

Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel.

Man was in ancient days of grosser mold,

And Hercules might blush to learn how far

Beyond the limits he had vainly set

The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way,

Men shall descry another hemisphere.

Since to one common center all things tend,

So earth, by curious mystery divine

Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres.

At our antipodes are cities, states,

And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore.

But see, the Sun speeds on his western path

To glad the nations with expected light. `050423

-

It was part of Pulci's method to introduce each canto, however

full of buffoonery, with a pious invocation of God and the saints; the

more profane the matter, the more solemn the prologue. The poem ends

with a declaration of faith in the goodness of all religions- a

proposition sure to offend every true believer. Now and then Pulci

allows himself a timid heresy, as when he quotes Scripture to argue

that Christ's foreknowledge did not equal that of God the Father, or

when he allows himself to hope that all souls, even Lucifer, will in

the end be saved. But like a good Florentine, and the other members of

Lorenzo's circle, he remained externally faithful to a Church

inextricably bound up with Italian life. Ecclesiastics were not

deceived by his obeisance; when he died (1484) his body was refused

burial in consecrated ground.

If Lorenzo's group could produce so varied a literature in one

generation, we may reasonably suppose- and shall find- a like

awakening in other cities- Milan, Ferrara, Naples, Rome. In the

century between Cosimo's birth and Lorenzo's death Italy had

accomplished and transcended the first stage in her Renaissance. She

had rediscovered ancient Greece and Rome, had established the

essentials of classical scholarship, and had made Latin again a

language of masculine splendor and pithy force. But more: in the

generation between Cosimo's death and Lorenzo's, Italy rediscovered

her own language and soul, applied the new standards of diction and

form to the vernacular, and composed poetry classical in spirit, but

indigenous and "modern" in tongue and thought, rooted in the affairs

and problems of its own day, or in the scenes and persons of the

countryside. And again: Italy in one generation, through Pulci, had

lifted the humorous romance into literature, had prepared the way

for Boiardo and Ariosto, had even anticipated Cervantes' smiles at

chivalric fustian and pretense. The age of the scholars receded,

imitation gave way to creation; Italian literature, which had

languished after Petrarch's choice of Latin for his epic, was

reborn. Soon the revival of antiquity would be almost forgotten in the

exuberance of an Italian culture leading the world in letters, and

flooding it with art.

V. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE: THE AGE OF

VERROCCHIO

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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++

Lorenzo continued enthusiastically the Medicean tradition of

supporting art. "He was such an admirer of all the remains of

antiquity," wrote his contemporary Valori, "that there was nothing

with which he was more delighted. Those who wished to oblige him

were accustomed to collect, from every part of the world, medals,

coins... statues, busts, and whatever else bore the stamp" of

ancient Greece or Rome. `050424 Uniting his architectural and

sculptural collections with those left by Cosimo and Piero, he

placed them in a garden between the Medici palace and the monastery of

San Marco, and admitted to them all responsible scholars and visitors.

To students who showed application and promise- among whom was the

young Michelangelo- he gave a stipend for their maintenance, and

awards for special proficiency. Says Vasari: "It is highly deserving

of notice that all those who studied in the gardens of the Medici, and

were favored by Lorenzo, became excellent artists. This can only be

ascribed to the exquisite judgment of this great patron... who could

not merely distinguish men of genius, but had the will and power to

reward them." `050425

The key event in the art history of Lorenzo's regime was the

publication (1486) of Vitruvius' treatise De architectura (first

century B.C.), which Poggio had unearthed in the monastery of St. Gall

some seventy years before. Lorenzo succumbed completely to that

rigid classic, and used his influence to spread the style of

Imperial Rome. Perhaps in this matter he did as much harm as good, for

he discouraged in architecture what he was fruitfully practising in

literature- the development of native forms. But his spirit was

generous. Through his encouragement, and in many cases with his funds,

Florence was now adorned with elegant civic buildings and private

residences. He completed the church of San Lorenzo and the abbey at

Fiesole, and he engaged Giuliano da Sangallo to design a monastery

outside the San Gallo gate that gave the architect his name.

Giuliano built for him a stately villa at Poggio a Caiano, and so

handsomely that Lorenzo recommended him when King Ferdinand of

Naples asked him for an architect. How well such artists loved him

appears in the subsequent generosity of Giuliano, who sent as presents

to Lorenzo the gifts that Ferrante gave him- a bust of the Emperor

Hadrian, a Sleeping Cupid, and other ancient sculptures. Lorenzo

added these to the collections in his garden, which were later to form

the nucleus of the statuary in the Uffizi Gallery.

Other rich men rivaled- some surpassed- him in the splendor of their

residences. About 1489 Benedetto da Maiano built for Filippo Strozzi

the Elder the most perfect embodiment of that "Tuscan" style of

architecture which Brunellesco had developed in the Pitti Palace-

internal splendor and luxury behind a massive front of "rustic" or

unfinished stone blocks. It was begun with careful astrological

timing, with religious services in several churches, and with a

conciliatory distribution of alms. After Benedetto's death (1497)

Simone Pollaiuolo *05015 completed the building, and added a fine

cornice on the model of one that he had seen in Rome. How excellent

the interior of these seeming prisons might be we may surmise from

their magnificent fireplaces- mighty marble entablatures supported

by floral-carved pillars and surmounted with reliefs. Meanwhile the

Signory continued to improve its unique and beautiful home, the

Palazzo Vecchio.

Most of the architects were sculptors too, for sculpture played

the leading part in architectural ornament, carving cornices and

moldings, pilasters and capitals, door jambs and chimney pieces,

wall reliefs, altars, choir stalls, pulpits, and baptismal fonts.

Giuliano da Maiano carved the stalls in the sacristy of the

cathedral and in the abbey at Fiesole. His brother Benedetto developed

the art of intarsia, and became so famous for it that King Matthias

Corvinus of Hungary ordered from him two coffers of inlaid wood, and

invited him to his court. Benedetto went, and had the coffers sent

after him; when these arrived at Budapest and were unpacked in the

presence of the King the inlaid pieces fell out, the glue having

been loosened by the damp sea air; and Benedetto, though he replaced

the pieces successfully, took a distaste to marquetry, and devoted

himself thereafter to sculpture. There are few sculptured Virgins

lovelier than his Enthroned Madonna, few busts that surpass his

honest and revealing Filippo Strozzi, few tombs so fine as that of

the same Strozzi in Santa Maria Novella, no pulpit more elegantly

carved than that which Benedetto made for the church of Santa Croce,

and few altars so near perfection as that of Santa Fina in the

Collegiate Church of San Gimignano.

Sculpture and architecture tended to run in families- the della

Robbias, the Sangalli, the Rossellini, the Pollaiuoli. Antonio

Pollaiuolo, uncle of Simone, learned accuracy and delicacy of design

as a goldsmith in the studio of his father Iacopo. The bronze,

silver and gold products of Antonio made him the Cellini of his

time, and a favorite of Lorenzo, the churches, the Signory, and the

guilds. Noting how rarely such small objects retained the name of

their maker, and sharing the Renaissance mirage of immortal fame,

Antonio turned to sculpture, and cast in bronze two magnificent

figures of Hercules, rivaling the strained power of Michelangelo's

Captives, and the tortured passion of the Laocoon. Passing to

painting, he told the story of Hercules in three murals for the Medici

palace, challenged Botticelli in Apollo and Daphne, and equaled

the absurdity of a hundred artists in showing how calmly St. Sebastian

could receive into his flawless body the arrows launched at him by

leisurely bowmen. In his final years Antonio returned to sculpture and

cast for the old church of St. Peter in Rome two superb sepulchral

monuments- of Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII- with a vigor of chiseling

and a precision of anatomy again presaging Michelangelo.

Mino da Fiesole was not so versatile nor so tempestuous; he was

content to learn the sculptor's art from Desiderio da Settignano,

and when his master died, to carry on his tradition of smooth

elegance. If we may believe Vasari, Mino was so affected by

Desiderio's early death that he found no happiness in Florence, and

sought new scenes in Rome. There he made a name for himself with three

masterpieces: tombs of Francesco Tornabuoni and Pope Paul II, and a

marble tabernacle for Cardinal d'Estouteville. His confidence and

solvency restored, he returned to Florence, and adorned with exquisite

altars the churches of Sant' Ambrogio and Santa Croce, and the

Baptistery. In the cathedral of his native Fiesole he set up in

classical style an ornate tomb for Bishop Salutati, and for the

abbey of Fiesole he molded a similar monument, more restrained in

ornament, to commemorate the Count Ugo who had founded that monastery.

The cathedral of Prato boasts a pulpit by him, and a dozen museums

display one or more of the busts by which his patrons were less

flattered than embalmed: the face of Niccolo Strozzi, swollen as

with the mumps, the weak features of Piero the Gouty, the fine head of

Dietisalvi Neroni, a pretty relief of Marcus Aurelius as a youth, a

splendid bust of St. John the Baptist in infancy, and several lovely

reliefs of the Virgin and Child. Nearly all these works have the

feminine grace that Mino had learned from Desiderio; they are

pleasing, but not arresting or profound; they do not grip our interest

as do the sculptures of Antonio Pollaiuolo or Antonio Rossellino. Mino

loved Desiderio too much; he could not turn his back upon his master's

exemplars and seek in the merciless neutrality of Nature the

significant realities of life.

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Verrocchio- "True Eye"- was brave enough to do this, and produced

two of the greatest sculptures of his time. Andrea di Michele Cione

(for that was his real name) was a goldsmith, a sculptor, a

bell-caster, a painter, a geometrician, a musician. As a painter his

chief claim to fame lies in having taught and influenced Leonardo,

Lorenzo di Credi, and Perugino; his own paintings are mostly stiff and

dead. There are few Renaissance pictures more unpleasant than the

famous Baptism of Christ; the Baptist is a dour Puritan, Christ,

presumably thirty, looks like an old man, and the two angels at the

left are effeminately insipid, including the one traditionally

ascribed to Leonardo. But Tobias and the Three Angels is

excellent; the central angel foreshadows the grace and mood of

Botticelli, and the young Tobias is so fair that we must either

attribute him to Leonardo, or confess that da Vinci received more of

his pictorial style from Verrocchio than we supposed. A drawing of a

woman's head, in Christ Church, Oxford, again suggests the vague and

pensive ethereality of Leonardo's women; and Verrocchio's dark

landscapes already feature the gloomy rocks and mystic streams of

Leonardo's dreamy masterpieces.

Probably there is mostly fable in Vasari's tale that when Verrocchio

saw the angel that Leonardo had painted in The Baptism of Christ

he "resolved never to touch the brush again, because Leonardo,

though so young, had so far surpassed him." `050426 But though

Verrocchio continued to paint after the Baptism, it is true that he

gave most of his mature years to sculpture. He worked for a while with

Donatello and Antonio Pollaiuolo, learned something from each of them,

and then developed his own style of stern and angular realism. He took

his career in his hands by molding in terra cotta an unflattering bust

of Lorenzo- nose and bangs and worried brow. In any case Il

Magnifico was well pleased with two bronze reliefs- of Alexander and

Darius- made for him by Verrocchio; he sent them to Matthias

Corvinus of Hungary, and engaged the sculptor (1472) to design, in the

church of San Lorenzo, a tomb for his father Piero and his uncle

Giovanni. Verrocchio carved the sarcophagus in porphyry, and decorated

it with bronze supports and wreaths in exquisite floral form. Four

years later he cast a boyish David standing in calm pride over the

severed head of Goliath; the Signory liked it so much that it placed

the statue at the head of the main stairway in the Palazzo Vecchio. In

the same year it accepted from him a bronze Boy Holding a Dolphin,

and used it as a fountain spout in the courtyard of the palace. At the

height of his powers Verrocchio designed, and cast in bronze for a

niche on the exterior of Or San Michele, a group of Christ and

Doubting Thomas (1483). The Christ is a figure of divine nobility,

Thomas is portrayed with understanding sympathy, the hands are

finished with a perfection seldom attained in statuary, the robes

are a triumph of sculptural art; the whole group has a living and

mobile reality.

So obvious was Verrocchio's superiority in bronze that the

Venetian Senate invited him (1479) to come to Venice and cast a statue

of Bartolommeo Colleoni, the condottiere who had won so many

victories for the island state. Andrea went, made a model for the

horse, and was preparing to cast it in bronze when he learned that the

Senate was considering the advisability of confining his commission to

the horse and letting Vellano of Padua make the man. Andrea, according

to Vasari, broke the head and legs of his model and returned to

Florence in a rage. The Senate warned him that if he ever put foot

on Venetian soil again he would lose his head in no figurative way; he

replied that they should never expect him there, since senators were

not as skillful as sculptors in replacing broken heads. The Senate

thought better of the matter, restored the total commission to

Verrocchio, and persuaded him to return at twice the original fee.

He repaired the model of the horse, and cast it successfully; but in

the process he became overheated, caught a chill, and died within a

few days, at the age of fifty-six (1488). In his last hours a rude

crucifix was placed before him; he begged the attendants to take it

away and bring him one by Donatello, so that he might die, as he had

lived, in the presence of beautiful things.

The Venetian sculptor Alessandro Leopardi completed the great statue

in so vivid a style, with such mastery of motion and command, that the

Colleoni suffered no loss by Verrocchio's death. It was set up

(1496) in the Campo di San Zanipolo- the Field of Sts. John and

Paul; and it struts there to this day, the proudest and finest

equestrian statue surviving from the Renaissance.

VI. PAINTING

1. Ghirlandaio

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Verrocchio's thriving studio was characteristic of Renaissance

Florence- it united all the arts in one workshop, sometimes in one

man; in the same bottega one artist might be designing a church or a

palace, another might be carving or casting a statue, another

sketching or painting a picture, another cutting or setting gems,

another carving or inlaying ivory or wood, or fusing or beating metal,

or fashioning floats and pennons for a festival procession; men like

Verrocchio, Leonardo, or Michelangelo could do any of these.

Florence had many such studios, and art students went wild in the

streets, `050427 or lived Bohemianly in the tenements, or became

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