THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE.
To the most genial of the great events re corded by history since the age of Augustus was given the expressive name of Born of a profound intellectual movement, which aroused throughout almost all Europe a love for and research into classical 'antiquity, the Renaissance rendered human thought active and paved the way for modern civilization and* culture. Except in the Middle Ages the study of the Classics had never been less intel lectually understood than at the beginning of this period. Religion, art and literature were all in a state of transition. Gradually Europe shook off the night of the Dark Ages and re belled against their gloom. It was a beneficent movement, though- sometimes in. drinking deep draughts from these cups of classic learning, of pleasure and of freedom from superstition and ignorance, these drinkers became inebriated with the • strong wine. The long duration of this transition constituted the Age of Renais sance, the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries — age which, according to the common accepts tion, was no longer mediaeval, and not yet mod ern. It had its own peculiar characteristics, resembling in some respects the later Alexan drine Era; and in others, the splendid Age of Pericles; and it was distinguished by a mar velous activity in the world of letters and art, and in the development of universal genius and of heroic women, or viragines, as they were , called.
Famous names are exceptionally numerous, and the importance of each increases the diffi culty of making a choice and causes confusion in summing up results.
Add to this the pre-eminently individualistic character of the Renaissance, due to its origin; the intricacies of greater and lesser warlike undertakings, tumults of the people, the bloody greed of the princely families, papal strife, re ligious discords and contests, and one may form some idea of the obstacles overcome.
The causes which impelled these seekers to look to the past for the motives and the means of progress were many and diverse. The defects of actual civilization were apparent and the natural evolution of ideas revealed to human reason a new point of view from which to contemplate the varied phenomena of the visible and of the invisible world. As the 13th century drew near, the imminence of antiquity made itself more constantly felt.
This revival was marked by the unveiling of the human form, Niccolo Pisano, in a very decided manner through sculpture; the author whoever he may be, of the, (Carmine Buritna'; Germinate, Albertino, Uzzato and other literary contemporaries of Alighieri (1263-1321) car ried forward the movement; as did also the masters who inspired Dante and Petrarch. A debt is also due to the rhetoricians and scien tists of Byzantium and to the Hellenists of Sicily and Calabria, whence came Bernard Barlaam who prompted Petrarch and Boccaccio to undertake the study of Greek.
We now come •o Dante The political and religious ideals of Dante Alighieri are almost identical with those of Petrarch. The art which the most poet displayed ('Purgatorio XII') belongs to • another age, and possibly he got his inspiration from the columns of Rome and the sarcophagi of Pisa and Florence. No one observed and felt nature more than be did, and what he said .about it came .with the meaning of oracular thought; he loved fame, sought solitude, individualized himself ; a virtue and ,attributes„, these, which, combined, distin guished• the man of the Renaissance from the man of the Middle Ages. Besides Beatrice, Alighieri had as a guide Virgi4 and, occasion ally, Statius; Guido Cavalacanti was his friend whose -doubts or convictions he shared in the nights when, wandering-through the -dense for ests, he had not yet left the course from which none ever came out alive. Separated from the pleasing and cold severity of the schools, Dante belonged to the Renaissance. But with him has not the graceful coloring, almost like the breath, of dawn, which already began to tinge all literature.— the culture of the human race. This was made evident for the first time in the life and in the works of Petrarch, the father of Humanism, who sang the praises of Laura. Since Petrarch -made -his appearance, or, to fix the date more definitely, from his sojourn in Route in the year 1337 until the time of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603), Humanism and Renais sance have been more or less synonymous. Some of those who followed the movement were realists; but while •the philologist has blazed the path by which we penetrate into the treav ure-house of antiquity, and become acquainted with its principal actors and rulers, he is a Humanist per se.