5. Fine before the Revival of Learning, supposed to have been a Renaissance of Latin and Greek forms in letters, the fine arts had reached a high degree of perfection in Italy. Petrarch had not yet made his journeys in quest of manuscripts. Dante (1265-1321), the glory of medireval Italian literature, had not written his uDivina Yet the cathe drals of Pisa, Lucca and Pistoia were completed. The basilica of Assisi stood in all its splendor, to be beautified by the frescoes of Liao (1266-1337). Says Taine: ((There is n7.111iiicg like it. Before seeing it, one has no idea of the art and genius of the Middle Ages.* There is no harking back to antiquity on the part of the Italian painters of the 13th and 14th cen turies. provides their subjects. The inspiration of Quattro Cento art is that of Catholic devotion. Cirnabue (1240-1301) and his contemporary Duccio produced Madonnas that are masterpieces both in conception and execution. The exquisite draperies, filmy veils, aerial lightness and heavenly grace of Botticelli (1447-1510), a penitent of Savonarola, breathe not a pagan emotion. And as One gazes in rapture on the wondrous Annunciation and other frescoes in San Marco, Florence, one realizes the reasonableness of the story that the brush of Fra Angelico (13§7-1455) was guided by eyes that saw through tears of love and devo tion for the Madonna and her Child. Even the Cinque Cento plastic art of Italy shows by no means a rebirth of classic forms. There is of self-expression in the painting of Raphael, Da Vinci, Titian and Correggio; and in the sculpture of Donatello and Michelangelo. Only in architecture is an attempt made at a rebirth of antiquity. The result is a hybrid Roman form, which later on becomes still more grotesque by the accretion of barocco vagaries.
II. Outside of Italy.— The influence of the Italian Renaissance reached Germany, France, the Netherlands, England and Spain by various and at times devious ways.
1. Greek, Latin and Hebrew were brought into prominence among Teutonic peo ples by traveling professors, and by students who attended Lombard and Tuscan Renaissance schools. The new learning was still wider spread through the establishment of universities and the invention of printing. The religious orders favored the press from the outset. Marienthal (1468), Saint Ulrich at Augsburg (1472), and the Benedictines of Bamberg (1474) did pioneer work in the printing and distribution of literature. The first book printed by Gutenberg, the inventor of the art, was the beautiful (42 line Bible° (1453-55), an edition of the Vulgate that is still extant. The Latin Vulgate was by far the best seller of the times. Most scholars then understood Latin; it was their common medium of epistolary intercourse. The needs of the few, who read German but knew not Latin, were amply met by the print ing of the Bible in the vernacular. We still have copies of 18 complete editions of the Bible, printed in German between 1466 and 1521. The publication of Luther's Bible in 1522 was not due, as is too often said, to the lack of a trans lation that the uneducated could understand,• but to Luther's revolt from the teaching and authority of the Church. (Consult Nestle,
(Urtext and Ubersetzungen der Bibel' 1897, pp. 124 ff.). This revolt had nothing in common with the rebirth of heathen ideas in Italy. The revival of learning in Germany was from the very outset opposed to the pagan humanism of the peninsula; and yet it but led up to the same disregard of authority in religion as character ized Valla, Poggio and ((the poets,* as they were styled. This spirit of revolt against papal authority did not at •first appear. Rudolf Agricola (1443-85) was an eminent classical scholar and a devout Catholic. The Latinist von Langen, and the educationalist Wimphe lung united Christian principles with a love of antiquity. On the eve of the Reformation Reuchlin was defended by Rome in the use of Hebrew and Septuagint readings for the proper interpretation of Holy Writ. Then came Luther, and in his wake Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin. They were learned, but not large minded. Though keen sighted enough to note the degradation of the court of Leo X, they failed to see that the reformation of ecclesias tical discipline had to be brought about by es tablished authority. They broke loose from that authority; and in theory substituted free dom of private interpretation of the Bible in stead of the authoritive teaching of the Church. In reality, Luther attempted not only to topple over the papacy from its power, but to set him self in the stead of the Pope. His was a mas terful personality. In translating Romans iii, 28, he interpolated the word alone: For we ac count a man to be justified by faith alone with out the works of the law.' Catholics found fault with the interpolation. He badgered them, and wrote: When your papist gives himself useless trouble about that word alone, just tell him prudently: (Dr. Martin Luther wills it so and says 'Papist and jackass are one and the same." Sic volo, sic jubeo; sit pro ration voluntas. We would not be the pupils and dis ciples of the papists, but their masters and lords. We, too, would strut it a bit, and be arrogant with these donkies, and as Paul makes boast against his crazy saints, so I make boast against these my jackasses. Are they doctors? So am I. Are they learned? So am I. Are they preachers? So am I. Are they theologians? So am I. Are they contro versialists? So am I. Are they philosophers? So am I. Are they dialecticians? So am I. Are they teachers? So am I. Do they write books? So do I. And I will go farther in my boast: I can explain the Psalms and the Prophets. They cannot . . Why, if there be only one among them that can understand aright a foreword or a chapter of Aristotle, I am ready to be tossed in a blanket. I do not exaggerate . . . Be minded no loner to give to such jackasses other reply to their useless chatter about that word alone, than again and again to say: 'Luther will have it so, and says he is a doctor greater than all the doctors of the whole of popery"' (Sendbrief von Dollmet schen, Luther's works, Weimar edition, 30, 2, p. 635: Erlangen ed. 65, p. 107). No wonder Harnack speaks of "the curious logic of Luther's arguments, the errors of his exegesis, and the unjustifiableness and barbarity of hi3 polemic* (Dogmengeschichte, Vol. III, 4, p. t17).