As immediate eastern neighbors the Polish and Silesian kingdoms not only had maintained their independence, but also had developed powerful governing dynasties. The German bourgeoisie which filled all Poland, which gave to the state a solid centre, had never enjoyed political influ ence, and at about the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries stood in abrupt contrast to the Polish national genius, at the head of which appeared the kings, especially Sigismund I., who forced Italian influence into the foreground in opposition to German ideas, which he strove to bear down or to " Polonize." In the introduction of Italians and Italian ideas Sigismund saw the only way to set up a Polish genius distinct from the German, and thus to give to Poland an apparently national expression. Silesia was but a more Germanized part of Poland, and its dukes, descended from the same race as the Polish kings, were their vassals in a moral if not in a political sense. Many Polish elements still existed in Silesia; so that the new ideas brought into Poland and developed there found a certain echo in Silesia also, and thus an entrance was secured for Italian art. But, while there were German artists who derived from Italy the incitement to spread widely the forms of Italian art in Germany, in Poland, where previously all artistic and industrial activity had been in German hands, masters were brought from Italy and placed in opposition to the German, and Silesia followed this example.
Earliest Renaissance oldest presentation of actual Renais sance forms in Germany may perhaps be found in Wladislaw's Hall in the Imperial Castle of Prague. The wonderful Late Gothic vaulting of this hall stands in direct contrast with the great windows, which have deci dedly Italian forms and bear the date 1493. Whether Master Benedict of Lann himself inserted these, or whether it was done by an Italian in his employ, must remain undetermined. The stone crosses made by mullions and transoms indicate the Bohemian master rather than the Italian. Aus tria presents another work of the fifteenth century in a portal at the so called " Federlhof" at Vienna, bearing the date 1497. Breslau contains, besides Late Gothic works, a number of smaller monuments that exhibit Renaissance forms, particularly mortuary memorials of the close of the fifteenth and first years of the sixteenth century.
Sculpture, wherever it rose above mere mechanical skill, soon adopted the new forms. Thus the famous tomb of St. Sebald at Nuremberg (r5o8-- 1519), by Peter Vischer, has only the traces of the decorative finish of the Gothic, while the characteristics of the Renaissance appear in overflowing fulness and are employed with a harmony, a delicacy, and an attractiveness which not only prove the talented artist, but also speak of earnest studies in Italy. In the altar-piece also which Albrecht Diirer designed as a frame for his famous picture of the Trinity for the Landau Convent at Nurem berg (r5ii ; the design was made in 1508) the Renaissance has, with the exception of some slight traces, overpowered the Gothic.
it was chiefly the painters who in their pictures and engravings brought the new style into repute in the first years of the six teenth century wherever Architecture or the industrial arts presented materials. Thus, Renaissance forms occur in the works of the painter
Burgkmair as early as 1502-1507. Diirer and others about the imperial court employed these forms very early; Hans Holbein the younger also exhibits from the beginning his preference for the forms of the new style.
We should certainly guard against seeking, in the occurrence of each individual form-motif like those we meet in Italy, the existing variance between the older and the more recent currents of art, since Late Gothic art could assimilate many elements without discordance, and its entire development was only the continual reception of isolated elements whose origin may be traced to various regions. Here, however, where a com plete contrast between the two form-cycles existed, only that must influ ence our judgment which is expressed in those characteristic forms that give definite expression to this contrast. We cannot here consider forms as conclusive, but only architectural arrangement and ornament, because in form-styles the tendency toward naturalism, toward greater freedom of conception, manifests itself throughout the whole of the fifteenth century —a development which under any circumstances must finally have led to similar results.
In decorative design and arrangement various directions are manifest in Germany from the beginning. Now an Italian is the architect, now a prominent German master who had studied in Italy, or again a German who, familiar only indirectly with the new style, had adopted certain peculiarities. The last class of masters desired to show their ability by exaggeration, and the greater or lesser delicacy of the candelabra-like columns is certainly a test of the extent of their skill.
The escutcheon with Renaissance framework, for example, bearing the date of 1509, which was set up at the Castle of Johanuisberg, in Silesia, belongs to the province of the lesser works of art, and shows the hand of a German who brought out and greatly exaggerated the fantastic elements which still existed to some extent in the Italian Renaissance of the fif teenth century.
The upper part of the tower of the Church of St. Kilian at Heilbronn (1513-1529), built by Hans Schweiner of Weinsberg, is the first great monumental work in Germany, outside Austria, in which the new style was actually practised, while in Poland an Italian architect had already (1512) been summoned to finish the castle at Cracow. But the forms which Master Schweiner employed are very wild and confused, and show in their gross fantasticality no trace of that delicacy of form that distin guished the Italian edifices which he may have studied to some extent. But the portal of the Chapel of St. Salvator at Vienna (1515), with its candelabra-like columns, appears by its harmony of forms and the elegance of many details to be, if not the work of an Italian—of whom many can be authenticated as active in Austria—the work of a German who had obtained his inspiration from original sources.