“The Classic spirit is the disinterested search for perfection; it is the love of clearness and reasonableness and self-control; it is, above all, the love of permanence and of continuity. It asks of a work of art, not that it shall be novel or effective, but that it shall be fine and noble. It seeks not merely to express individuality or emotion, but to express disciplined emotion and individuality restrained by law. It strives for the essential rather than the accidental, the eternal rather than the momentary—loves impersonality more than personality, and feels more power in the orderly succession of the hours and the seasons than in the violence of earthquake or of storm. And it loves to steep itself in tradition. It would have each new work connect itself in the mind of him who sees it with all the noble and lively works of the past, bringing them to his memory and making their beauty and charm a part of the beauty and charm of the work before him. It does not deny originality and individuality—they are as welcome as inevitable. It does not consider tradition as immutable or set rigid bounds to invention. But it desires that each new presentation of truth and beauty shall show us the old truth and the old beauty, seen only from a different angle and colored by a different medium. It wishes to add link by link to the chain of tradition, but it does not wish to break the chain.” THE END OF THE RENAISSANCE AND THE COMING OF FEAR An artistic collapse whether in an artist or a nation is usually due to a prior collapse in morale. Florence suffered such loss of face when the Imperialists stormed the city and crushed the Republic. We may study the disaster in Michelangelo’s personal case and in its effect on the citizenry at large. Michelangelo was military engineer. Writing from Venice, Sept. 25, 1529, he describes his desertion with singular objectivity: “I had intended to remain in Florence to the end of the war, having no fears for my own safety. But on Tuesday morning, the 21st of September, a certain person came out by the Porta a San Nicolò while I was engaged in inspecting the bastions, and whispered in my ear that I must remain there no longer if I valued my life. He accompanied me to my house, dined there, brought me horses, and never left my side until he had carried me out of Florence, declaring that it was for my good that he so acted. Whether it were God or the devil I cannot say.” From Robert W. Carden, _Michelangelo, a Record of his Life_, Boston and New York, 1913, p. 168. Florence suffered not from hallucinations, as this seems to have been, but from the humiliation and confusion incident upon defeat and foreign occupation. I translate from Benedetto Varchi’s _Storia_, the extract in Ancona and Bacci’s _Manuele della Letteratura Italiana_, Vol. II, p. 506.