The art of the middle ages had been essentially Christian--it sprang from the doctrine and devotions of the Catholic Church and was inextricably bound up with Christian life. The graceful Gothic cathedrals, pointing their roofs and airy spires in heavenly aspiration, the fantastic and mysterious carvings of wood or stone, the imaginative portraiture of saintly heroes and heroines as well as of the sublime story of the fall and redemption of the human race, the richly stained glass, and the spiritual organ music--all betokened the supreme thought of medieval Christianity. But humanism recalled to men's minds the previous existence of an art simpler and more restrained, if less ethereal. The reading of Greek and Latin writers heightened an esteem for pagan culture in all its phases. Therefore, European art underwent a transformation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. While much of the distinctively medieval culture remained, civilization was enriched by a revival of classical art. The painters, the sculptors, and the architects now sought models not exclusively in their own Christian masters but in many cases in pagan Greek and Roman forms. Gradually the two lines of development were brought together, and the resulting union--the adaptation of classical art-forms to Christian uses--was marked by an unparalleled outburst of artistic energy. From that period of exuberant art-expression in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, our present-day love of beautiful things has come down in unbroken succession. With no exaggeration it may be said that the sixteenth century is as much the basis of our modern artistic life as it is the foundation of modern Protestantism or of modern world empire. The revolutions in commerce and religion synchronized with the beginning of a new era in art. All arts were affected--architecture, sculpture, painting, engraving, and music. [Sidenote: Architecture] In architecture, the severely straight and plain line of the ancient Greek temples or the elegant gentle curve of the Roman dome was substituted for the fanciful lofty Gothic. A rounded arch replaced the pointed. And the ancient Greek orders--Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian-- were dragged from oblivion to embellish the simple symmetrical buildings. The newer architecture was used for ecclesiastical and other structures, reaching perhaps its highest expression in the vast cathedral of St. Peter, which was erected at Rome in the sixteenth century under the personal direction of great artists, among whom Raphael and Michelangelo are numbered. [Sidenote: In Italy]