degli Albizzi, and Niccolo da Uzzano, acted patriotically and wisely. They resisted the aggressions of Milan from the north, and of Naples (under that exceptional king Ladislaus) from the south, and made it their policy to maintain the balance of power in Italy. Under this oligarchy began the great development of art, known as the Renaissance, or, to be more exact in quoting the textbooks, the First or Early Renaissance. To that subject, which shall give us for a time at least a centre, and save us from these puzzling political subdivisions, we joyfully proceed; only remembering that at this period Italy has these main political divisions,--the Kingdom of Sicily, the Kingdom of Naples (the two temporarily reunited), the Papal States, the city of Florence, the duchy of Milan, and the city of Venice. CHAPTER XXIV THE EARLY RENAISSANCE (1400-1450) By Renaissance, new birth, we mean the rapid, many-sided, intellectual development which started forward in Italy at this time. It was really a stage in the movement which began a hundred years earlier, but the textbooks confine the term Renaissance to the period which began at the opening of the fifteenth century; and just as the first beginning took place in Florence, so this fresh start, like a stream of energy issuing at a divine touch, also burst out of the city of Florence. The simplest way to get an idea of this period, known as the Early Renaissance, will be to notice a few of the men, leaders in their several spheres, in whom that energy became incarnate. We must not let ourselves think that the Renaissance was a merely artistic movement. A few men are known to us, and we think of them as wandering about in artistic isolation, as if they were hermits in a Thebaid. But, in reality, only a slight fraction of even the deeper feelings and interests take artistic or literary form; the great majority are put into life. The celebrated Florentine artists of those days were merely representative of their fellows; they were surrounded by crowds of neighbours, all crammed full with ardour for living, for expression, for discussion, for money-making, for glorifying their city. In recognition of this fact, and of the great service rendered to the arts throughout the Renaissance by men who were not artists, but potent signors of wealth and cultivation, whether merchants, dukes, or cardinals, I take Cosimo dei Medici (1389-1464) as the first figure in this brief account of the Early Renaissance.