Renaissance in Italy, Volume 2 (of 7): The Revival of LearningSymonds, John Addington
History
Renaissance in Italy, Volume 2 (of 7): The Revival of Learning
Symonds, John Addington
Humanism; Renaissance -- Italy
Quod lacerum corpus medicâ sanaverit arte,
Hippolytum Stygiis et revocarit aquis,
Ad Stygias ipse est raptus Epidaurius undas;
Sic pretium vitæ mors fuit artifici.
Tu quoque dum toto laniatam corpore Romam
Componis miro, Raphael, ingenio,
Atque urbis lacerum ferro, igne, armisque cadaver
Ad vitam antiquum jam revocasque decus,
Movisti Superum invidiam; indignataque mors est
Te dudum extinctis reddere posse animam,
Et quod longa dies paullatim aboleverat, hoc te
Mortali spretâ lege parare iterum.
Sic miser heu primâ cadis intercepte juventâ:
Debere et morti nostraque nosque mones.
Baldassare Castiglione.]
The immediate and most important consequence of these antiquarian
pursuits was the adoption of classic forms by architects and artists.
Fresco-painters imitated the newly-discovered _grotteschi_ in their
arabesques.[408] Sculptors abandoned Christian subjects for antique
mythology, or gave the attributes of heroes to the saints of the
Catholic Church. The principles of Vitruvius were applied as strictly
as possible to modern buildings, and the free decoration of the
earlier Renaissance yielded to what passed for purely classic
ornaments. It would be incorrect to maintain that this reproduction of
antiquity in art only dated from the age of Leo. Alberti and
Brunelleschi, Bramante and Michellozzo, had, each in his own way,
striven to assimilate to modern use the style of Roman architecture.
Donatello and Michael Angelo at Florence had carved statues in the
classic manner; nor are the arabesques of Signorelli at Orvieto, of
Perugino at Perugia, less fanciful than those of Raphael in the
Loggie. What really happened was that the imitation of the ancients
grew more puristic and precise through the formation of a common taste
that imposed itself with the weight of authority on artists. Giulio
Romano's Palazzo del Te at Mantua may be cited as the most perfect
production of this epoch, combining, as it does, all forms of antique
decoration and construction with the vivid individuality of genius.
Giulio Romano comprehended the antique, and followed it with the
enthusiasm of a neophyte. But his very defects prevented him from
falling into the frigid formalism of Palladio.
[Footnote 408: See Benvenuto Cellini, i. 31.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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