In this part of my work I feel that I owe less to reading than to observation. I am not aware of having mentioned any important building, statue, or picture which I have not had the opportunity of studying. What I have written in this volume about the monuments of Italian art has always been first noted face to face with the originals, and afterwards corrected, modified, or confirmed in the course of subsequent journeys to Italy. I know that this method of composition, if it has the merit of freshness, entails some inequality of style and disproportion in the distribution of materials. In the final preparation of my work for press I have therefore endeavoured, as far as possible, to compensate this disadvantage by adhering to the main motive of my subject--the illustration of the Renaissance spirit as this was manifested in the Arts. I must add, in conclusion, that Chapters VII. and IX. and Appendix II. are in part reprinted from the "Westminster," the "Cornhill," and the "Contemporary." CLIFTON: _March_ 1877. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM FOR THE FINE ARTS Art in Italy and Greece--The Leading Phase of Culture--Æsthetic Type of Literature--Painting the Supreme Italian Art--Its Task in the Renaissance--Christian and Classical Traditions--Sculpture for the Ancients--Painting for the Romance Nations--Mediaeval Faith and Superstition--The Promise of Painting--How far can the Figurative Arts express Christian Ideas?--Greek and Christian Religion--Plastic Art incapable of solving the Problem--A more Emotional Art needed--Place of Sculpture in the Renaissance--Painting and Christian Story--Humanization of Ecclesiastical Ideas by Art--Hostility of the Spirit of True Piety to Art--Compromises effected by the Church--Fra Bartolommeo's S. Sebastian--Irreconcilability of Art and Theology, Art and Philosophy--Recapitulation--Art in the end Paganises--Music--The Future of Painting after the Renaissance. CHAPTER II ARCHITECTURE Architecture of Mediaeval Italy--Milan, Genoa, Venice--The Despots as Builders--Diversity of Styles--Local Influences--Lombard, Tuscan, Romanesque, Gothic--Italian want of feeling for Gothic--Cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto--Secular Buildings of the Middle Ages--Florence and Venice--Private Palaces--Public Halls--Palazzo della Signoria at Florence--Arnolfo di Cambio--S. Maria del Fiore--Brunelleschi's Dome--Classical Revival in Architecture--Roman Ruins--Three Periods in Renaissance Architecture--Their Characteristics--Brunelleschi --Alberti--Palace-building--Michellozzo--Decorative Work of the Revival--Bramante--Vitoni's Church of the Umiltà at Pistoja--Palazzo del Te--Villa Farnesina--Sansovino at Venice--Michael Angelo--The Building of S. Peter's--Palladio--The Palazzo della Ragione at Vicenza--Lombard Architects--Theorists and Students of Vitruvius--Vignola and Scamozzi--European Influence of the Palladian Style--Comparison of Scholars and Architects in relation to the Revival of Learning. CHAPTER III SCULPTURE