No work
of the great Grecian painters remains; Apelles, Zeuxis, are only names
to us, but from the wall paintings at Pompeii where late Greek influence
was strongly felt we can imagine how charming the decorations must have
been. Egypt and Greece were the torch bearers of civilization.
_The Renaissance in Italy_
The Gothic period has been treated in later chapters on France and
England, as it is its development in these countries which most affects
us, but the Renaissance in Italy stands alone. So great was its strength
that it could supply both inspiration and leaders to other countries,
and still remain preeminent.
It was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that this great
classical revival in Italy came, this re-birth of a true sense of beauty
which is called the Renaissance. It was an age of wonders, of great
artistic creations, and was one of the great epochs of the world, one of
the turning points of human existence. It covered so large a field and
was so many-sided that only careful study can give a full realization of
the giants of intellect and power who made its greatness, and who left
behind them work that shows the very quintessence of genius.
Italy, stirring slightly in the fourteenth century, woke and rose to her
greatest heights in the fifteenth and sixteenth. The whole people
responded to the new joy of life, the love of learning, the expression
of beauty in all its forms. All notes were struck,--gay, graceful,
beautiful, grave, cruel, dignified, reverential, magnificent, but all
with an exuberance of life and power that gave to Italian art its great
place in human culture.
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