These scattered notices of the relations of the Italians to natural
science, and their interest in the wealth and variety of the products
of nature, are only fragments of a great subject. No one is more
conscious than the author of the defects in his knowledge on this
point. Of the multitude of special works in which the subject is
adequately treated, even the names are but imperfectly known to him.
Discovery of the Beauty of Landscape
But outside the sphere of scientific investigation, there is another
way to draw near to nature. The Italians are the first among modern
peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something
beautiful.
The power to do so is always the result of a long and complicated
development, and its origin is not easily detected, since a dim feeling
of this kind may exist long before it shows itself in poetry and
painting and thereby becomes conscious of itself. Among the ancients,
for example, art and poetry had gone through the whole circle of human
interests, before they turned to the representation of nature, and even
then the latter filled always a limited and subordinate place. And yet,
from the time of Homer downwards, the powerful impression made by
nature upon man is shown by countless verses and chance expressions.
The Germanic races, which founded their States on the ruins of the
Roman Empire, were thoroughly and specially fitted to understand the
spirit of natural scenery; and though Christianity compelled them for a
while to see in the springs and mountains, in the lakes and woods,
which they had till then revered, the working of evil demons, yet this
transitional conception was soon outgrown.
Pages:
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343