' His brother, to whom he
read these words, could not understand why he closed the book and said
no more.
Some decades later, about 1360, Fazio degli Uberti describes, in his
rhyming geography, the wide panorama from the mountains of Auvergne,
with the interest, it is true, of the geographer and antiquarian only,
but still showing clearly that he himself had seen it. He must,
however, have ascended far higher peaks, since he is familiar with
facts which only occur at a height of 10,000 feet or more above the
sea--mountain-sickness and its accompaniments--of which his imaginary
comrade Solinus tries to cure him with a sponge dipped in an essence.
The ascents of Parnassus and Olympus, of which he speaks, are perhaps
only fictions.
In the fifteenth century, the great masters of the Flemish school,
Hubert and Jan van Eyck, suddenly lifted the veil from nature. Their
landscapes are not merely the fruit of an endeavor to reflect the real
world in art, but have, even if expressed conventionally, a certain
poetical meaning--in short, a soul. Their influence on the whole art of
the West is undeniable, and extended to the landscape-painting of the
Italians, but without preventing the characteristic interest of the
Italian eye for nature from finding its own expression.
On this point, as in the scientific description of nature, Aeneas
Sylvius is again one of the most weighty voices of his time.
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