This had probably been attempted for ages with a view to satire,
and the opportunity for it was offered in Florence at every carnival by
the songs of the maskers. But the sympathetic understanding of the
feeling of another class was new; and with it the 'Nencia' and this
'Canzone zingaresca' mark a new starting-point in the history of
poetry.
Here, too, we must briefly indicate how culture prepared the way for
artistic development. From the time of the 'Nencia,' a period of eighty
years elapses to the rustic genre-painting of Jacopo Bassano and his
school.
In the next part of this work we shall show how differences of birth
had lost their significance in Italy. Much of this was doubtless owing
to the fact that men and mankind were here first thoroughly and
profoundly understood. This one single result of the Renaissance is
enough to fill us with everlasting thankfulness. The logical notion of
humanity was old enough--but here the notion became a fact.
The loftiest conceptions on this subject were uttered by Pico della
Mirandola in his Speech on the Dignity of Man, which may justly be
called one of the noblest of that great age. God, he tells us, made man
at the close of the creation, to know the laws of the universe, to love
its beauty, to admire its greatness. He bound him to no fixed place, to
no prescribed form of work, and by no iron necessity, but gave him
freedom to will and to love.
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