THE RENAISSANCE. 345 The natural consequences of the Tribune's extravagant follies were soon reached. The people withdrew from him their support; the Pope, now that it was safe to do so, excommunicated him as a rebel and heretic; and the nobles rose against him. Abdicating his office, Rienzi now went into exile. After an absence from the city of six years, he was sent back by the Pope (he had become reconciled with the Church) as his minister, with the title of Senator; but after a rule of a few months he was assassinated, in a sudden uprising of the people. Thus vanished the dream of Rienzi and Petrarch, of the hero and the poet. Centuries of division, of shameful subjection to foreign princes, French, Spanish, and Austrian, of wars and suffering, were yet before the Italian people ere Rome should become the centre of a free, orderly, and united Italy. The Renaissance. Though the Middle Ages closed in Italy without the rise there of a national government, still before the end of the period much had been done to awaken those common ideas and sentiments upon which political unity can alone safely repose. Literature and art here performed the part that war did in other countries in arousing a national pride and spirit. The Renaissance, with its revelations and achievements, discovering the Italians to themselves, did much towards creating among them a common pride in race and country; and thus this splendid literary and artistic enthusiasm was the first step in a course of national development which was to lead the Italian people to a common political life. Upon the literary phase of the Italian Renaissance we have said. something in the chapter on the Revival of Learning; we will here say just a word respecting the artistic side of the movement.1 The most splendid period of the art revival covered the latter part of the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth. The characteristic art of the Renaissance in Italy was painting, although the aesthetic genius of the Italians also expressed itself both in I For what follows, we are largely indebted to Symonds's admirable work, The Fine Arts, in his series entitled The Renaissance in Italy. architecture and sculpture.1 The medieval artists devoted themselves to painting instead of sculpture, for the reason that it best expresses the ideas and sentiments of Christianity. The art that would be the handmaid of the Church needed to be able to represent faith and hope, ecstasy and suffering, none of which things can well be expressed by sculpture, which is essentially the art of repose. Sculpture was the chief art of the Greeks, because among them the aim of the artist was to represent physical beauty or strength. But the problem of the Christian artist is to express spiritual emotion or feeling, through the medium of the body. This cannot be represented in cold, colorless marble. Thus, as Symonds asks, “How could the Last Judgment be expressed in plastic form?" The chief events of Christ's life removed Him beyond the reach of sculpture. Therefore, because sculpture has so little power to express emotion, painting, which runs so easily the entire gamut of feeling, became the chosen medium of expression of the Italian artist. His subjects at first were drawn chiefly from the legends of mediæval Christianity. He sought to portray the raptures of the saint, the sweet charm of the Madonna, the intense passion of the Christ, the moving terrors of the Last Judgment. With the Renaissance, classical elements were blended with Christian ideals, and art became paganized. At the same time it was liberalized, and in insisting upon beauty as being an end worthy in itself, it antagonized the teachings of ascetic Chris 1 The four supreme masters of the Italian Renaissance were Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Michael Angelo (1475-1564), Raphael (1483-1520), and Titian (1477-1576). All were great painters. Perhaps the one of greatest, at least of most varied, genius, was Michael Angelo, who was at once architect, painter, and sculptor. His grandest architectural triumph was the majestic dome of St. Peter's, which work, however, he did not live to see completed. His best paintings, probably, are the wonderful frescoes of the Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel at Rome. As a sculptor, he forced sculpture to do what it is not wont to do, -to use the emotional language of painting; that is, he cut in marble thoughts and feelings that less masterful genius than his must needs express by means of painting. tianity, and helped to lift men into the freedom of the new age. Thus teaching the world the joyousness of physical existence, the art of the Renaissance was one of the angels that led man out of the dungeon in which Monasticism had immured him. Savonarola (1452-1498).-A word must here be said respecting the Florentine monk and reformer Girolamo Savonarola, who stands as the most noteworthy personage in Italy during the closing years of the medieval period. Savonarola was at once Roman censor and Hebrew prophet. Such a preacher of righteousness the world had not seen since the days of Elijah. He denounced the Medici as the enslavers and corrupters of Florence; thundered against the iniquities of the infamous Borgias at Rome; fought to counteract the pagan tendencies of the Renaissance; hurled denunciations against the profligacy of the monks; and prophesied the wrath of God on Florence, Italy, and all the world on account of the degeneracy of the Church and the paganism and vices of the times. His powerful preaching alarmed the conscience of the Florentines. At his suggestion the women brought their finery and ornaments, and others their beautiful works of art, and piling them in great heaps in the streets of Florence, burned them as vanities. Savonarola even urged that the government of Florence be made a theocracy, and Christ be proclaimed king. But, finally, the activity of his Florentine enemies and the machinations of the Pope, the detestable Alexander VI., brought about the reformer's downfall, and he was condemned to death, executed, and his body burned. Savonarola may be regarded as the last great mediæval forerunner of the reformers of the sixteenth century. With the flames of his martyrdom went out the light of religious reform in Europe until rekindled once more by the holy fervor of a monk beyond the Alps. VII. THE NORTHERN COUNTRIES. The Union of Calmar. - The great Scandinavian Exodus of the ninth and tenth centuries drained the Northern lands of some of the best elements of their population. For this reason these countries did not play as prominent a part in medieval history as they would otherwise have done. The constant contentions between their sovereigns and the nobility were also another cause of internal weakness. In the year 1397, by what is known as the Union of Calmar, the three kingdoms of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden were united under Margaret of Denmark, "the Semiramis of the North." The treaty provided that each country should make its own laws. But the treaty was violated, and though the friends of the measure had hoped much from it, it brought only jealousies, feuds, and wars. The Swedes arose again and again in revolt, and finally, under the lead of an heroic nobleman, Gustavus Vasa, made good their independence (1523). The patriot Gustavus awakened in his countrymen a deep sense of nationality, and thus helped vastly to bring Sweden prominently forward among the forming nations of Europe. During the seventeenth century, under the descendants and successors of the Liberator, Sweden was destined to play an important part in the affairs of the continent. Norway became virtually a province of Denmark, and the Norwegian nobles were driven into exile or killed. The country remained attached to the Danish Crown until the present century. PART II. MODERN HISTORY. INTRODUCTION. Beginning of the Modern Age. The discovery of America by Columbus in 1492 is usually allowed to mark the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Era. And this was an event of such transcendent importance, - the effect upon civilization of the opening up of fresh continents was so great,—that we may very properly accord to the achievement of the Genoese the honor proposed. Yet we must bear in mind that no single circumstance or event actually marks the end of the old order of things and the beginning of the new. The finding of the Western Hemisphere did not make the new age; the new age discovered the New World. The undertaking of Columbus was the natural outcome of that spirit of commercial enterprise which for centuries since the Crusades-had been gradually expanding the scope of mercantile adventure, and broadening the horizon of the European world. His fortunate expedition was only one of several brilliant nautical exploits which distinguished the close of the fifteenth and the opening of the sixteenth century. ever This same period was also marked by significant intellectual, political, and religious movements, which indicated that civilization was about to enter-indeed had already entered - upon a new phase of its development. In the intellectual world was going on, as we have seen, the wonderful Revival of Learning, |