John Stephens - The Italian Renaissance: The Origins of Intellectual and Artistic Change Before the Reformation

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The Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance

The Origins of Intellectual and Artistic Change Before the Reformation

John Stephens

First published 1990 by Addison Wesley Longman Limited

Published 2014 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informabusiness

John Stephens 1990

All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE.

Fifth impression 1996

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Stephens, John N

The Italian Renaissance: the origins of intellectual and artistic change before Reformation
1. Italian civilization, 1300-1494
1. Title
945'.05

ISBN 0-582-06425-2 CSD
ISBN 978-0-582-49337-7 PPR
ISBN 978-1-315-83659-1 (eISBN)

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Stephens, John N., 1945-

The Italian renaissance: the origins of intellectual

and artistic change before the Reformation / John N. Stephens.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-582-06425-2
ISBN 0-582-49337-4 (pbk)

1. Renaissance-Italy. 2. Arts, Italian. 3. Arts, RenaissanceItaly. 4. Art patronage-Italy-History. 5. Arts and patronsItaly-History. 6. Italy-Civilization-1268-1559. 1. Title.

DG445.S74 1990
945'.05-dc20

89-29867
CIP

Transferred to digital print on demand 2001

Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this book but points out that some imperfections from the original may be apparent.

Contents

(Between pages 142 and 143)

Simone Martini: Virgilian Allegory (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana). The frontispiece to a codex of Virgil with the commentary of Servius, owned by Petrarch. Petrarch, who commissioned this miniature, was the first Italian writer to appreciate the intellectual importance of painting; he was also a pioneer in using the classical commentaries on ancient texts to shed new light on ancient literature. Here he has commissioned the Sienese painter Simone Martini to depict the commentator Servius drawing back the veil of obscurity from the poet Virgil. (On Petrarch's views of art see below, pp. 44, 86, 87, 95, 106) Reproduced by kind permission of Scala, Florence .

Crucifix at S. Chiara, Assisi (formerly at San Damiano, Assisi). A famous pre-Renaissance painting embodying a religious conception of the work of art which long endured (see p. 60). Scala, Florence .

Leonardo da Vinci: The Virgin of the Rocks (Louvre). Leonardo's painting shows the enlarged role of the painter as the interpreter of religious scenes, which became current amongst the great artists of the High Renaissance (see pp.60-62). Reproduced by kind permission of Giraudon, Paris .

Perugino: The Battle of Chastity and Lasciviousness (Louvre). The commissioning of this painting is the best recorded in Renaissance art. The documents and the picture reveal the nature and extent of the respective contributions of patron and artist in the production of a work of art (see p.68f). Scala, Florence .

Justus of Ghent: Federigo da Montefeltro, his son Guidobaldo and others listening to a philosophical discourse (The Royal Collection, Windsor). The capacity of patricians and rulers in Italy to understand latin culture was one of the most striking features and achievements of Renaissance Italy. It prepared the way for the 'wise' and 'virtuous' princes of the Reformation era. Reproduced by gracious permission of H M The Queen .

Masaccio: Holy Trinity (Santa Maria Novella, Florence). Painted in 1427, this was the first picture executed according to the mathematical laws of perspective. It illustrates how innovations were achieved in order to please patrons (see p.79). Scala, Florence .

Masaccio: St. Paul (Pisa, Museo Nazionale). The technical innovations of great artists like Masaccio, and particularly their efforts to portray human figures in monumental form, were designed to convey religious truths (see p.79). Scala, Florence .

Facade of Orsanmichele, Florence. The sculptures in the niches on the communal grain-store at Florence, produced by various sculptors and commissioned by different guilds, indicate the manner in which Florentine artists were compelled to produce works which could be compared with each other (see p.75). Scala, Florence .

The wheel has turned round since Jacob Burckhardt published his Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy in 1860. The Renaissance was then seen as the origin of our world. Few scholars today would defend the proposition that the Renaissance was modern; most would deny it a large measure of importance. This change can be attributed to the way in which its culture is now perceived. The revival of antiquity, the birth of the individual, the discovery of the world and of man achievements which Burckhardt had traced to Quattrocento Italy - are now frequently attached to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries or felt to be unmodern.

Today Renaissance culture is admitted to be the product of an in teres ting and curious world - that of the Italian city-state. In that environment letters came to reflect civic needs. Italian men of letters, who are called humanists, employed ancient learning to current purposes as the scholars of the central Middle Ages had done. Classical ideas assumed, however, a distinctive form. P. O. Kristeller has said that he is inclined to consider

the humanists not as philosophers with a curious lack of philosophical ideas and a curious fancy for classical studies, but rather as professional rhetoricians with a new classicist ideal of culture, who tried to assert the importance of their field of learning and to impose their standards upon other fields of learning and of science including philosophy.

The humanist, in other words, was a noisy and self-important official, little concerned with ideas. The importance of his work lay in drafting letters and speeches for the princes and civic governments for whom he worked. His other tasks were in writing moral treatises and histories to express the civic consciousness and local patriotism of citizens and rulers.

Compared to the grandiose claims of Burckhardt this is a small scheme of things. Certainly it is acknowledged that the humanist improved the classical scholarship of former times and in promoting a civic ideal achieved something of note. Medieval scholars had had Aristotle's Politics and Roman law to direct them here; the Italians took in new sources and passed on their civic consciousness to later ages. Nevertheless, taking a long view, these are modest achievements and for some they are overshadowed by the deeds of scholastic theologians in the field of dialectic.

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