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 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESSES NO. 2. 
 
 HISTORY AND THE FINE ARTS 
 
 AN INAUGURAL LECTURE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE REGENTS AND FACULTY OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON MARCH 11. 1910 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIVER HUNTINGTON RICHARDSON, PH. D. 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF HIS INSTALLATION AS 
 PROFESSOR OF EUROPEAN HISTORY 
 
 SEATTLE, WASHINGTON 
 1910 
 
 ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER 
 AT THE POST OFFICE AT SEATTLE, WASHINGTON 
 
r 
 
History and The Fine Arts 
 
 A few generations ago the chief interest of the historian was political; at 
 present, with truer aim, he seeks to discover those more recondite, and fre- 
 quently impersonal forces, which lie behind politics and dominate society. To 
 this end he is utilizing the results of economic and sociological investigation; for 
 the more remote periods and for the less civilized races he draws upon archaeol- 
 ogy, philology and anthropology; physchology is becoming more and more nec- 
 essary to him; and comparative jurisprudence is aiding his institutional re- 
 searches. With these investigations I am heartily in sympathy; I appreciate 
 their necessity, their progressiveness, and the resulting gains in depth of knowl- 
 edge and precision of historical technique. These studies, however, have 
 tempted some writers to eliminate the human element in history unduly and to 
 cultivate an inhuman detachment in its presentation. But since history results 
 from the interplay of personal with impersonal forces, and is the record of human 
 action and of thought in its direct influence on action, the historian should not be 
 unmindful of the movement of ideas. He must, therefore, in the future, as in the 
 past, cultivate the study of literature and the fine arts, the most adequate 
 expression of the subtler spiritual and intellectual forces which have moulded 
 human life. Thus only can he gain the human point of view and the power of 
 sympathetic interpretation. 
 
 My purpose in this address is three-fold: 
 
 First, to emphasize the utility for historical purposes of certain classes of 
 material — the purely literary or artistic — which the documentary historian is 
 liable to overlook or deliberately neglect. Their employment is not congenial 
 to him, for their primary interest lies in an alien field, and that, too, one which 
 demands unusual aesthetic and emotional capacity as well as purely intellectual. 
 Nor are they susceptible of strictly scientific treatment. The subjective element, 
 the personal equation, is too great, both on the part of the original producer and 
 of the historical critic. It is especially difficult to estimate the artificial effect of 
 purely literary form. And yet the use of these materials is both legitimate 
 and necessary, justifiable on theoretical as well as practical grounds. 
 
 Secondly, I desire to show that while, on the one hand, the application of 
 the historical method to literature, science, philosophy and art is indispensable 
 to the proper understanding of those subjects, so conversely the inclusion of 
 scientific, literary and artistic data is indispensable to the fullest comprehension 
 of history — not merely 
 
 “To point a moral or adorn a tale” 
 
 but to grasp the essential spirit as distinguished from the facts which are its 
 external manifestations. 
 
 Thirdly, I shall attempt to characterize certain historical epochs, the 
 Middle Ages, Renaissance and Catholic Reformation, partly for the sake of 
 the characterization as such, partly to demonstrate the underlying unity of his- 
 
2 
 
 History and the Fine Arts 
 
 tory, showing how one epoch springs from another, yet is differentiated from it, 
 but chiefly as an illustrative exercise, to call attention to the “human docu- 
 ments” of various kinds which best reveal their spirit. And 
 
 /. Value of the Historical Method as Applied to Literature , Science and 
 
 Philosophy. 
 
 I was first led to appreciate the value of historical method as applied to 
 these various subjects through the influence of Hettner’s Ceschichte der deutschen 
 Litter atur im Achtzehnten Jahrhundert and the philosophical and literary writings 
 of the late Professor Kuno Fischer. 
 
 For our present purpose the chief feature of interest in Hettner’s work is 
 his mode of presentation. First, he describes the political conditions which 
 furnish the historical background of each literary epoch. Next follows a state- 
 ent of prevalent conditions, methods and forms of thought in natural science 
 and philosophy. Having thus exhibited the principal tendencies which affect 
 literature and which literature reflects in form, content and ideal, he proceeds 
 to develop his main theme, literature itself, treated in substance and as an evolu- 
 tion. Finally he sketches the state of the arts and of music, showing how the 
 same tendencies which are at work in politics, science, philosophy and literature 
 color the aesthetics of the period. As a result, the work reveals the great value 
 of the application of the historical method and artistic illustration to the field 
 of literature. Each age stands out in bold relief as an age possessing certain 
 characteristic features and fundamental unities. To the work of individual au- 
 thors is given a deeper meaning, for each one finds his own peculiar place in 
 the development both of literary form and of human thought. His work 
 ceases to be purely personal and local ; it becomes universal, in the highest degree 
 human and humanizing. Consider, for example, in the light of history, the 
 speech, in that wonderful tragedy of Marlowe’s, of the Good Angel to Faustus, 
 “the incarnation of the Renaissance thirst for knowledge even at the risk of the 
 soul”: 
 
 “Q thou hast lost celestial happiness 
 Pleasures unspeakable, bliss without end. 
 
 Hadst thou affected sweet divinity 
 
 Hell, or the devil, had had no power on thee!” 
 
 A sentence like this is not personal: it is age speaking unto age, and the 
 tragedy of Faustus is not a personal tragedy, but the collision of the Renais- 
 sance with the medieval world. Truly, as has been said, “Without literature, 
 history is shorn of its life and color; without history, literature is shorn of its 
 strength !” 
 
 In like manner Kuno Fischer’s works, particularly his Einleitung in die 
 Ceschichte der neueren Philosophic , impressed upon my mind the great advant- 
 
History and the Fine Arts 
 
 3 
 
 age gained by literature and philosophy from the use of historical method and 
 the inclusion of literary and historical material. Abstract thought was vitalized 
 and even metaphysical abstractions obtained “a local habitation and a name.” 
 Philosophical problems and the achievements of natural science acquired a 
 fuller meaning when they were brought into their human and historical con- 
 nections. Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, for example, received a new sig- 
 nificance when they appeared as part and parcel of a scientific evolution which 
 was destined to attack the entire local and sensuous basis of medieval theological 
 doctrine. It became startlingly apparent that the results of great movements 
 are never confined to one particular sphere. 
 
 This brief analysis of the results of the application of historical method 
 to literature, philosophy and science has made it clear that added significance 
 is thereby given to each line of work. Whether consciously or unconsciously 
 employed, the historical method supplies the only means of testing progress. 
 Developments in each sphere of activity occasion developments in others, but 
 without the application of the historical method this could never be perceived. 
 
 Reversing the process, I proceed to discuss 
 
 //. The Necessity and Value of the Inclusion of Science , Literature and Art 
 
 in History. 
 
 Among American historians the late Herbert Baxter Adams, Professor of 
 History at Johns Hopkins University and chief founder of the American His- 
 torical Association, was pre-eminent in the catholicity of his interests and in his 
 talent for both discovering and stimulating capacity in young men. It is to him 
 that such men of light and leading as President Woodrow Wilson, Professor 
 Jameson of the Carnegie Institution and the American Historical Review, Albert 
 Shaw of the Review of Reviews, Professors Haskins and Turner of the his- 
 torical department at Harvard, and Professor Vincent of Johns Hopkins, owe 
 either their initial impetus, or later stimulation, to scientific pursuits. Professor 
 Adams’ whole career, by precept and example, attests the value to the historian 
 of literary and artistic studies. Some three years before his death, he thus 
 recorded his early formative experience: ‘‘In Germany * * * I devoted 
 
 myself to the study of history in a broad and liberalizing way. I endeavored 
 to become acquainted with great chapters of human experience in ancient, 
 medieval and modern society. * * * Every semester I followed a course 
 
 of lectures in some branch of philosophy and in some field of art history. The 
 subjects of German and English literature had also their attractions. Most in- 
 spiring were frequent visits to the art museums, * * * under the guidance 
 
 of * * * eminent men. * * * It was training in art and archaeology, 
 
 but it was also historical training, for, as Hermann Grimm used to say, ‘Art is 
 the very flower of history.* * * * The art idea for historical and educational* 
 
 purposes ought to be cultivated in every institution of learning,’* a sentiment 
 which I heartily endorse. 
 
4 
 
 History and the Fine Arts 
 
 History is as wide, territorially and chronologically, as the records of 
 man’s existence on earth. It includes in its scope all fields of human endeavor, 
 in so far as these affect or manifest the actions of men. Theoretically, therefore, 
 the inclusion of artistic and scientific data is not only justifiable, but necessary. 
 The necessity is also practical. This appears with peculiar clearness to the 
 author or instructor who is not concerned with the bare presentation of facts 
 (related, unrelated, or obscurely related), but who endeavors to portray the 
 spirit of an age, to gauge the power of a spiritual force, to descry the subtler 
 agencies at work and the subtler forms of expression. The necessity is brought 
 more closely home, when, in small space, he attempts to present the essential 
 characteristics of an historical epoch. The full force of the necessity is felt, 
 when he reflects that the result of great movements is never simple, confined to 
 one sphere, but always complex, influencing others. The interrelation of the 
 Renaissance and Reformation affords a striking illustration. In each of the 
 movements which I now describe, a double set of effects will be noted: one, 
 limited to the particular field in question; the other affecting, directly or indi- 
 rectly, the course of the religious Reformation. 
 
 The literary Renaissance dealt primarily with philological science; but 
 the Hebrew Grammar of Reuchlin and the Critical New Testament of Erasmus 
 afforded a purer Biblical text, the indispensable prerequisite to the Lutheran 
 Reformation. The same movement produced a secular view of life which di- 
 minished the authority of the clergy, undermined ecclesiastical ideas and ideals, 
 and laid the intellectual foundations of a new religious epoch. Meanwhile, the 
 development of historical method and the study of patristic literature were leading 
 men to attempt the reconstruction of primitive Christianity. 
 
 The artistic Renaissance was a movement technically artistic; but it in- 
 volved the redemption of art from purely ecclesiastical trammels, the substitution 
 of aesthetic for religious interests, and the elaboration of natural and anti-eccles- 
 iastical ideals. As Heine says, “The painters of Italy carried on a polemic 
 against clericalism perhaps far more effectually than the Saxon theologians. 
 The glowing flesh in the pictures of Titian is all Protestantism. The hips of his 
 Venus are far deeper theses than those which the German monk nailed to the 
 church door of Wittenberg.’’ 
 
 The philosophical Renaissance was primarily a search for mundane truth, 
 the reconquest of the ideal of knowledge for its own sake ; it involved, however, 
 ihe discovery of new standards of truth, i. e., other than theological, and con- 
 sequently issued in the overthrow of the medieval ecclesiastical philosophy, and, 
 in one phase at least — Giordano Bruno — it assumed the form of pantheism and 
 the deification of nature. 
 
 The geographical Renaissance was primarily the exploration of the globe 
 in the interests of commerce; but it necessarily involved an attack on patristic 
 geography and hence on orthodox theology. Its political effects in the religious 
 
History and the Fine Arts 
 
 5 
 
 sphere were no less marked. Spain, for example, enriched by the treasures of 
 Peru and Mexico and traffic with the Indies, was enabled to exercise ari 
 influence in the stormy days of the Catholic Reformation altogether dispropor- 
 tionate to her European wealth and population. It also completed an economic 
 revolution. If it be true, as Ranke declares, that “the greatest event that meets 
 us in the whole course of authentic history is the fact that the seats of the pre- 
 dominant power and culture have been transplanted to the Western lands and 
 the shores of the Atlantic Ocean,” this must be regarded as one of the few de- 
 cisive moments in the annals of the human race. For it is in the regions chiefly 
 affected in the way of progress — the shores of the Channel, the North Sea and 
 the Baltic — that mankind has been slowly working out, throughout the modern 
 era, its fundamental religious, intellectual and social problems. And still ever 
 westward the Star of Empire takes its way. 
 
 The cosmographical Renaissance was primarily the scientific study of 
 astronomy; but it involved the elaboration of scientific method, and when 
 
 Copernicus “placed the sun upon the throne of the universe,” he was at the 
 
 same time beginning the first great duel between modern science and dogmatic 
 theology. He attacked, and his successors overthrew, the whole local and 
 sensuous basis of medieval Catholic doctrine as based on Ptolemy and Aris- 
 totle and enshrined in the scholastic philosophy. Contemporaries believed that 
 “his pretended discovery vitiated the entire Christian plan of salvation”; and 
 Protestant and Catholic were alike zealous against this new and godless scien- 
 tific doctrine. 
 
 Literature and art are subject, then, to the great rule laid down. They 
 
 produce or illustrate action outside of their own respective spheres, and must, 
 
 therefore, be included in the realm of history. They must be utilized also be- 
 cause of their inspirational value. If it be true that “it is as much the function 
 of the historian to vivify as to verify history,” they offer the best means to this 
 end. Both are emotional, passionate, offspring of the creative imagination: they 
 are therefore peculiarly fitted to kindle the historical, or re-creative imagination, 
 and beget that dramatic power and insight without which no historian can reach 
 the summit of his art. 
 
 Their substantive value is equally apparent. In one sense, every piece of 
 literature is an historical source, and not infrequently has literature been the 
 source of historical action. Architecture, too, has made as well as illustrated 
 history. It was partly because of her direct heritage from Rome that Italy 
 became the parent of the Renaissance. Italy was not dependent for her inspira- 
 tion upon literature alone; in her midst lay visible and tangible memorials of the 
 classic past — coins, statues, columns, triumphal arches, tombs and temples — 
 mighty mementos of a mighty race, for the untutored mind perpetual abodes 
 of myth and legend, but perennial source of light to the investigator. Paintings 
 are often illustrative of history and historical ideas. Portraits need no mention; 
 
6 
 
 History and the Fine Arts 
 
 the likenesses of great men who represent great ideas or historical forces per- 
 sonify their studies or their deeds. The accessories of paintings are an index to 
 civilization. They portray utensils, costumes, weapons, the humours of an age — 
 its amusements and serious pursuits — styles of architecture, the state of scientific 
 knowledge, the arts of war and peace. It is a collection of the paintings ot an* 
 age which best exhibits its prevailing spirit: secular pictures predominate in a 
 worldly age; ecclesiastical paintings in an age ecclesiastical. The basis of Ital- 
 ian art, to take an example, was medieval asceticism : such beauty as the earliest 
 specimens possess is beauty of spirit, not form; they depict, says Mr. Lilly, 
 “the sufferings of heroes of religion, faithful unto death and receiving the 
 crown of life.” Painting was in the service of the church and portrayed re- 
 ligious subjects. The later change in art attests a change of spirit and sym- 
 bolizes it unconsciously. 
 
 The other arts in like manner contribute to historical knowledge, sculpture 
 and music among them. Coins and medals with effigies, dates and inscriptions 
 may have unique historical value. What a world of grim humor and disdain 
 finds expression in the medal struck by Charles XII. of Sweden to commemo- 
 rate the disgraceful flight of Peter the Great at Narva: “And Peter went out 
 and wept bitterly” ! 
 
 History and the arts maintain a reciprocal relation. The arts contribute 
 to history, but history is required for the interpretation of the arts. Literature 
 gives to history, directly or inferentially, about as much as it receives; the arts 
 demand more, as a rule, than they yield in return. This is especially true of 
 such works as embody abstract ideas. 
 
 III. The Characterization of Certain Historical Epochs — The Middle Ages, 
 Renaissance, and Catholic Reformation, With a View to 
 Subsequent Literary and Artistic Illustration. 
 
 History reveals the comparative progress or retrogression of the human 
 race in civilization and culture. It is therefore natural for the historian to mark 
 cff great epochs in history. These divisions are arbitrarily chosen, yet are nec- 
 essary for convenience ; they are misleading, yet justifiable, because there actually 
 exist broad distinctions between ages, as between midday and midnight. Each 
 age has an atmosphere of its own, by which it may be distinguished from that 
 which follows or precedes it. Such is the case with the period called the 
 Renaissance. Sharply contrasting with medieval conditions, it is yet an out- 
 growth from them. A concise view of the state of Europe at the height of 
 the Middle Ages makes this fact apparent. First, it appears that this period 
 possesses an individuality of its own which contrasts sharply with the succeeding 
 age, its offspring, the Era of the Renaissance. Secondly, that the height of 
 the Middle Ages is best characterized by the citation of an ecclesiastical institu- 
 tion, the Empire Church of the Middle Ages, a politico-ecclesiastical movement, 
 
History and the Fine Arts 
 
 7 
 
 the Crusades, and a dominant system of philosophy. Scholasticism. These three 
 parallel phenomena synchronize exactly. Nor is this coincidence in dates ac- 
 cidental; the interconnection of the movements is essential. All three are char- 
 acteristic of an age of the world in which the ecclesiastical principle is the highest 
 principle, faith is superior to reason, and a cosmopolitan conception of a united 
 Christendom is in the ascendant. Cosmopolitan ideas of world-church and 
 world-empire are accepted, while nations (and national churches) have as yet 
 no self-conscious existence. That a cosmopolitan conception of the brotherhood 
 of man prevails as an active force in life is shown both by the Crusades, a uni- 
 versal politico-religious movement, and by the existence of chivalry, an institu- 
 tion with religious sanctions, in which, for example, French knight and German 
 knight are bound together in a community of feeling far closer and more sym- 
 pathetic than exists between a German knight and a German peasant. 
 
 Let me now demonstrate these propositions and contrast them with the 
 spirit of the next succeeding age, the era of the Renaissance. 
 
 And first, the Crusades. The Crusades are a movement typical of an 
 ecclesiastical age of the world, an age of faith, therefore sharply in contrast 
 with the rationalistic and secular spirit of the Renaissance. They were based 
 upon religious motives, armed pilgrimages, organized by the Popes, the spiritual 
 heads of Christendom, for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. And yet — 
 they aimed at a shadow, for reason would have told their participants, in words 
 cf Holy Writ, “He is not here. He is risen !*** The Crusades are also typical 
 of an age in which strongly-marked nationalities are non-existent — sharply con- 
 trasted, therefore, with the nationalistic developments of the political Renais- 
 sance. And yet the Renaissance is, in part, a natural outgrowth of the cru- 
 sading movement, owing to its stimulation of intellectual and commercial devel- 
 opments which were already under way. 
 
 The Empire Church, again, was a Church typical of an ecclesiastical age 
 of the world. It claimed universal power, temporal as well as spiritual; popes 
 dethroned kings, and churchmen governed states. Its organization respected no 
 boundary lines; it was an international world-state, ruled by one monarch and 
 possessing elaborate systems of appeal and taxation. As the most important 
 single institution in existence at the height of the Middle Ages, it must be re- 
 garded as also the most characteristic. Absolutely remote from the national 
 church idea, and allowing the individual no appeal from her authority, 
 yet the Empire Church is indissolubly linked to the Renaissance and Reforma- 
 tion: to the latter through vain attempts to reform its abuses; to the former, 
 through the philosophy and theology which it sanctioned, viz.. Scholasticism. 
 
 Like the Crusades and the Empire Church, Scholasticism is typical of an 
 ecclesiastical age of the world: it contrasts therefore sharply with the Renais- 
 
 * Archer and Kingsford, Story of the Crusades. 
 
6 
 
 History and the Fine Arts 
 
 sance and yet is a phase of intellectual development preliminary to it. Schol- 
 asticism has been defined as rational theology under the control of the Church. 
 It was a mode of truth-seeking which sought to reconcile revelation and reason, 
 faith and science. It resulted in the formulation of systems of universal knowl- 
 edge, based on facts accepted by the Church and arranged in logical order. 
 Scholasticism is the blood relative of the Empire Church. The Fathers of the 
 Church, says Kuno Fischer, established both the faith of the Church and faith 
 in the Church. “Fie cannot have God for his father, who has not the Church 
 for his mother.” “Outside the Church is no salvation.” This is the basis of 
 the power of the Church of the Middle Ages, the source of its consciousness of 
 unconditional supremacy. The Church becomes the sole ladder between earth 
 and heaven; the hierarchy reaches from earth to God. Subordinate to the 
 Kingdom in heaven, is the Church on earth ; subordinate to the Church on earth 
 is the secular Empire on earth ; subordinate to theology, learning divine, is secular 
 learning, philosophy. Even the form of Scholasticism corresponds to the form of 
 the Empire Church. The organization of the Church was systematic and 
 hierarchical; the arrangement of dogma must be so also. The Fathers of the 
 Church are therefore succeeded by the Doctors of the Church (the founders, 
 that is, by the expounders of dogma), and these construct a system in conso- 
 nance with Church requirements. What could be more harmonious than the 
 rigid employment of the syllogistic form and method? 
 
 Scholasticism is at once the deadly enemy and the progenitor of the Re- 
 naissance; its enemy, because it bound knowledge with chains of matter and 
 method; its progenitor, because it “introduced into the world the principle of 
 the thinking spirit,” and thereby became itself “the first movement of the Age 
 of the Renaissance, its prediction and introduction.” 
 
 Literature, then, manifests in form and substance the dominant character- 
 istics of the Middle Ages, for, rightly considered, the scholastic philosophy is 
 the great literary illustration of medieval life. Knowledge is disseminated by 
 the clergy: monks are the medieval chroniclers; miracle-plays and mysteries are 
 the medieval dramas ; Hrotsuit, the nun of Gandersheim, wrote biblical comedies 
 to displace the popularity of those of Terence. 
 
 The height of the Middle Ages is the golden age of monasticism. The 
 Knights Templar are a double illustration of the epoch, for as monks they 
 manifest the ascetic ideal of the ecclesiastical age, while as an institution, estab- 
 lished to wrest the Sepulchre from unbelievers, they illustrate the crusading 
 movement. Their destruction by Philip the Fair marks the close of the crusad- 
 ing age more truly than does the fall of Acre, the last stronghold of the Chris- 
 tians on the shore of Palestine. A tradition, current for centuries and now 
 enshrined in literature, is the finest attestation of its effect upon the popular 
 imagination. Every year, on the anniversary night of the abolition of the Order, 
 there issued an armed figure from the Templars’ tomb, wearing the red cross 
 
History and the Fine Arts 
 
 9 
 
 on the white mantle, and crying, “Who will liberate the Holy Sepulchre?” 
 And from the vault the answer came, “No one! No one! for the Temple is 
 destroyed!”* 
 
 The art of the Middle Ages also enshrines its spirit. Its architecture is the 
 sole form of art not surpassed by the Renaissance; and the pointed Gothic of 
 its grand cathedrals is perhaps the best expression of the soaring devotional 
 spirit of the Middle Ages. But medieval painting is no less characteristic. Its 
 forms are as stereotyped as the scholastic syllogism, and it was no less devoted 
 to the service of the Church. An eighth century advocate of painting declared 
 at the Second Nicene Council, that “It is not the invention of the painter that 
 creates the picture, but an inviolable law of the Catholic Church. It is not the 
 painter, but the Holy Fathers who have to invent and dictate. To them man- 
 ifestly belongs the composition, to the painter only the execution.” “In the old 
 times,” says Ruskin, “men used their powers of painting to show the objects of 
 faith; in later times [the Renaissance] they used the objects of faith that they 
 might show their powers of painting.” The change in art declares the change in 
 spirit and symbolizes it unconsciously. The whirligig of time brought its re- 
 venges. 
 
 The noblest expression in literature of the central political conception of 
 the Middle Ages — the theory of the Holy Roman Empire — is Dante’s De 
 Monarchia; its no less perfect expression in art is a fresco in the Spanish Chapel 
 of Santa Maria Novella — that Dominican church where Boccaccio places the 
 opening scene of his Decameron. The fresco has been described by Mr. Bryce 
 in his great classic, but since it was my privilege to study the original, I feel 
 that I may use my own description for purposes of illustration. The subject 
 of the painting is the ideal theory of the Holy Roman Empire, symbolizing 
 that cardinal medieval idea of exact parallelism between heaven and earth. In 
 the center of the fresco at the top is Christ, the Lamb of God; at his right the 
 seraphs, at his left the saints, among them Catherine, conspicuous with her lily. 
 Immediately below the saints is ranged the adoring multitude of the Church 
 f riumphant, who have just entered the heavenly gate where Peter watches and 
 to which Dominic is guiding the pilgrims from the paths of earth. The fore- 
 ground of the fresco is the Duomo of Florence as originally planned — its sole 
 memorial — the type of the Visible Church. In front of it, and directly below 
 Christ, sit — exactly on the same level and side by side — Christ’s lieutenants on 
 earth, the Pope and Emperor: the Pope at the left (as one faces the fresco) 
 with the descending ranks of cardinals, bishops, doctors and the children of 
 the church; at the right, the Emperor with the king of France, nobles and 
 knights and the humble vassals of the state. At their feet — the feet of Pope 
 and Emperor — are sheep (the faithful), attacked by raging wolves (heretics 
 
 *Ranke, Franzoesiche Ceschichte. 
 
10 
 
 History and the Fine Arts 
 
 and schismatics) whom a pack of spotted dogs (Domini canes, hounds of the 
 Lord) is driving away. The interpretation? Earth is the counterpart of 
 heaven: as in heaven is enthroned Christ, who rules the saints and angels, and 
 receives obedient homage from the Church Triumphant, so on earth are en- 
 throned the Lord’s lieutenants — Pope and Emperor — equal in their rights, who 
 rule the secular and spiritual branches of the Church Militant and receive their 
 obedient homage. 
 
 The Renaissance was restricted neither to intellectual phases nor to a 
 single land. It embraced the whole process of transition in Europe from the 
 medieval to the modern order. It was an age of political revolution and transi- 
 tion. It witnessed the decline of the Empire, that world-monarchy, and the 
 corresponding rise of modern nations; it saw the decline of the Papacy, that 
 world-church, and the corresponding rise of national churches. Then, too, 
 began to pass away the monopoly of Latin, that world-tongue, the most appro- 
 priate vehicle of thought in the days of universal church and universal empire, 
 and correspondingly vernacular literatures began to bud and blossom. Strong, 
 and territorially-compact, monarchies came into self-conscious and aggressive 
 existence. It was an age of social and economic revolution, in which western 
 Europe passed from the agricultural and feudal stage to the industrial and com- 
 mercial stage of modern times. At the same time the people rose to power and 
 began to overthrow aristocratic and ecclesiastical supremacy in politics and to 
 destroy the clerical monopoly of learning. Now began that fateful revolt of 
 laity against the clergy, which issued in the Reformation. The map of the 
 world was changed by Columbus and Vasco da Gama; the chart of the heav- 
 ens was altered by Copernicus; while by the accompanying intellectual revolu- 
 tion, based on the Revival of Antiquity, and by the succeeding religious revolu- 
 tion, introduced by Martin Luther, man in seventy years received a new past and 
 present, a new earth, new sky and sea, and even a new heaven. His body, 
 mind and soul responded to the change. 
 
 Intellectually, the revival of antiquity, was the source of the movement’s 
 strength ; and Humanism was the most characteristic and potent force at work in 
 its creation. Roman influences were the most accessible; but it was the recov- 
 ery of Greek which led directly to the decisive movement of the Reformation. 
 “You are an elegant Latinist, Margaret,’’ said the learned Erasmus to the 
 daughter of the saintly More, “but if you would drink deeply of the Wellsprings 
 of Wisdom, apply to Greek. The Latins have only shallow rivulets; the 
 Greeks, copious rivers running over sands of gold. Read Plato, he wrote on 
 marble with a diamond; but above all, read the New Testament. ’Tis the 
 Key to the Kingdom of Heaven.’’* Nowhere does the contrast between the 
 spirit of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance appear more clearly than in the 
 
 *Sandys, Harvard Lectures on The Revival of Learning. 
 
History and the Fine Arts 
 
 1 1 
 
 ecclesiastical and the humanistic treatment of the classics, and nowhere does the 
 , * 
 
 literary illustration prove more apt. Imagine, if you please, St. Anthony, pat- 
 tern of asceticism, revelling in Homer and burning with passion for Helen of 
 Troy. Contrast with St. Anthony, Marlowe’s Faust, the type of the Renais- 
 sance. As Helen, escorted by Cupids, crosses the stage, Faust utters that im- 
 mortal rhapsody: 
 
 “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, 
 
 And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? 
 
 Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. 
 
 Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flees! 
 
 Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. 
 
 Here will I dwell, for Heaven is in these lips. 
 
 And all is dross that is not Helena. 
 
 ********* 
 
 O thou art fairer than the evening air 
 Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars; 
 
 Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter 
 When he appear’d to hapless Semele; 
 
 More lovely than the monarch of the sky 
 In wanton Arethusa’s azured arms; 
 
 And none but thou shalt be my paramour!” 
 
 A second characteristic of the Renaissance is its note of individuality, of 
 personal independence in thought and action. Man is no longer, as in medieval 
 times, part of a great machine for ecclesiastical, social or political uses, without 
 self-confidence or self-appreciation, living a hard and narrow life in the omni- 
 present fear of death — the man of the Hora Novissima or of the Dies Irae. 
 The modern man is intensely individualistic. The architect of his own fortune, 
 he thirsts for fame and glory — a desire which is distinctly a modern emotion 
 and spring of action. In Petrarch’s Dialogue, “His Secret,” St. Augustine 
 (medieval spokesman) declares that Petrarch’s love for a woman, together 
 with his longing for fame, are the two most conspicuous failings of the poet, 
 barring his way to a higher life. “What have I done to you,” indignantly says 
 Petrarch,* “That you should deprive me of my most splendid preoccupations 
 and condemn to eternal darkness the brightest part of my soul?” Exemplifica- 
 tions of this spirit abound in the literature of the Italian and English Renais- 
 sance. Dante, “in whom the first faint glimmer of the dawning Renaissance 
 
 ^Robinson and Rolfe, Petrarch. 
 
12 
 
 History and the Fine Arts 
 
 began to shine,” allots a separate star to those who strive nobly to excel. Of 
 Mercury he writes: 
 
 ‘‘This little planet doth adorn itself 
 
 With the good spirits that have active been 
 
 That fame and honor might come after them.” 
 
 And again: 
 
 “ ‘Now it behooves thee thus to put off sloth,’ 
 
 My master said; ‘for sitting upon down 
 Or under quilt, one cometh not to fame. 
 
 Withouten which whoso his life consumes 
 Such vestige leaveth of himself on earth 
 As smoke in air or in the water foam.’ ” 
 
 Milton, in the zenith of the English Renaissance, repeats the note in 
 Lycidas : 
 
 ‘‘Fame is the breath that the clear spirit doth raise 
 (That last infirmity of noble minds) 
 
 To scorn delights and live laborious days.” 
 
 And the same strain is repeated with a dying fall in the epitaph of Keats: 
 ‘‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” This is an illustration of the 
 melancholy which is the counterpart of the thirst for fame, in view of the in- 
 evitable disproportion between efforts and results. It, too, is a mark of the 
 Renaissance; Petrarch had it in large measure. 
 
 Another characteristic is the development of rationalism, the evolution of 
 a critical spirit and method. The Renaissance thus had its scientific side, 
 and furnished the substructure of modern material and intellectual life. The 
 combined use of reason and freedom has been the guarantee of progress. 
 
 During the Middle Ages, ‘‘man had lived enveloped in a cowl.” His 
 hopes and fears were fixed upon the life hereafter. The ascetic ideal unduly 
 sacrificed the present to the future. With the regained knowledge of antiquity, 
 a change came in. 
 
 ‘‘Fresh with the youth of the world.” 
 
 The fourth gift of the Renaissance to man was an appreciation of the beauty 
 and comeliness, the value and uses of the present life. Hence the freshness 
 of the period, its joyousness, its renewal of the springtide of life. In Italy, the 
 
History and the Fine Arts 
 
 13 
 
 reaction, carried too far, produced the darker, pagan, non-moral side of the 
 movement. Boccaccio’s Decameron, frank and free, reveals both side of life: 
 the fairness of the face of nature, the unbounded sensuality of an age destitute 
 of moral standards. So, too, the Carnival Songs of Lorenzo, cynical, Hora- 
 tian : 
 
 “Fair is youth and void of sorrow; 
 
 But it hourly flies away. 
 
 Y ouths and maids, enjoy today ; 
 
 Nought ye know about tomorrow. 
 
 This is Bacchus and the bright 
 Ariadne, lovers true! 
 
 They, in flying time’s despite. 
 
 Each with each find pleasure new; 
 
 These their nymphs, and all their crew 
 Keep perpetual holiday. 
 
 Youths and maids, enjoy today; 
 
 Nought ye know about tomorrow. 
 
 The highest ideal of the Humanist, the goal of the movement of which 
 he was a part, was culture — the right of the individual man to the full and free 
 development of all his powers. Its spirit is gloriously manifested in its reverence 
 for literature. “Books have perished,” is Petrarch’s lament: 
 
 “This age of ours consequently has let fall, bit by bit, some of the richest 
 and sweetest fruits that the tree of knowledge has yielded; has thrown away 
 the results of the vigils and labors of the most illustrious men of genius, things 
 of more value, I am tempted to say, than anything else in the whole world.” 
 
 Here is the germ of thought which develops into Milton’s golden saying, 
 dear to the scholar’s heart: 
 
 “Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life 
 in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do 
 preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect 
 that bred them. * * * as good almost kill a man as kill a good book ; who 
 
 kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image ; but he who destroys a good 
 book, kills reason itself. * * * a good book is the precious life-blood of a 
 
 master spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.” 
 
 The hardest knowledge to acquire is self-knowledge. It begins with the 
 consciousness of our separate existence and of our individual powers. It con- 
 tinues with the realization of individual ends to be reached and individual ideals 
 to be attained — which is culture. The process culminates in the realization of 
 our individual responsibility and the consequent formation of a religious ideal. 
 
14 
 
 History and the Fine Arts 
 
 So through the secular byways of the Renaissance man passed along until he 
 found himself confronted by what Charles Kingsley calls the problem of the 
 ages: “Given self, to find God.” This is the true relation of Renaissance to 
 Reformation. 
 
 In Italy this point was not reached and the movement remained non 
 moral. Aesthetic interests dwarfed the religious and the Renaissance flowered 
 in art. The Papacy is the characteristic institution of the epoch. In accord- 
 ance with the spirit of the age its religious activities were temporarily obscured 
 and secular aims prevailed. It is the era of the Borgia popes, the time of the 
 reconstruction of papal temporal monarchy and the reorganization of the papal 
 states. By lavish patronage of arts and letters the heads of the Church strove 
 to achieve an intellectual and aesthetic primacy in Europe. Julius II. is the 
 typical pope of the period. Reigning before the Reformation, he was the 
 fast pontiff to rule the undivided church with power unbroken, half-temporal, 
 half-spiritual. A magnificent patron of art, his memory is indissolubly linked 
 with the undying names of Bramante, Michael Angelo and Raphael. Warrior 
 and politician, he was the founder of the modern papal states. The expansion 
 of the domains of the Church and the expulsion of foreigners from Italy were 
 his chief political aims. At the zenith of his power, two great leagues, opposing 
 thunder-clouds, confronted each other in Italy. The one was headed by the 
 foreign invader, Louis XII. of France — its unhallowed aim, the conquest of 
 Italian soil; the other was a League called Holy, and its soul was Julius II. 
 The noblest expression of his hopes — its official expression — is Raphael’s con- 
 temporary fresco, the Room of Heliodorus in the Vatican. The subject is 
 drawn from the Second Book of the Maccabees. Heliodorus, a robber, has 
 seized and looted the Temple. In the background kneels Onias, the High 
 Priest, before the altar, and prays for deliverance. In the foreground at the 
 left, Julius II. is being borne into the Temple, while before him, foreground to 
 the right, a horseman in armor, wielding a mace and assisted by two angels, 
 has overthrown Heliodorus. The interpretation? Heliodorus, the robber, is 
 the King of France; Julius II. is the divinely-appointed saviour of Italy. Sculp- 
 ture embodies a similar conception. Michael Angelo’s Moses, on the pontiff’s 
 tomb, is Julius II., leading the Italian people from a state of bondage to a 
 freer promised land. Painting and statue do homage to the patriot; literature, 
 in Michael Angelo’s “Sonnet on Rome in the Pontificate of Julius II.,” censures 
 the moral taint which lurks behind the splendors of artistic patronage and polit- 
 ical success — the subordination of spiritual to earthly interests. In bitterness of 
 soul the poet writes : 
 
 “Here helms and swords are made of chalices: 
 
 The blood of Christ is sold so much the quart: 
 
 His cross and thorns are spears and shields : and short 
 
Histor)) and the Fine Arts 
 
 15 
 
 Must be the time ere even his patience cease. 
 ***¥***¥# 
 
 Now were fit time for me to scrape a treasure! 
 
 Seeing that work and gain are gone; while he 
 Who wears the robe, is my Medusa still! 
 
 God welcomes poverty perchance with pleasure: 
 
 But of that better life what hope have we 
 When the blessed banner leads to nought but ill?” 
 
 Here is indeed a Sonnet, a contribution alike to literature and art, religion, 
 biography and history. 
 
 The period of spiritual stagnation which accompanied the Renaissance in 
 Italy and whose results the poet so feelingly described, was followed in the 
 sixteenth century by a determined effort on the part of the Church to regain 
 its spiritual vigor and to recover its pre-Reformatory power and prestige. By 
 the decrees of Trent its power of resistance was regained; a new spirit of ear- 
 nestness, depth, enthusiasm had been generated, and lukewarmness transformed 
 into zeal. A period of religious chivalry ensued. It is the age, in literature, 
 of Tasso and Ariosto, the age of the knightly romance. This literary tendency 
 becomes united with the religious movement. Loyola passed from the legends 
 of Amadis of Gaul to those of St. Francis, becoming in turn knight of Mary 
 and champion of Christ. The institution which best illustrates the chivalrous 
 spirit of the new religious age is the Company of Jesus. The same all-con- 
 quering spirit of romanticism is revealed in painting. Classic repose and mere 
 beauty of form ceases to satisfy; passion is demanded, and religious sentiment; 
 ert once more returns to the service of the Church. It is the day of Guido Reni. 
 The transference of the chivalric ideal to the Church is shown most vividly 
 perhaps by the association of the music of the age with the great religious 
 movement. During the preceding period, church-music had degenerated. Its 
 primary religious purpose was disregarded in favor of the claims of mere pro- 
 fessional technique; themes were borrowed from vulgar tunes such as were 
 sung in taverns; the words were unintelligible; and there was no devotion in it. 
 Under these circumstances a Committee was appointed by the Council of 
 T rent, and music put on trial for its life. The matter finally passed into the 
 hands of the great composer John of Palestrina.* He was ordered to produce 
 a trial-piece, which should satisfy both the spiritual and artistic requirements 
 cf the Congregation of Reform: otherwise, he was told, the Congregation would 
 disband the choral establishments of the Church and forbid the current music. 
 In a word, he must create a new species, or the art of ecclesiastical music would 
 become extinct. Under the double pressure of artistic devotion and religious 
 
 *Symonds, Renaissance in Italy. 
 
16 
 
 History and the Fine Arts 
 
 zeal, he wrote the celebrated mass of Pope Marcellus. It was the critical 
 moment in the history of music: Palestrina created a new style, became the 
 Savior of Church Music, and justly won his title “ Princeps Musicae." His 
 auditors were roused to emotions of rapture; and Pius IV. exclaimed, “Of 
 such nature must have been the harmonies of the new song heard by John the 
 Apostle in the heavenly Jerusalem, and another John has given us a taste of 
 them in the Jerusalem of the Church-militant.” Palestrina’s music will eve* 
 remain the fairest type of the pure religious spirit of the Catholic Reformation, 
 untainted by political ambitions, unstained by persecution. 
 
 It is not only in the service of the mighty, kings and pontiffs, that art per- 
 forms its wonders; it may be the mute but eloquent witness of civic virtue, at 
 once the inspiration and reward of local pride and patriotism. To the pilgrim 
 of art, Florence is a Holy Land. In the days of the Renaissance, the fair city 
 “seated beside the Arno’s stream,” honored her artists and they in return have 
 immortalized her by works in marble and imperishable brass. No more ex- 
 alted witness of civic aspiration exists than the commission issued in 1 294 to 
 Arnolfo del Cambio by the Commune of Florence. “Since the highest mark of 
 prudence in a people of noble origin is to proceed in the management of their 
 affairs so that their magnanimity and wisdom may be evinced in their outward 
 acts, we order Arnolfo, head master of our Commune, to make a design for 
 the renovation of Santa Reparata in a style of magnificence which neither the 
 industry nor the power of man can surpass, that it may harmonize with the 
 opinion of many wise persons in this city and state, who think that this Com- 
 mune should not engage in any enterprise unless its intention be to make the 
 result correspond with that noblest sort of heart which is composed of the united 
 will of many citizens.” An utterance worthy of the city destined to become 
 the seat of the most brilliant culture seen in the world since the days of Peri- 
 clean Athens! A spirit whose external symbols are splendid buildings, spacious 
 libraries, and wondrous art-collections! An inspiration, worthy of all emula- 
 tion, which we here should cherish in the youthful vigor of our city by the 
 Sound where the fairest fruitage of the civilizations of all climes may mingle and 
 abide; an ideal which we, the citizens of no mean city, should pursue and 
 which our several institutions, already founded in the love of art and culture, 
 are striving to attain! 
 
 Oliver Huntington Richardson. 
 
 From the Press of the 
 DEPARTMENT OF JOURNALISM 
 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON