Springtime
PETER VANSITTART
The Age of the Renaissemte edited by Denys Hay (Thames and Hudson; 6 gns to 31 December, then 8 gfis) In this sumptuous volume specialists treat various aspects of the subject: the Renaissance in Italy, in Spain, France, the North; Tudor society, the Discoveries. Ettlinger discusses Northern Art, G. R. Potter the German Reformation, Nicolai Rubenstein Florentine Humanism. The findings, generally unprovoca- tive, are detailed and thorough. The non- specialist can learn of the organisation of patronage, the bizarre intertwining of art and politics, the influence of Luther, ex- plorers, Roman law, the Sack of Rome, the Churches; the new importance of women (Isabella d'Este, Vittoria Colonna, Elizabetha Gonzago), the development of printing, the facts of social life. Illustrations are copious, the spectacular and famous alongside the un- familiar trifle. Calligraphy, Diirer's Maxi- milian, coins, maps, Botticelli's Flora, printers' devices, Cellini's salt-cellar, a carica- ture of Calvin, doodles by Erasmus, propaganda woodcuts, ships, Clouet's Francois I, weapons, clothes.
The editor rightly distinguishes between the Renaissance and the Age. Reformation is shown affiliated to Renaissance rather than a direct part; Science, interested less in classical revival than in Progress, was largely distinct, sometimes hostile or indifferent. Generals and sailors were seldom humanists. The Reformers had scant reverence for classical moderation. Mantegna craved an imaginative rebuilding of ancient Rome but the merchants and rulers, though glad enough of humanist decoration, found Roman Law more to the point. Renais- sance humanism itself has sometimes been misunderstood. It was not a total attitude. There were humanists amongst Catholics, Protestants, despots, republicans, rationalists, mystics, 'held together by common passion for the ancient world, a conviction that it held the key to civilisation.' There was no complete break with the past. (There never is, as Jacobins, Nazis, Russian communists alike found.) And Europe, we are reminded, had already had several classical renaissances: in eighth century Ireland, Carolingian France, the twelfth century revival of Roman law, the thirteenth century revival of Aristotle. Atheism was rare.
Unlike the modern humanist, the Renais- sance did not reject but reinterpret Chris- tianity through the new mastery of Greek. Ficino and Nicolas of Cues christianised Plato: Orpheus became forerunner of Christ: Francois I was painted as one of the Magi: Mirandola found mystical Christian evidence in hermetic and cabbalistic writing. In art the old mingled with the new. Much fifteenth century Florentine architecture completed mediaeval beginnings. Henry VII's tomb com- bines 'classical dignity with Gothic precision of line': Valla's has the form of an antique sarcophagus. Professor Cantimori shows the traditional Ganymede transformed to a symbol of neo-Platonism. Hellenistic form and Chris- tian sentiment meet in Michelangelo. It is Leonardo, writes Professor Murray, who was the first modern.
The arts tended to lag behind thought and politics. Humanists were staffing administra- tions and professions, English scholars chal- lenged old ideas long before this challenge was reflected in art. Political thought, influenced by heroic Rome, became more sophisticated, then, as now, replacing sentimentality about God with sentimentality about the state. The year 1440 saw the first Christian public library, in Florence. Modern textual criticism began with Petrarch, Bibilical criticism with Valla, history and philology replacing allegory. The fifteenth century historians, Bruni, Biondo, began re- jecting anecdotes and legends for ideas, rela- tivity, the view of history as cycles, or as links in a vast evolving chain, speculation reinforced by geographical fact and personal observa- tion. For More, Colet, Erasmus, the New Learning, ennobling and serene, public spirited, tempered by Christian revelation, could promise a supreme civilisation. It was to be understood if seldom fulfilled by eighteenth century English aristocrats.
The Renaissance, like Reformation, Discovery, New Monarchy, the Nation State, finally, was not all gain, sweetness, light. The brutal and learned Tiptoft of Worcester and Sigis- mundo Malatesta refuted the classical notion that art, even education itself, necessarily makes good people. Arms were throughout rated as highly as the arts, and wars were becoming bloodier. Professor Parker points out that in the New World the humanist Stpulveda, quot- ing Aristotle on inferior races, was in favour of enslaving Indians, the traditionalist friar, Las Casas, opposed. Roman law contributed
to German absolutism: Livy and Plutarch were, two centuries later, to bring disaster to French politics. The scholar's appeal to past grandeur strengthened the established authority of texts, while liberating thought from theology and allegory. Despite new precision there remained a temptation towards rhetoric. Rome itself, Ezra Pound once said, collapsed because people ceased to care about hitting the nail on the head.
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