Europe: A History (96 page)
T
HERE
is a strong sense of unreality about the Renaissance. The mode of thinking which is supposed to distinguish modern European civilization both from medieval Christendom and from other non-European civilizations such as Islam had no clear beginning and no end. For a very long time it remained the preserve of a small intellectual élite, and had to compete with rival trends of thought, old and new. In the so-called ‘Age of the Renaissance and Reformation’ which conventionally begins c.1450, it can only be described as a minority interest. There were large sectors of European society, and huge areas of European territory, where as yet it wielded no influence whatsoever. It somehow contrived to be the most remarkable feature of the age and yet to be divorced from the main aspects of everyday political, social, and cultural life. It was untypical and unrepresentative, yet immensely significant. Like the wonderful figures of Sandro Botticelli, which are among its most powerful manifestations, whether the exquisite
Primavera
(1478) or the ethereal
Venus Rising from the Waves
(c.1485), its feet somehow did not touch the ground. It floated over the surface of the world from which it arose, a disembodied abstraction, a new energizing spirit.
Faced with the problem, many historians of the period have abandoned their earlier concerns. It is no longer the fashion to write so much about those minority interests. Humanist thought, reformation theology, scientific discovery, and overseas exploration have had to give way to studies of material conditions, of the medieval continuities, and of popular belief (and unbelief) as opposed to high culture. The professionals now like to spotlight magic, vagrancy, disease, or the decimation of colonial populations. This may be a very proper corrective; but it is as odd to forget Leonardo or Luther as it once was to ignore a Nostradamus or the Miller of Friuli. No one who wishes to know why Europe was so different in the mid-seventeenth century from what it had been in the fifteenth can afford to bypass the traditional subjects.
Even so, the incautious reader needs to be reminded. The world of Renaissance and Reformation was also the world of divination, astrology, miracles,
conjuration, witchcraft, necromancy, folk cures, ghosts, omens, and fairies. Magic continued to compete, and to interact with religion and science. Indeed, the dominion of magic among the common people held sway through a long period of cohabitation with the new ideas over two centuries or more.
1
One implication is that this ‘Early Modern Period’ may not be quite so modern after all. Despite the fresh seeds that were sown, it could well have had more in common with the medievalism that preceded it than with the Enlightenment which followed.
Map 16.
Europe, 1519
The Renaissance
, therefore, cannot be easily defined. It is easiest to say what it was not. ‘Ever since the Renaissance invented itself some six hundred years ago,’ complained one American historian, ‘there has been no agreement as to what it is.’
2
The Renaissance, for example, did not merely refer to the burgeoning interest in classical art and learning, for such a revival had been gathering pace ever since the twelfth century. Nor did it involve either a total rejection of medieval values or a sudden return to the world-view of Greece and Rome. Least of all did it involve the conscious abandonment of Christian belief. The term
renatio
or ‘rebirth’ was a Latin caique for a Greek theological term,
palingenesis
, used in the sense of’spiritual rebirth’ or ‘resurrection from the dead’. The essence of the Renaissance lay not in any sudden rediscovery of classical civilization but rather in the use which was made of classical models to test the authority underlying conventional taste and wisdom. It is incomprehensible without reference to the depths of disrepute into which the medieval Church, the previous fount of all authority, had fallen. In this the Renaissance was part and parcel of the same movement which resulted in religious reforms. In the longer term, it was the first stage in the evolution which led via the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment. It was the spiritual force which cracked the mould of medieval civilization, setting in motion the long process of disintegration which gradually gave birth to ‘modern Europe’,
[BALLETTO]
In that process, the Christian religion was not abandoned. But the power of the Church was gradually corralled within the religious sphere: the influence of religion increasingly limited to the realm of private conscience. As a result the speculations of theologians, scientists, and philosophers, the work of artists and writers, and the policies of princes were freed from the control of a Church with monopoly powers and ‘totalitarian’ pretensions. The prime quality of the Renaissance has been defined as ‘independence of mind’. Its ideal was a person who, by mastering all branches of art and thought, need depend on no outside authority for the formation of knowledge, tastes, and beliefs. Such a person was
l‘uomo universale
, the ‘complete man’.
3
The principal product of the new thinking lay in a growing conviction that humanity was capable of mastering the world in which it lived. The great Renaissance figures were filled with self-confidence. They felt that God-given ingenuity could, and should, be used to unravel the secrets of God’s universe; and that, by extension, man’s fate on earth could be controlled and improved. Here
was the decisive break with the mentality of the Middle Ages, whose religiosity and mysticism were reinforced by exactly the opposite conviction—that men and women were the helpless pawns of Providence, overwhelmed by the incomprehensible workings of their environment and of their own nature. Medieval attitudes were dominated by a paralysing anxiety about human inadequacy, ignorance, impotence—in short, by the concept of universal sin. Renaissance attitudes, in contrast, were bred by a sense of liberation and refreshment, deriving from the growing awareness of human potential. Speculation, initiative, experiment, and exploration could surely be rewarded with success. Intellectual historians examine the Renaissance in terms of new ideas and new forms; psychologists would look more to the conquests of fears and inhibitions which had prevented the new ideas from flourishing for so long (see Appendix III, p. 1269).
BALLETTO
D
ANCE,
having played a central role in pagan religious rites, was largely ignored during the Middle Ages, except for rustic entertainment. It is generally agreed that the secular dance spectacle performed by Bergonzio di Botta at the Duke of Milan’s wedding, at Tortona in 1489, is the earliest example of the modern genre on record. From Italy, the
baletto
was exported in the time of Catherine de’ Medici to the French court, where, under Louis XIV, it became a major art form. Lully’s
Triomphe de I’Amour
(1681) fixed the long-lasting genre of opera-ballet.
The modern theory and practice of ballet were largely developed in mid-eighteenth-century Paris, especially by the royal ballet master Jean Georges Noverre (1727–1810). Leading dancers such as Marie Camargo or Gaetano Vestris, who modestly called himself
le dieu de la danse
, based their training and performances on the grammar of the five classical positions. At a later stage, the combination of classical technique with Romantic music, such as the
Coppélia
(1870) of Léo Delibes or the Roy Douglas fantasia on Chopin tunes,
LesSylphides
(1909), proved immensely attractive.
Russia first imported French and Italian ballet under Peter the Great, but in the nineteenth century moved rapidly from imitation to creative excellence. Tchaikovsky’s music for
Swan Lake
(1876),
Sleeping Beauty
(1890), and
The Nutcracker
(1892) laid the foundations for Russia’s supremacy. In the last years of peace, the Ballets Russes launched by Sergei Diaghilev (1872–1929) enjoyed a series of unsurpassed triumphs. The choreography of Fokine, the dancing of Nizinski and Karsavina, and, above all, the scores of Stravinsky, brought ballet to its zenith with
The Firebird
(1910),
Petrushka
(1911), and
The Rite of Spring
(1913). After the Revolutions of 1917, the Ballets Russes stayed abroad, whilst the Soviet Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets combined stunning technical mastery with rigid artistic conservatism.
Modern dance, as opposed to ballet, is older than might be supposed. Its basic principles, of translating musical rhythm into corresponding bodily movements, were put forward by the music teacher Francois Delsarte (1811–71). Delsarte inspired the two principal practitioners of the art, the Swiss Jacques Dalcroze (1865–1950), the pioneer of rhythmic gymnastics, and the Hungarian Rodolf Laban (1879–1958). After modern dance in central Europe felHoul of the Nazis, the centre of gravity moved to North
No simple chronological framework can be imposed on the Renaissance. Literary historians look for its origins in the fourteenth-century songs and sonnets of Petrarch, who observed human emotions for their own sake (see Chapter VI). Art historians look back to the painters Giotto and Masaccio (1401–28), to the architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1379–1446), who measured the dome of the Pantheon in Rome in order to build a still more daring dome for the cathedral in Florence, or to the sculptors Ghiberti (1378–1455) and Donatello (c.1386–1466). Political historians look back to Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), who first explained the mechanics of politics as power for power’s sake. Every one of these pioneers was a Florentine. As the first home of the Renaissance, Florence can fairly lay claim to be ‘the mother of modern Europe’,
[FLAGELLATIO]
In those unmatched generations of versatile Florentines, no one ever outshone Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). The painter of perhaps the most celebrated picture in the world,
La Gioconda
(1506), he possessed seemingly limitless talents to pursue his equally limitless curiosity. His notebooks contain everything from anatomical drawings to designs for a helicopter, a submarine, a machine-gun. (Such mechanical inventions had been the rage in Germany at an even earlier period.’
4
) His fame is surrounded by the mystery which derives from lost works, from the reputation of wizardry. It is said that, as a young boy in the street market in Florence, he bought cage-birds just to set them free. He did the same for the secrets of art and nature. He lived his last years in France, in the service of Francis I. He died in the Château de Cloux near Amboise on the Loire—in a part of the world which has been called ‘an Italy more Italian than Italy itself’.
5
[LEONARDO]
The Renaissance was never confined to Italy or to Italian fashions, and its effects were steadily disseminated throughout Latin Christendom. Modern scholars sometimes overlook this fact. Such was the impact of the work of the Swiss historian Jakob Burckhardt,
Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien
(Basle, 1860) that many people have been left unaware of the wider dimensions. In fact, the intellectual ferment of the period was observable from an early date in northern Europe, especially in the cities of Burgundy and Germany. In France it displayed many native strands in addition to imported Italian fashions. Nor was it confined to Italy’s immediate neighbours: it affected Hungary and Poland, for example,
more deeply than Spain; and it met no insurmountable barrier until it reached the borders of the Orthodox world. Traces of the Renaissance were slight in countries absorbed by the Ottoman Empire; and in Muscovy they were limited to a few artistic imitations. Indeed, by giving a new lease of life to the Latin West, the Renaissance only deepened the gulf between East and West.
FLAGELLATIO
P
IERO DELLA FRANCESCA
(c.1415–92) painted the small study generally known as
The Flagellation
some time between 1447 and 1460. The picture, now in the Galleria Nazionale at Urbino, is remarkable for its diptych structure, for its architectural detail, for its stunning use of perspective, and, above all, for its enigmatic allegory (see Plate 39).
1
The picture is divided into two distinct zones. On the left, a nocturnal flagellation scene takes place in the pearly interior of an antique courtyard. On the right, three large male figures converse in an open garden. The pale moonlight on the left is diffused by the daylight flooding in from the right.
The architectural elements are strangely ambiguous. The praetorium courtyard is severely classical. The heavy roof panels are supported by two rows of fluted Corinthian columns rising from a marble pavement. In the centre, a prisoner is tied to the column of the
Helia capitolina
, symbol of Jerusalem, surmounted by a golden statue. Yet two medieval houses with an overhanging belvedere appear alongside. Beyond is a patch of greenery and of blue sky. One section of the picture, therefore, was set in the past, the other in the present.
The two groups of figures do not betray any obvious connection. The flogging in the courtyard is watched by a seated official who wears a pointed ‘Palaeologi’ hat, by a turbaned Arab or Turk, and by an attendant in a short Roman toga. The foreground group in the garden consists of a bearded Greek dressed in round hat, maroon robe, and soft boots, a barefoot youth in red smock and laurel wreath, and a rich merchant dressed in a Flemish-style fur-hemmed brocade.
Piero uses perspective drawing to ensure that the small figure of the prisoner remains the central focus. The convergent lines of the beams, the roof panels and the columns, and the foreshortened marble squares of the pavement constitute a textbook exposition of an architectural setting which emphasizes the action within it.
2
As for the allegory, a prominent exponent of Piero’s art has stated that the conflicting interpretations are too numerous to mention.
3
The conventional view holds that
The Flagellation
portrays the scourging of Christ before Pilate. Many commentators have identified the barefoot youth as Oddantonio di Montefeltro. Yet the Byzantine accents are strong; and they suggest a number of interpretations connected to the Ottoman siege and conquest of Constantinople which dominated the news in the period. In which case, the prisoner may not be Christ, but St Martin, the seventh-century Roman Pope who met martyrdom at Byzantine hands. The presiding official may not be Pilate, but the Byzantine Emperor. The three foreground figures could be participants in the Council of Mantua (1459), where a Greek emissary begs the Western princes to mount a crusade to rescue the Eastern Empire.
A leading British authority, however, is adamant that the picture represents
The Dream of St Jerome
. Jerome once dreamed that he was being flogged for reading the pagan Cicero. This would explain the discordance between the two sections. The three foreground figures—two men and ‘a barefoot angel’—’are discussing the relation between classical and patristic literature embodied in the story of St Jerome’s dream’.
4
Linear perspective was the artistic sensation of the era.
5
It so excited Piero’s contemporary, Paolo Uccello, that he would wake his wife in bed to discuss it. It was a pictorial system for creating a realistic image of the three-dimensional world on a flat, two-dimensional surface. It set out to present the world as seen by the human eye, and as such marked a fundamental rejection of the hieratical proportions of medieval art. It was first discovered by Brunelleschi in his explorations of classical architecture, and expounded in many theoretical treatises headed by Alberti’s
De Pictura
(1435), by Piero’s own
De Prospettiva Pingendi
(pre-1475), and by Dürer’s
Treatise on Measurement
(1525). Its rules included the pictorial convergence of parallel lines towards an illusory ‘vanishing-point’ and ‘horizon line’, the decreasing size of objects in relation to their distance from the ‘viewing point’, and the foreshortening of features lying along the central line of vision.
6
The pioneering examples of the system are to be found in the bronze panels of Ghiberti’s ‘Gates of Paradise’ (1401–24) in the Baptistery at Florence, and in Masaccio’s fresco of the Trinity (c.1427) in the nave of St Maria Novella. Other standard items include Uccello’s Battle/e
of San Romagno
(c.1450), Mantegna’s
Lamentation over the Dead Christ
(c.1480), and Leonardo’s
Last Supper
(1497).
Perspective was to dominate representational art for the next 400 years. Leonardo called it ‘the rein and rudder of painting’.
7
A modern critic was to call it ‘a uniquely European way of seeing’.
8
Naturally, when modern artists eventually began to deconstruct traditional methods, linear perspective became one of their targets. Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) and his
Scuola Metafísica
explored the effects of dislocated perspective in paintings such as
The Disquieting Muses
(1917), as did Paul Klee in his
Phantom Perspective
(1920). It was left to the Dutchman M. C. Escher (1898–1970) to invent the visual riddles which show that in the last resort all lines on paper deal in illusions,
[IMPRESSION]