human
Can you continue this poem for me?
  _Faustus is therefore a parable of the impotent yearnings of the
Middle Ages--its passionate aspiration, its conscience-stricken
desire, its fettered curiosity amid the tramping limits of
imperfect knowledge and irrational dogmatism. The indestructible
the modern world. Mediaevalism took this Helen to wife, and their
modern world._--J.A. Symonds, "Renaissance In Italy," vol. ii. p.
specially adapted gifts, to infinite patience and ingenuity,
sometimes displayed like the worm-eaten squares of discoloured
thoughts and things.
inevitable degradation, can move us to pity and to indignation.
Ihr fuehrt ins Leben uns hinein;
Ihr laesst den armen schuldig werden;
Dann uebergiebt Ihr ihm der Pein,
Denn alle Schuld raecht sich auf Erden.
commonwealth was restricted to a sort of mercantile
companies, and bands of outlawed peasants, from whom the merchant
politically organized States. And in such States having a free
concentrated life, and an organization which could be wielded as'
independent States and larger and smaller guilds; when all the
The men of the Renaissance had to pay a heavy price for this
Renaissance rarely were.
authority, this indifference to evil, this bold tasting of the
half-dramatic representation of the reigning Borgia pope and his
French-speaking hosts and lacqueys and officials--travellers also
Kiss the hand and cry, "sweet lady!"
Say they had been at Rome and seen the relics,
Drunk your Verdea wine, and rid at Naples--
Vindicis, like those drawn by the strong and savage hand of Cyril
these wretched eminent things
Leave no more fame behind 'em, than should one
Fall in a frost, and leave his print in snow--
O, this gloomy world!
In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness,
Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!
Let worthy minds ne'er stagger in distrust
To suffer death or shame for what is just.
O thou all-bearing earth
Which men do gape for till thou cram'st their mouths
And choak'st their throats for dust: O charme thy breast
And let me sinke into thee.  Look who knocks;
Andrugio calls. But O, she's deafe and blinde.
A wretch but leane relief on earth can finde.
As the tann'd galley slave is with his oar.
reputation of which lasted two hundred years; lasted triumphantly
canvases of Titian and the frescoes of Raphael; they are the real
grotesquely ghastly pseudo-Italian brethren of eighty years ago.
And, indeed, the Italy of the Renaissance, as represented in its
permitted to a _gentil cavaliero_ and a _nobil donzella_; and if
 The "Orlando Innamorato" of Boiardo contains, part i, canto 8, a
A serene and spotless art, a literature often impure but always
Neither; for art can neither tell lies nor be the victim of
The blindness to evil which constitutes the criminality of the
sophistication and cynicism, but only of wonder. While, in Italy,
If any spirit breathes within this round
Uncapable of weighty passion,
Who winks and shuts his apprehension up
From common sense of what men were and are,
Who would not know what men must be: let such
Hurry amain from our black visaged shows;
We shall affright their eyes.
cornfields of central France, the vine and olive yards of Italy--
Ich moechte ziehn in die Welt hinaus, hinaus in die weite
Wenn's nur so gruen, so gruen nicht war da draussen in
peasants against themselves. A monstrous rag doll, dressed up in
 The reader may oppose to my views the existence of the--class of
declensions runs as follows:
Nom.   Hic villanus.                  Nom.   Hi maledicti.
Gen.   Huius rustici.                 Gen.   Horum tristium.
Dat.   Huic tferfero (_sic_).           Dat.   His mendacibus.
Acc.   Hunc furem.                    Acc.   Hos nequissimos.
Voc.   O latro.                       Voc.   O pessimi.
Abl.   Ab hoc depredatore.            Abl.   Ab his infidelibus.
The accusation of heresy and of crucifying Christ is evidently
due to the devil-worship prevalent among the serfs, and is thus,
alluded to in a north Italian poem, probably borrowed from the
Christo fo da villan crucifio,
E stagom sempre in pioza, in vento, e in neve,
Perche havom fato cosi gran pecca.
This feeling is exactly analogous to that existing nowadays in
Yet not so; I can recall one, though only one, occasion in which
Nicolette." In his beautiful essay upon that story, Mr. Pater has
frescoed vaulted room, he in his town prison--there is always
marvellously. His face was blacker than smoked meat, and so wide,
his back was a parti-coloured coat. He was leaning upon a stout
bludgeon. Aucassin was startled and fearful, and said:
"'Fair brother ("beau frere"--a greeting corresponding to the
modern "bon homme")! God be with thee!'
"'God bless you!' answered the man.
"'What dost thou here?' asked Aucassin.
"'What is that to you?' answered the man.
"'I ask thee from no evil motive.'
"'Then tell me why,' said the man, 'you yourself are weeping with
"'And how dost thou know me?'
"'I will tell thee willingly,' answered Aucassin. 'This morning I
"'And what are these?'
"'I will tell you. I was hired to a rich farmer to drive his
plough, dragged by four bullocks. Three days ago, I lost a red
bullock, the best of the four. I left the plough, and sought the
Florentine and Sienese painting of the fourteenth and fifteenth
Such were the conditions of the peasantry of the great Italian
commonwealths. They were, as much as the northern serfs were the
reverse, creatures pleasant to deal with, pleasant to watch.
town-acquired knowledge of agriculture and gardening. Sweet also,
troubadours, become thoroughly enjoyable; that only when the
picturesqueness, and ease.
The Emperor Frederick II. writes: "Rosa di maggio--Colorita e
Jacopo Pugliesi says of his lady: "Chiarita in viso piu che
Flower of the Palm, &c.,
ugliness, yet moody and mystical in their very earthiness; a man
masterpiece necessarily must be, in the highest degree a modern
melancholy livid pools, throughout the streets and squares.
Mirator veterum, discipulusque memor,
Defuit mini symmetria prisca. Peregi
Quod potui; Veniam da mihi, posteritas.
--_Lionardo da Vinci's epitaph by Platino Piatto_.
vegetation; and it was not till that vegetation had completely
independent and organic art.
From this Giottesque treadmill, painting was released by the
assistant
Sure, a continuation for this poem could be:
  subordinate art, without much vitality, without deep roots in the
Giottesques had come to an end; the suggestion became a matter of
significance only as a study of muscular legs and arms; and the
sacrifice of Noah had no importance for Uccello save as a grand
opportunity for foreshortenings. In the hands of the Giottesques,
indifferent to the subject and passionately interested in the
conventionalism of the Giottesques, we see only disorder,
fifteenth century.
Here, then, were the two great factors in the art of the
modelled by an ancient.
In Sandro Botticelli the teachings of the statue are forgotten or
sculpture; his figures are seen in strange projection and
This anomaly, this unsatisfactory character of the works of both
prize-fighters as martyrdoms of St. Sebastian; or when the pious
The antique and the modern had met for the first time and as
Signorelli's frescoes at Orvieto, at once the latest works of the
The naked human body, which the Greeks had trained, studied, and
distorted by the garments only just cast off; cramped and bent by
And the same applies to sculptured figures or to figures standing
corrected the faults of their living models by the example of the
archangels, naked, with magnificent flying draperies, blowing the
Renaissance art.
influence, strong but modified by the medium through which it had