the origins of the renaissance in italy, by emile gebhart

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Title: The origins of the Renaissance in Italy

Author: mile Gebhart

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Language: French

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Transcription RatingTable of Contents


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THE ORIGINSOF

THE RENAISSANCEIN ITALY


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N A N C Y , P R I N T I N G A N D B E R G E R - L E V R A U L T C i e .


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THE ORIGINS

OF THE

RENAISSANCEIN ITALY

B Y

EMILE GEBHARTpr of essor of f or eign lit er atu r e at the Facul ty of Lett er s of Nancy

F o r m e r m e m b e r o f t h e F r e n c h S c h o o l o f A t h e n s

PARISBOOKSHOP HATCHET AND C ie

7 9 ,Bou leva rd S a i n t - G e r m a i n , 7 9

1879A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d


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TO

MYFRIEND EUGNE BENOISTPr of essor at the Faculty of Ar ts of Par is


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The Italian Renaissance began in reality prior to Petrarch, because already in the works of Giotto and Pisan sculptors, as well as in the architecture of the XII th and XIII th century, the arts arerenewed. Dante himself, who is the contemporary of this renovation, separates from the Middle

Ages by his poetic imagination and certain tendencies of his mind. The origins of the Renaissanceare very remote and far above the learned education as scholars of XV th century spread around them. I undertake, in this book, to determine the historical, religious, intellectual, moral, whichmay explain wake so early civilization, and to analyze, in the first writers and early monuments of art, the genius of Renaissance Italy. I do not pretend to say everything on such a vast question I

will try to capture only a fair view this great set and reproduce it with logic. This is not an easel painting, the portrait of a singular character to the physiognomy which must relate all the detailsof the work and whose eyes shines a canvas. I admit that such work is more entertaining and that the unit and the narrow proportions of the subject are a charm to the critic. But today, it is rather a

fresco, where there are many scenes that I present to the reader. The old masters of the XIV thcentury had to help them in their task, the brush of their students and the candor of the faithful. I

just finished my church of Assisi. May the visitors are developed indulgent taste too much trouble!

VI I

VIII


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THE ORIGINS

OF THE RENAISSANCEIN ITALY

CHAPTER I.Why does the Renaissance is not produced in France

France has in the history of its origins, two great centuries XII th and XIII th. This was the era of the Crusades, of the enfranchisement of the communes, the golden age of scholasticism. By itslanguage and political enterprises, through its University of Paris, by its literature and the works of its artists, our country had then throughout the West and even the Eastern intellectual primacy. The

French Villehardouin was long time talking to Athens, Sparta and in the Archipelago. Europe readour chivalrous poems and enlivened our fables. The human mind had awakened in us and throughus, the Renaissance seemed to begin. I must first recall what were, in France, the first signs of thisrevolution, the greatest that history has seen in Christianity I will try to explain why it was notgiven to our fathers to fulfill it to the end. Better understood why Italy was able to resume andcomplete the interrupted work of civilization, and relight the sacred lamp that was off our hands.

I

It should be noted, at the very beginning of this research, the first efforts that France tried toreturn to life of the mind, a cause of rather serious impotence. At the XII th century, the territorywhich extends between the Scheldt, the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees, we find two very distinctlanguages of which, that of the North, is divided into several well marked dialects two literaturesof different origins and inspiration, two different civilizations in brightness and duration, finally, upto a point, two forms of political regime. These two Frances that separated the Loire and penetratedheard so little during their flourishing periods, the critical lack of data to debate this question: if theMidi Provencal had not been crushed by the Albigensian Crusade, would -he, thanks to theliveliness and ardor of his genius, revived in time the French spirit of langue d'oil and would hecured deeply enough evil within him, for our country could overtake Italy in the Renaissancechildbirth?

So consider, apart from each other, the two halves of France, and, first, the country which cameonly the second time, after a century of brilliant life and poetry, and died tragically came the first inhistory.

This great country, its language and the memory of Rome made long designate the name of Provence, had been favored by the happiest conditions: a smiling landscape, a Clear skies to theolive tree and vines, campaigns crisscrossed Roman roads, populous cities, some, such as Toulouseand Bordeaux, sitting on a docile river others, such as Narbonne and Aigues-Mortes, Montpellier,directly connected to the Mediterranean. There, the Germanic invasions had not left painful tracesLatin culture, the grace of the Greek mind had never disappeared entirely from these cities whereonce old Gaul had taken to the school of pagan wisdom the monuments of the imperial era in

Nimes, Arles, Orange, always appeared in the Rhone Valley, the symbol of the noble traditions that

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the time of misfortune had elsewhere erased. The same Saracens there had filed beneficent germs:Montpellier in relation to Cordoba, Toledo and Salerno, practiced Arab science, medicine, botanyand mathematics. Jewish schools were active in Narbonne and Beziers, Nimes, Carcassonne,Montpellier. The trade was prosperous and not only contributed to the utility, but with the eleganceof life. Merchants Languedoc fetched in Asia beautiful fabrics, perfumes and precious spices of theEast. The bourgeoisie grew rich, and wealth helped power. She had kept, the municipal system of Rome, the tradition of privilege. The bourgeois gentleman was in the second degree he fortified hishouse and watched over its city franchise crowned towers he figured even in tournaments and was

of knightly armor [1]. The nobility was jealous of the bourgeoisie literate nobility for time, muchless pugnacious than in the north, friend of the arts of peace and caring. Therefore, without mucheffort and in a few years, France Midi loosed the most troublesome barriers of feudalism. From the

beginning of the XII th century, Provence, Languedoc, Guyenne, Auvergne, Limousin and Poitouwere free states whose dukes and counts only themselves acknowledged overlord for form, and inchanging at will [2]. Major Towns in this country, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nimes, Arles,obtained in their fullness municipal freedoms. Toulouse, under the light of his scepter count, was atrue republic. In these cities, where transmission of local magistrates was carefully regulated, publiclife was not disturbed, as in most Italian towns, either by companies oligarchic factions or by theimpatience of democracy. The attraction of the crusade, the emotion of the whole Christian Westwho was moving for a heroic enterprise, completed the awakening of the spirit of Provence: the

peaceful, well-being that charmed and growing in freedom, became peopled suddenly singers.William, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine, who left in 1101 to head a hundred thousandmen, was the first of the troubadours.

II

It was the secular spirit that rose over the Garonne and the Rhne. Until Provencal literaturehad been in the hands of the Church. In the X th and XI th centuries, the Midi poetry is any building,and debris that we still do not regret what we lost in.Passion of Christ,Lives of theSaints, poem on

Boethius, hymns to the Virgin Mary, where the Latin verses mingle with Roman stanzas martyrsstories cut into couplets, such as Planch (planctus) of Sant Esteve, we chant to the Office of theMass, all these works primitive times uniformly directed to the conscience of the faithful [3]. Thetroubadour, he sings to cheer knights, ladies, the bourgeois, the armed men and the crowd, and athis lyre so well fitted for the expression of human passions, it is still the rope mystical ringing lessoften.

There was little more profoundly popular poetry none was more consistent with the feelings of the century and the country where it developed. It is favored by the great and noble is the point it is

practiced by kings such as Alfonso II of Aragon, by senior feudal lords of Poitou, Saintonge,Guyenne, Perigord and Provence own by noble ladies such as Beatrice Countess of Die but thecitizens, such as Faydit, simple squires, pages, son of merchants, such as Jauffre Rudel, or

craftsmen, such as Bernard de Ventadour men of the people, such as Peter of Auvergne and PierreRogier a poor worker, Elias Cairels, resume without embarrassment the instrument sound of thehands of their masters and happily play because the ideal glorify all, all can reach it: it is not thesize, inaccessible to small, epic paladin that the hand of God fairies and enchantments wore so highabove the crowd but the generosity of heart, bravery fighter, lord or vassal, courtesy and wisdom of the man of wit, especially love, selfless love, patient and loyal, which is not the privilege of birthand rests, said Plato, in all young souls. Finally, here is a vibrant and lively lyrical song of a nation,the people and nobles, together united in their poetry, as they were in the regime of public life, asthey were also in the enthusiasm of the crusade.

This poetry has made unwittingly, the two conditions for a great art it is naive and already

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learned. She freely expresses all the simple sensations of human nature, warlike excitement,revenge, sensuality, tenderness, hopes and regrets of love, irony and anger but the diversity of inspiration, she can accommodate the wealth of forms. Rhyme, it seeks with refinement,alliteration, the number of which to the extent varies from one to twelve syllables, the old to elevensyllables, with caesura in the sixth or the eighth, the verse, which part extends at the option of theartist and that encloses worms uneven rhythms, symmetrical rhyme the same kind which, at regularintervals, resonate stanza to stanza, or the last line of a couplet first to the next, are prolonged andrepeated like an echo, these are the main resources of this verse multiplies use up the abuse. Then,

each poetic unit corresponds a particular mold poetry to love, to the praise of God, dead orbenefactor of the song the political passion, the imprecation against the wicked, the sirventeregrets the suzerain or dead friend, the complaint the debate on some uncertain opinion or love, thedialogue of tenson to love again, the serenade, the serenade andpastourelle [4].

This complicated art of metrics appropriate to the musical genius of the language: obviously,the troubadours tried to make the greatest possible impact of the Provencal sound. But they formed

by this same effort, a common literary language of these southern dialects than prose had notrelaxed, that the epic had not ennobled. The work of the unit printed versifier floating shapes of several closely allied dialects between them he discerned those bent most docility the requirementsof the pro SODIE the troubadour, wandering poet, a castle never left without taking any writingwell struck, a happy turn of expression, and general language, and enhanced and shaped, became

every day more, between the Loire and the Pyrenees, the great voice of old France.

III

These races sensual, mind alert and mobile, energetic this century, while the clash of resounding arms, recognized in the work of the troubadours. For the first time, the souls escapedChristian discipline the passion that the Saints had struck down and the doctors condemned fun,when the Church saw a deadly temptation, joy for so long lost, all these causes of life reborn andrefleurissaient. The crusade has expanded worldwide, and poetry soars freely and a large wing to

hit all the beauty and all the pleasures. Frederick Barbarossa, who was sometimes troubadour, saidin Provenal to Berenger II: "I like the rider Francois -I like the Catalan lady, -the civility Genoese,Castilian -the courtesy -I like singing the Provencal, Treviso -like dance - They plunge so frankly inthe passion they affect the final depth, suffering. They are resigned to waiting with heroic humility,that their lady takes pity on. "O dear lady! said Bernard de Ventadour, I am and always will beyours. Slave devoted of your commandments, I am your servant and vassal you are my first loveand you will be my last. My happiness will end only with my life. "But their mysticism is likecheering sensuality. "I wish, yet said Bernard, find her alone asleep or pretending to be I wouldventure to rob him of a gentle kiss. "They, tired of the rigors of the beautiful, if prevail and outrage."No, I do not say that I am dying of love for the kindest ladies I will not beg her, I love point I amneither his prisoner or his captive but I say, but I declare that I escaped from his chains. "Still

others, less elegiac, taste the sweetness of this ray of dawn wake breast Romeo Juliet. "In anorchard, in hawthorn leaf -tient the lady his friend against itself-until the watchman shouts as dawnshe voit.-O God! O God! As soon as dawn comes! -Beautiful sweet friend, make a game-nouveau.In the garden where birds sing [5]. "

But the war called, the war for the redemption of the tomb of God they greet their lady and runto the battle as a party [6]. It is known sirvente bellicose Bertrand de Born, a hymn of slaughter. Itis her joy to hear the dying scream and see the dead, all pale, chest open, stretched on the grass. If their suzerain or king dies, they make him a dirge, and in the master they have lost is the soldier of Christ they cry they embrace with such passion the holy enterprise, they immeasurablegourmandent princes whose cowardice or quarrels delay issuing Jerusalem. Satire gives them a

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. A r a g o n o i sz e , - t h e f i n e

l i a n e p e a r l ,e h a n d a n d

n g l i s h m e na c e - a n d t h e

o u n g s t e r o f T u s c a n y

T h e y c o u l ds i g h , l i k e

a k e s p e a r e : "L o v e i s m y

s i n ! " T h e ya v e s o s a n g

a l l t h ei s e a s e s a n d

a l l t h ee n t h u s i a s m ,

i m p a t i e n c ed s a c r i f i c e s

r o u n d t h e ma n d a f t e r

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poetic pleasure as keen as love songs. They knock on the Church with the same harshness as thesecular lords and forensic they accuse him bluntly abuses and crimes irritated then the purest souls,simony, rapine, perjury, hypocrisy against Rome, priests and monks, they launched the terribleverses that suggest the curses of Dante and when at last the long Albigensian crusade, underPhilippe-Auguste and Louis VIII, spent about Bziers, Carcassonne, Avignon and Toulouse and theMidi, burned and bloody, lost civilization with its freedoms, c ' is still the cry that sounds poets andthe Provencal muse protests by the voice of Figuieras Guillaume and Pierre Cardinal against thework of Innocent III.

IV

Thus was slowed from the first third of the XIII th century, the lyrical impulse of Southerngenius. After providing the brightest promises of Renaissance, the langue d'oc literature now had tosettle for the games wit, the subtleties of the metric, or imitation of language books ol [7 ]. Shereturned to uplifting compositions, to evangelical legends, the Lives of the Saints [8].

This rapid decline he had no other cause than the political ruin and religious subjugation of theSouth? Simon de Montfort and the Inquisition are they solely responsible for this first Renaissanceabortion? It is permissible to doubt it. Italy, which was visited more than once, in the days of Barbarossa to that of Charles V, by well as great calamities, was able to continue without anyapparent disorder, his intellectual work. The rapprochement of the two countries and the twocivilizations made enough to see what was missing first Provencal France. She had the defects of his rare qualities: lyrical, that is to say, enthusiastic, excited, she found the poetry of the heart,intimate and impetuous, poetry souls that fold in on themselves or override to the ends of a passion,

but fall in love or only enjoy themselves, and that the pain or the joy they take delight prevent apeaceful and clear view of life. Selfishness is lyrical unfavorable to fertility of the mind, which is

not often enough out of yourself to attach to external things and surrender to the disinterestedcontemplation without which most of the arts can not bloom. Certainly, I do not reproach thetroubadours have settled for a mediocre culture for neglecting Latin, for being kept for the

knowledge of antiquity, to the maxims of Ovid thatFlorilegia their taught. The South did notcontain so great schools comparable to the University of Paris and thegay science was moreattractive for these singers as science. But it must be noted that century its most sincere originalitySouthern literature has cast shine in one direction: not the memories of the Carolingian era, nordrive the crusade aroused do it's epic genius. The novel Girart of Rossilho is a very distinguishedwork, but isolated and accidental [9]. The Song of the Albigensian Crusade is the work of twowriters: the first, vulgar soul who seems to approve of the crusade the second, an ardent patriot,who con damns and the poem, written in two languages and two different meters is not completed[10]. The novels of the XIII th century, such asJauffre andFlamenca, have poor troll invention andcomposition [11]. Provenaux whose sirventes are traversed by such satirical breath, are decidedlyinferior to the North for the French painting mocking of society, as they were in the story of the

heroic things.Finally, we see a fortiori impotence in the moral condition which caused the apostolic

undertaking to which the Midi died. This country had grown too quickly, and just as he was freedof feudal tutelage, he stood out clearly at the end of the XII th century, not only of the Church but of Christianity. At the same time, he isolated himself from all Christendom. Three major currents of disbelief or heresy dragged in different directions very far beliefs and ideas of the West:Manichaeism, which had its communities in Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne, and which held in 1167nearly Toulouse, a council chaired by a Byzantine [12] the rationalism of the Vaudois, whosemoral harmless spread on all sides since the year 1100, in the form of poems in the vernacular [13]Averroism, the terror of the Middle Ages, the Jews expelled from Spain by the Almohads, sowed

t h e mc a s u i s t r y o f

o v e w a s t h es t u d y a n d

e c r e a t i o n o f d e l i c a t e

m i n d s .

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everywhere in Languedoc and Provence. The school of Maimonides waving the synagogues inProvence, cursed by Montpellier, defended by Narbonne throughout the XIII th century again, theJews of Marseille, Arles, Toulon, Lunel, will be among the most learned commentators ortranslators Averroes [14]. These strange doctrines could they be imposed on a nation of traditionand Latin language, to the point of reducing it to the singular cult status? They could at least

penetrate deeply enough souls to modify the genius and print certain habits of thought or repulsionof certain fatal taste a southern Renaissance. The iconoclastic tendencies of Manichaeism were notmade to encourage the arts much more than the cold austerity of the Vaudois, and influence semi

tick output Averroists schools would not have been favorable to a return of scholars to Greekculture. In reality, the Renaissance and the Reformation were, at that time, two contradictoryworks: even in Italy, they could never be reconciled Savonarola suffered martyrdom for trying inFlorence, twenty years before Luther, renew Christianity. It will be seen that in the first period of its development, the Renaissance rigorously remained faithful to the old faith: his early years, hisvery adolescence, matured under the Church's mantle and later, when the philosophical unbelief and pagan customs were diverted its writers, its statesmen I was going to tell her-popes of ancientChristianity, Orthodoxy of the company remained always apparent, and the arts then in all theirsplendor, never rejected the inspiration and religious forms of the past. Our Midi XIII th century,troubled in his conscience, lonely in the middle of the Christian West, still deprived of the purelight of antiquity, with its antiquated beliefs too early and still childish reason, nothing could

attempt to sustainable or great for the human spirit.

V

Northern France nearly reach this high fortune. On a sadder heaven and a tougher story she hadreceived early the profound seriousness that the South has not had enough. She had seriously raisedthe memory of centuries of terror, while it is always left enchanted by the legends of the Celtic

past his genius, formed of emotions and dreams, was instinctively returned to the living sources ofthe epic inspiration. It was learned that the relatively Provencal France, most curious to search the

traditions of antiquity. His struggle for communal liberty had been longer and more bitter: itsqualities of irony and criticism were fortified and sharpened it. She had hit more than once, with thegreat scholastic doctors, freedom of the mind, and it had been expected for some time that theUniversity of Paris would renew science. Finally, in the joy of this rejuvenated civilization, she wasdecorated with the ornament of the arts, and churches were wonders. This burst had begun in themiddle of XI th century: it lasted until the end of the XIII th. Retrace the main features of thelanguage of Renaissance d'oil studied with some attention, she let us sense, from his best years, thesecret of its decline.

The first songs gesture, inspired primitive melodies, we show the France entered the track of very original literature. The vernacular epic is the spontaneous work of an adolescent nation onwhich passed the tragic events which constantly repeats the name and deeds of its heroes. Deep

convulsions of barbaric history our ancestors had preserved the memory of the man whose roughhand put a commencement order in the confusion of the West, Charlemagne. No memory was moreaugust, for the Emperor-the Roman Emperor and not Germanic [15] -avait accomplished threethings: he founded Justice, high church and pushed the pagans. The imagination of the peoplemainly kept track of warlike exploits that saved the Christian faith. The Catholic king who leads hissteps the armies of Christendom This pala din white beard, two hundred years old the vicar of God, the angels attending, he did not shake the earth under the feet of his horse? And yet, if Charlemagne remains the highest degree of popular worship is another young and beautiful, it'sRoland, the vanquished, that love of French was especially glorified. Because for the "sweetFrance", the "free land", he fought desperately and died on "green grass" of Roncesvalles. France

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has cried,

Pitiet of pure rained Franceis Rollant [16].

but it did immortal. The Song of Roland, the most national of our poems, our ancestors had movedto the end of the XI th century to the end of the XV th. Europe has read and Roland became theuniversal hero. Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, England, Italy, Spain borrowed us hislegend. The ecumenical character of French poetry in the Middle Ages and began this work by thatname [17].

He seemed permanently dedicated when, in the last days of the XII th century, following thewarlike songs of troubadours who especially inspired

From Karlemaine to RollantAnd Oliver and vassalsKi morurent Renchevaux to [18],

Breton cycle took his place in our literature. The novels in verse and prose of the Round Tablerevived the oldest traditions of the Celtic West: but they vivified the same time, adding the noblest

passions of the Middle Ages, mystical love and worship of woman, purity without spot knight,kissed her earthly life as a painful pilgrimage devotedly pursued in the performance of some

sublime task. All charming melancholy or dreams that had so long lulled eternal complaint of Breton sea or the rustling of confused druidic forests nature quivering tenderness for humansuffering the mother's voice Fairy bride whispers to oaks, the sigh of the sources, the scent of hawthorn animals endowed with speech and pity, and the birds that nest in the hand of the saintsthen the constant vision of earthly paradise floating on the radiating seas with his songs that neversilent, and its purple flowers and snow that will wilt the point: this very ancient poetic merits, theXII th and XIII th century evoked new characters for France, more indecisive historical reality that

peers and knights of Charlemagne, but the ideal figures responded better to vague thoughts thattormented the age of the Crusades. Artus, Merlin, Lancelot, Perceval, Tristan, knights, prophets andvigilantes, were indeed the hero of a hungry peacetime, loyalty and justice: people bent underfeudal oppression took patience by thinking of the return of Artus whose magic sword sometimesshone like lightning on the lakes and the ocean that Christians walking to the Holy Land isencouraged to remember Perceval walking through the hardest trials in search of the holy Grail:and all the delicate souls, that the vision of a love stronger than death defilement consoled thecentury, were moved to the narrative of the misfortunes of Tristan and Queen Isolde. The im

pressure of these poems was so strong in the countries where French influence penetrated, theknights of the Round Table were soon adopted as were peers of Charlemagne: England, Germany,the Norway, the Greek Empire, Spain, Italy, began to translate, to imitate, to alter our fiction [19].French, the language of the Ile-de-France, including the rule on the language dialects d'oil grewwith the progress of the crown, had become the XIII th century, the common literary language ourcountry [20], "the most erodible parleure and most common to all people," Brunetto Latini. Political circumstances and

affinity with Latin idioms originally carried it throughout Christendom. Marco Polo dictated histravels in French, English Mandeville wrote in French, as Rusticien Pisa Brunetto Latini. TheCatalan Ramon Muntaner says in his column that "the noblest chivalry was the chivalry of Morea,and that there spoke French as well as in Paris." "Lengue franoise Cort from the world, writtenMartino da Canale, and is the most friable to read and IRO nule that other [21]."

VI

Europe similarly received lessons from our artists. For the awakening of our genius manifesteditself no less strongly by the works of art through poetry. It is here, in 1150, the Renaissance

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architecture appears: Ile-de-France, Vexin, Valois, the Beauvais, part of Champagne, while theOise basin, a word the first domain of the Capetian dynasty, are the cradle of some Gothic art. It isin the cathedrals of Noyon, Laon, Senlis, Reims, Chalons, that the transition from Romanesque toGothic style is seen. Ile-de-France, Picardy and neighboring countries leave the great architects of the new school. No Italian or German influence enters this renovation, which was for a hundredyears the exclusivity of our architecture. The first Gothic masters of England and Germany areFrench. Poitou, Auvergne continue to build in Romanesque until the end of XII th century, Provenceand Languedoc to the XIV th. Speaking countries ol saw religious architecture move from an

almost imperceptible movement, and by a very logical progress, austere Romanesque churches, allstill penetrated the darkness and terrors of the year one thousand, the Gothic cathedrals streamingwith light, more air, full of soul and sound as an instrument of heavenly music. Thus, at the sametime, poetry rose from the grave gesture Song is all full of pictures of mourning, the magical poemof chivalry, and the same popular enthusiasm, the same joy of hearts in the blue raised these largevessels Pierre. Structures also more secular though mystical, raised by the piety of the crowds andthe pride of Commons, with the gold of the citizens, and not, as in the Romanesque period, underthe stern eye of the Church and the direct inspiration religious, but by the free fantasy of mastermasons, now united in powerful corporations.

Under the portals of the churches ranks whole world of statues, Madonna and Child, the Virginof triumph, biblical characters, scenes para disiaques, bishops and knights. At Chartres, Reims,

Amiens, delicacy of religious sentiment is revealed by a very fine sculpture to which it may lackonly a concept of ancient art to reach perfection. What progress on heavy figures of the age of thenovel! "In the XIII th century, Renan wrote [22], the representations of the Madonna achieve a perfect grace and almostRaphaelesque. This species of intoxication of female beauty which inspired especially the Song of Songs, is betrayed in the hymns of the time, was also expressed through painting and sculpturethere are several of those statues of the Virgin that would be worthy of Nicolas of Pisa with theircharm, their harmony, their sweetness. "The grave and naive maternity radiation seduced byRaphael often exhales our Gothic Madonnas. Finally, it sees, more than one index, the sincereeffort attempted by the artists of this period to study nature on bare, despite the religious prejudicethat condemned this practice.

The painting, which has suffered more than the statuary of the ravages of time, is known to usmainly by miniatures, illuminations and stained glass. Again, we are the masters, by the fertility of the invention, the spirit of the composition, the softness of the colors, the charming chastity of thecharacters. Europe envied us this brilliant art Dante praised Parisian illumination. Glass paintingdoes not yield the neighboring arts based on the dominant notes of blue and red, smooth and firmdesign, thanks to the fragmentation fragments wisely subordinate to architecture, the reasons forwhich it adapts The glass roof of the XIII th century ended, by the magnificence of colors where thelight laughs, the majesty of the cathedral.

VII

The XII th century saw the start at home, with Abelard and communal movement, both essentialfreedoms of every great civilization, freedom of mind and civil liberty. One and the other have haddifficult destinies, and too short triumphs followed by a rapid decline. The vicissitudes of our

philosophy and our political life are to understand the profound evil that struck suddenly France thevery sources of its intellectual fecundity.

Let's talk about scholasticism. No school has had in history, a singular fortune has mostseverely disturbed genius of the nation that had occurred. Scholars who have studied the immensework better say it was in principle, as in several of its results, the signal of free thought, and thefirst revolt of the modern spirit against authority [ 23]. They are right, because this philosophy, if it

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was decided to respect the dogmas still defended by an all-powerful Church, was actually theawakening of critical thinking to apply to the discussion of the highest problems. The formulatheologiae Ancilla is a dangerous metaphor, understood without restriction covers a manifest error.These doctors, bishops, Dominicans, Franciscans, waving a question that is not theological but

purely metaphysical, the question of being, with all rational conceptions, like those Cartesian andapparatus dialectic very similar to that of the Greek philosophers. This is much less jealousy of theChurch that the requirements of excessive method that embarrass the Scholastic themselves they

put on their shoulders the crushing yoke that forces them to bend and stop they burn up in fruitless

efforts to escape the cruel bondage of incomplete or false conception of their own science. Fromthe beginning, they are chained to a fallacy and a superstition that will follow them for the rest of the school. They believed that the interpretation is the basis of philosophy, that the only logical and

book conceals knowledge, the art of reasoning is the basis of science, and a regular syllogism is theonly instrument of certainty. Thus stubborn of the a priori, they started the lessons of a Greek

philosopher whose work is comprehensive and you can hear that in the whole student, byenlightening by previous doctrines. They first possess the fragments (part of Organon andCategories) that most need to be understood, other structures. Thus deceived by the infallibleDoctor, they sink even further in their initial error, philosophy absorbed by logic. They range fromthe kind of X e the XIII th century. Then come the Jews from Spain bringing great Aristotleencyclopedia. A salutary crisis erupts in the scholastic appearance: The method appears to be

reformed it escapes one moment to the discipline of pure dialectic the logic is put in its place inreasonable order of knowledge the old question of species and genera from reigning over only inthe School that captivate new problems, principle of individuation, original ideas, matter and form,eternal divine ideas opposed to the transitional nature of natural things. A renewal of this sacredscience Thomas lent his clear and proud language, Scotus incomparable subtlety. But the evolutionof the doctrine has only moved in the further exacerbating the patient point of scholasticism. Thegreat doctrine of the School, altered by Arab and Latin translators, distorted and abused by Arab,Averroes and Jews, is no longer for our science PhDs a confused, contradictory, which glosses andcomments undermine the original text. One does not imagine what valuable forces were thendissipated in the interpretation of these doctrines disfigured, in the attempt to reconcile Aristotleand Plato, in the struggle in honor of Aristotle, Averroes and his followers against [ 24]. Again, if we had more clearly understood that Aristotle was primarily a naturalist, that is to say an observer,in his metaphysics and physics are the two poles of the same science, and syllogism demonstratesnothing if the data of experience are in the premises. Scholasticism which, in its first period, hadsold out in logical operations, was exhausted in XIII th century ontological visions. The genius of hisgreatest teachers was powerless to save her. Abelard vain, to the first years of the XII th century,

breath on the chimeras of realism and deposited in the cradle of the University of Paris the seeds ofrationalism of Descartes and Kant's criticism. Albert the Great beautiful glimpse that physics is tothe study of beings, substances, not of pure being, that his method is the analysis [25] In vain hetries to snatch souls metaphysical mysticism, and it scans in real chemist secrets of nature. It is invain that St. Thomas also collects reasonable notions acquired by the E school since Abelard and,

guided by a very enlightened sense of personality and freedom of intelligent beings, separatesrealistic: he returns sharply to these people by ideology and the infinite void that separates God of the universe, and the space between the human mind the things he knows, images, representativeforms of metaphysical ghosts . Everything was to begin again. Duns Scotus and again. The end of the XIII th century saw the aging scholastic return to his childhood dreams, the realism of William of Champeaux. It was stirred for two hundred years without leaving the pitch circle of science. The

painful cry of Abelard on strikes Saint-Gildas:A finibus terr ad te dum clamavi anxiaretur cormeum, doctors had needlessly pushed: the sky was deaf. Scholastic discouraged fumbled some timein the mists of Scotism while full of realized abstractions, entities, floating substances produced bythe designs of the human brain. OKAM, a flash of reason, showed the vanity of all Gothic idealismhe brought by a latest development, the doctrine to the point where Abelard had placed, this simple

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notion that ideas are not beings.It was the beginning of the XIV th century. Scholasticism had lived, but the scholastic spirit

remained. He had marked the French spirit too deep impression, he had fashioned from tooimperiously engineering from the University of Paris to disappear at the same time as the lastdoctors. The heirs of Scotus, bristling syllogisms and barbaric formulas were still there, learned tofurther thicken the darkness where the master had lost philosophy. Their mark and theirimplementation are very visible to the Renaissance Rabelais and Ramus. The university, whichcould animate more youth with such debates to those who illustrrent School to XII th and XIII th

centuries, maintained in his teaching methods of the past: the Seven Arts Division, which subjectedall knowledge the rule of dialectics the discipline of the syllogism, which dispensed, the reasoningbeing shaped, check the certainty of conclusion wordy disputes that, among theologians, for

example, lasted twelve hours [26] wonderful gymnastics to distort the brains and make useless allunderstanding own bodies to the direct view of reality, excellent also for heavy and asleep souls.Twenty thousand students, the flower of France, thus preparing for life by practicing the argumentshorned into the nebulous realm of Quinte Essence. In 1535, the poor Marot, thinking of histeachers, the "Regents of yore," sighs again:

I never enter into paradiseIf they have lost my youth.

Before showing in more detail the effect of the intellectual education of the French mind, itshould be noted, in the order of things political, a second cause of moral decay, we better so seize awhole retrograde movement at the XIV th century Renaissance away from our fathers threshold.

VIII

France had claimed early civil liberty. The feudal fragmentation had opposed it, from thesecond half of the XI th century the free municipality governed by its elected judges, ruled by thePeople's Assembly convenes as the bell of the belfry, protected by the charter that King signed, butthat citizens have written finally defended by its citizen militia that precedes the banner of the city.The Commune is in reality a republic founded by merchants and artisans [27] who are united by oath

by conspiracy on the holy things, to escape them and their property, the feudal serfdom. The crowngave them permission to settle and lords generally resigned themselves to sell their franchises. Butin more than one city, the citizens had to fight long to bring their masters composition. At Le Mansin Cambrai, in Laon, Sens, in Reims, the victory was bought at the price of blood in Noyon,Beauvais, Saint-Quentin, Amiens, Soissons, the revolution was peaceful. In Auxerre, the Communewas instituted with the consent of the count, despite the bishop Amiens, despite the count, with thehelp of the bishop. However, the Church was often hostile to the liberation of the cities in thesouth, on the contrary, she seemed openly favorable but in own France, Burgundy and Flanders,

the bishops, by arms or excommunication and with the consent of the Holy See, did Com tomunicipalities fierce war that lasted three centuries, and eventually ruin Municipal freedoms [28]."Commune, said a clergyman author of the XIII th century, Guilbert of Nogent, is a new anddetestable word, and this is what we mean by that word: the taillables people no longer pay once ayear to their lord the rent they owe him. "

Thus, the company is democratic, it is laborious and full of struggles, and the enemy issometimes the Lord, now the church. The bourgeois fought bravely, but when he crenellated wallsof his city and demolished those of his suzerain, as old Gallic blood and loves to laugh, he gladlyrejoice in his language mocking, so rich for painting trivial things, powers that he has humiliated.

Deposuit potentes of sede. This is the good humor of ordinary people who put in the process, theXII th to the XIV th century, all the literature satirical, although original expression of the bourgeois

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spirit, gausseur, Gabeur, fond of salty tales, whose singing is not melodious, but frank and sharp,the bugle of the National rooster, Chanteclair deRenart [29]. But he sings so well from the top of its municipal belfry, that Europe wishes, and soon imitate. Populated cities in these old craftsmen,who on the day resound with the noise of trades in the dark streets of Paris of Schools, which were

buzzing earlier syllogisms, when night came, behold, the shop at the tavern, rooms with sadSorbonne granaries Captes de Montaigu, the swarm of fables, ribald stories, poems of all shapes,

ballads, songs, debates, Sayings andDisputes, awakens and flutters [30]. For the Church, the mostpungent stings I mean the secular Church it is elsewhere and later among Italians and Rabelais,

the monkhood will turn. The priests-because we do not touch in the bishops, with the husbands, theheroes of many a story, often the misfortune of one is explained by the intemperance of the other.Finally, these plebeians which lowered the pride of the barons and the disappointments of thecrusade will not grieve too much, trouvres present in the early days of the XIII th century, the

Roman du Renart, that is to say, most insolent parody of feudal society it is deve envelope in manybranches, and the huge epic, constantly reworked and embellished crosses the age of St. Louis and

St. Thomas, with his retinue of spiritual creatures whose masks show evidence of human figuresthe crowd applauds the follies ofNoble, the lion, the donkey, the Archpriest but what joy when

Renart tripped and those great saints in the snares of his cunning and deceives the king gaily,paladin, priest, Pope and God!

It should be noted an interesting fact. This satire is joyous and bitter is the point it's a comedy,

not a pamphlet. It has the spirited, good-natured and sometimes the finesse of a true work of art.The shape, shaped to please the little world is poor, but the two main molds of the invention ironic,storytelling and the poem mock-heroic, are found. Unfortunately, the social conditions that hadinspired this satire should not last, and the crisis that civil liberties would suffer struck us on thisside again, helpless.

Municipalities, had they only had enemies, their bishops and counts, would perhaps longmaintained but they had a friend, the king, they had increased the forces and they concernedauthority. From the beginning of the XIV th century, they decline and fall one after the other some,like Soissons and Amiens, retain under the king's hand a shadow of independence others, likeLaon, losing to the tower belfry of their [31]. The unity of the monarchical government and justiceis essential to France the king's men, lawyers, knights in law, seneschals bailiffs, provosts, nowrepresent good cities in the law, order, police and tax authorities. It is true that the same arm washeavy at the same time the lords and the Church. The importance of the Third Estate to the StatesGeneral of the XIV th century did not compensate the loss of the old liberties. In the saddest days of the English war in 1357 States, King was a prisoner, the bourgeoisie and the city of Paris, mastersfor a few days of the general government of the country are signing the Dauphin an Order that stopsabuses of the crown and guarantees civil franchises. But we never built a sustainable regime of freedom within a disastrous war the bourgeoisie soon succumbed politically with Etienne Marceltherefore she rolled ever lower. Following the attempt of Maillotins, in 1383, under Charles VI, shewas massacred or reduced by terror in Paris, Rouen, Reims, Chalons, in Sens, Orleans in 1413,under the Cabochiens, it undergoes the supreme humiliation of his Liberal role brutally taken over

by the skinners and butchers. For a long time there was no question or civilian life, or public law.

IX

Thus, in the same century of Dante and Petrarch, France lost both the top two causes of allmoral life: independence of thought and political freedom. The souls, discouraged and saddened bythe misery of the country, by the languid scholastic education, let weaken the generous qualities of the national genius: the enthusiasm, invention curiosity, the taste of heroism, feeling of grace,liveliness, serenity and cheerfulness. All sources bowed together, and the French spirit the time of

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old age came to the place of maturity. This is one of the most painful events of history that thiscivilization struck in mid-teens, when she was about to give his best fruits.

The rescue of ancient letters might have stopped the decline by reducing the intelligences,spoiled by the philosophy of the school, to the ways of free reason, or consoling the heartsqu'affligeait ruin everything by maxims and very noble memories. It was Greece, with its poetrywith simple images, all his human wisdom, his logic and his smile, he had to go to France in theXIV th century. Unfortunately, it seems that in this direction again, we return to barbarism. Classicalculture seemed to regain XII th and XIII th centuries. Latin Abelard and Heloise is remarkable. This

superior woman reading Seneca, Lucan, Ovid. The Dominicans were studying the Greek theyneeded for their Levantine missions. In 1255, their general invited his brothers to learn Greek,Arabic and Hebrew. The Dominican Vincent of Beauvais was attempting, in his Speculum majus,the first encyclopedia test. But these monks were a singularity in the French Church proscribedHomer language for fear of schism, as she was suspicious of the Arab fear of Islamism. Some of Platonic XIII th century, such as Bernard of Chartres, certainly had read several dialogues of Plato,

perhaps even in the text. But that was all. Aristotle, on whose work scholasticism acharna with suchardor, Latin or Arabic Aristotle did not inspire our average age the desire to know the originallanguage of Metaphysics. In 1395 in Lyon, an envoy of Emperor Manuel Paleologos could not beheard by anyone. The University remained inaccessible to the Greek language. This time theDominican Hellenists not be counted: Guillaume Fillastre, who died in 1428, Gregory Tifernas,

who publicly teaches at Paris in 1458. It is so far from meeting the humanities, the Latin languageitself, which it has monuments almost in the state in which they have survived, is increasinglyneglected. The novels ofRoman cycle will show no progress in the notion of antiquity. It isespecially in convents that Latin studies escalate. A ridiculous pedantry pervades the rhetoric.Translations into French multiply, work that is still more honor to the translator that those who readit. The University cares more about the art of writing correctly in Latin, and prepares its graduatesto reading Cicero by Alexander de Villedieu grammars and Evrard de Bethune [32].

The damage was so hopeless, and defects that classical discipline would have contained ormitigated, could produce, in literature and the arts of France, very rapid damage. As literary genre,the chivalrous epic, disappears or turns in the most unpleasant way: sometimes compilers dishesabridge the ancient poems sometimes they reshuffle them and develop beyond measure: aretouched song and can grow to thirty thousand, but the worms are poor [33]. Finally, thetranslation in prose disguises and covers half of the Chansons de Geste and all the novels of theRound Table. This is the library of Don Quixote begins.

This is also the age of abstraction and poetic fancies. The sense of reality, of passion, of life, of course, escaped the contemporary poets of quiddities, the entities, thesuppositalits, "monstrousvocables" that denounce Ramus. The literary Scotism rejects as pure acci teeth, Merlin, Roland andCharlemagne only universals have the right to move and speak, if not to act, in the poems of thenew age. Vices and virtues, species and genera, metaphysical conceptions already populated thefirst part of theRoman de la Rose (late XIII th century). Jean de Meung there maketh quintessentialspiritual beings and things of the physical order with two figures ofReason andNature, as three

thousand dissertations not to embarrass, to indoctrinate us in omni re scibili. The moral preaching,diffuse and subtle arguments as the Sorbonne, that never ends and always again, invaded since allthe poetic field. She enters with his allegorical procession, into theRomance of Renart. Castle

Renart the Novel is inhabited by six princesses: Anger, Envy, Greed, Sloth,Lust and Gluttony. Thenave bearingRenart is composed of all vices, lined with treason and nailed villainy gray cloth,fabric hypocrisy and laziness, which envelops the ship is cut in the dress of the monks [34]. Thus,little by little, everything visible pales, fades and vanishes into the wave of abstraction fog.

It is very remarkable is that our Gothic architecture suffered from the XIV th century, a brandsuch evil. "The Gothic is passionate lightness to madness." The matter, increasingly rarefied andabstract, somehow, folds, is widening, exaggerating the hills and empty "Walls reach the finaldegree of thinness" the architect plays with its pillars and its arches as if these masses of stone

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were only mathematical formulas gravity and balance, the law in one word, no longer count. It isto raise in the cloud that chased dream extravagant spiers and towers that stumbled and blend intothe purple vapors of twilight, and refine the details, whose wealth is excessive split, divided,multiplied by acute triangles pyramident amount always, the detail is not only the horizontal linesdisappear, but all main lines. These syllogisms stones are reminiscent of those of the school: thereason for lack premises and reasoning falters and would collapse if it were supported byneighboring sophism thus maintained against any balance, the cathedral seems to support its

buttresses but each century will repair the incessant destruction.

This art tormented and sick killed the arts once formed its adornment stone embroidery,gargoyle, the odd flower, the small statuette itself to the role of embroidery, replaced the statuary of the XII th and XIII th century sculpture falls in imaging it remains, so to speak, more space in thechurch for the great painting. "The carver of images is both painter and sculptor." The triviality and

pathos conspire to deprive the art all nobility grotesque figures, improbable, impudent, multiplytogether the emaciated statues,Ecce Homo , the mercy of the gods , the Christs of pain . Madonnas

become vulgar Child is no longer "the son of a bourgeois that fun" he holds an apple, a bird, "areel made of a large walnut" [35] . Glass painting is corrupt in the same way as the Gothic, throughresearch of detail and ambition of the effect. The miniature, caricature that brightens the storiedmanuscripts, finally secular painting which tries in the castles, such are the healthiest parts of French art in XIV th century[36] . Everything else is dying in lies, ugliness or emphasis.

The beauty and expression, the value of fiction, delicate taste, measurement and logic of formsand withdraw from both literature and the arts of design. However remains a passion, sincere andviolent, but very harmful to the art, anger overflowing of embittered souls by oppression, by thegrowing misery, pestilence, famine, war and the horrible English, which succeed robbery invasionand defeat. Not only supports the satire, but it will never be alive. The irony in the fantasies carvedGothic, reached the highest degree of immodesty. A riot breathless on the works of folk poetry. Thecrowd exhales into bitter hatred against the great songs and the Church: the negation of the nobilityentersRenart deformed one , in 1342:

Gentis is hom but engendroit,Never wore wolf does,

Everyone would live in peace [37] .

Jacques Bonhomme finally emerges from his hut devastated, while black misery and walk thecastles with his scythe and his torch:

Well have against a knightThirty or forty peasants

in the glow of fires, it proclaims the equality of Adam's son

We are men as they are [38] .

"It is not nulz Gentis, he said again, nulz homs is not villains."Premature notion interview between two seizures of public suffering, and that crosses a moment

the spirit of our fathers, confused in the procession of gloomy dreams and extraordinary ideas whoflock more and more towards the end of the century. Dementia and continuous terror sit on thethrone, Charles VI. The incredible costumes, absurd, embroidered apocalyptic beasts and musicalnotes, the prodigious hairstyles women, curved horns, men's shoes, the tip straightens scorpion tail,are the symbol of an interregnum the French right. The terror of judgment, the fear of deathreappear as the eve of one thousand but fevered brains are more and more problems then:indescribable frenzy of life will escape mingles with the vision of the last day approaching: theFrance and dance fact masquerades the eldest son of Charles VI kills strength to sing and "baler"

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day and night. In that time, winter, wolves bands roam Paris desert. However, the dizzying roundreforms itself everywhere, in the streets, in churches, at last in cemeteries. This is the dance of death, the last originality of the national genius, farewell funeral that is made to civilization. Butlong ago that France has lost the intellectual mastery in the West, and the Renaissance, whosecountry was the first cradle was a century already taken refuge in Italy.


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CHAPTER II upper Causes of the Renaissance in Italy. 1

Intellectual freedom

Renaissance Italy was not only a renovation of literature and art produced by the return of cultivated minds to ancient letters and better education of artists finding school Greece the sense of

beauty it was all even of Italian civilization, just the expression of the genius and the moral life ofItaly and as she imbued in this country, poetry, arts, science, all forms of the invention, the publicmind, civil, religious conscience, morals, she can explain that by the intimate character of theItalian soul, by his most original habits, the largest and most continuous facts of his moral history,in the most serious circumstances of its political history. It is therefore determine all causes of anintellectual revolution, the effect was manifested in all the work and all the acts of the people thatmade Europe the high culture of thinking but these causes are very different from one another, and

that one was distant and permanent, the other accidental and transitory, it is important to classifythem in order, based on importance, and, as it were, their own hierarchy . The question is then, inthe initial conditions of this civilization, the origin of all of its development, and then show howexternal influences have been added to the first source to broaden the current. Now these rootcauses of the Renaissance, that Italy was in itself, are first freedom of the individual mind and thesocial state and the persistence of the Latin tradition and the constant reminder of Greece finally thelanguage that ripens the timely hour. Tributaries that, in turn, have made waves in their primitive

bed, are alien civilizations whose examples have hastened education Italy, Byzantines, Arabs,Normans, Provence, France.

I

It is in the peninsula begins the intellectual movement which emerged scholasticism. The VI thcentury, a Roman Boethius, translated into Latin and commented several dialectical works of Aristotle and Porphyry, and, through its discussions against Nestorius and Eutyches, broughtdeductive reasoning in theology [39] . At the end of the VIII th century, Alcuin, staying twice inRome, consists of Boethius after his dialectic, and founded by hisBook of the Seven Arts , thescientific discipline of the Middle Ages [40] . Rabanus Maurus, his disciple, says theIntroduction ofPorphyry we did not separate from the Organon of Aristotle. Paul Deacon and a number of otherItalian scholars had likewise worked around Charlemagne, restoration studies in the West. The X th

century, a cleric of Novara wrote to the monks of Reichenau on the debate about universals andconflicting theories of Plato and Aristotle [41] . Finally, Italy gives birth to some of the biggestdoctors of the School, to Lanfranc of Pavia, St. Anselm of Aosta, Peter Lombard Novara, St.Thomas Aquinas, saint Bonaventure. The XIII th century, a host of other less illustrious masters fillthe pulpits of Paris. In 1207, a Lombard occupies the dignity of chancellor of the Universityanother Lombard, Didier Roland Dominican Cremona Romano in Rome, the family of Orsini, whosucceeded Thomas in his teaching, the minor brother John of Parma, the Augustinians EgidioColonna (Giles of Rome), Agostino Trionfo Ancona and Jacques Viterbo, profess in our schools of theology and dialectic [42] . The XIV th century saw perpetuate the same tradition [43] . Together theteachers, students pass the Italian Alps: Arnold of Brescia attends lessons of Abelard BrunettoLatini gathers at the foot of the Chairs of Paris, the riches of its Treasury Dante argues against

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fourteen opponents, in the Faculty of Theology, a thesis Quolibet he is receiving, as Giovanni daSeravalle " baccalaureus in Universitate parisiensi " [44] . He will not forget nor Siger, nor thestreet Fouarre the strepidulus Straminum vicus where Petrarch, after Dante and Cino da Pistoia, hasin turn breathe the scholastic atmosphere [45] .

II

However, the philosophy of the school will never be in Italy that particular science, practicedmostly by theologians and monks it shall not be, as in France, the national philosophy, much lessthe method and universal doctrine, infallible, who, having disciplined all parts of science,imperiously subdue the human mind entirely. This is a well curious that this emigration of Italiandoctors in the University of Paris. They go to a unique knowledge hub in the world, and they willfind the image or to Rome or Bologna or Padua. Some, such as Peter Lombard and Giles of Rome,no longer return to the peninsula others such St. Thomas, if they see their native land, there will

profess, but do not be based School, Parisian sense of the word. This walk, following the Popes, histeaching from Rome to Orvieto, in Anagni, Viterbo, Perugia it is recalled to Paris for two years,returned to Rome, professes to Naples, took the road to France, and died en route in an obscuremonastery in the diocese of Terracina [46] . Pope Urban IV commissioned him to translate andcomment on the works of Aristotle. It is obvious from this company some contemporary accounts,that scholasticism brought from Paris by St. Thomas in Rome seemed a kind of novelty. "Heexhibited all the moral and natural philosophy, wrote his familiar Tolomeo of Lucca, quodam and

singulari novo modo tradendi ." It was also a curiosity. The pope, according Campano of Novara,liked to gather at his table of philosophers, and the finished meal, make them sit at his feet to offertheir problems, listening to their learned arguments [47] . The philosophical footsteps Trionfo of Ancona, that King Robert drew in Naples and Viterbo Jacques, , who was archbishop of Benevento, are more uncertain [48] . Neither Thomas nor his direct students therefore were able totransplant the scholastic spirit in Italy. However, one question was retained and ardently debated bythe Italians, Averroes, the great metaphysical heresy of the Middle Ages, which, from the XIV th

century, formed the background of philosophical and medical doctrines of Padua [49] . TheJudgement of the Campo Santo and instrument Traini, St. Catherine of Pisa Taddeo Gaddi andSimone Memmi, at Santa Maria Novella later, Benozzo Gozzoli, in the table which is in theLouvre show the most religious concern though dialectic of their time. Averroes is not only forthem the infidel commentator of Aristotle, but the father of all ungodliness. Thomas laid on him aray of wisdom and terrace. It is the enemy of Christ, the apostle of an infernal Gospel, rather thanthe metaphysician of theIntellect and a universal concern Italy.

Italian genius does not accommodate indeed logic studied for itself, and these spcu abstractpopulations that have been with us the very matter of scholastic work. It is repugnant to the point of

reasoning a priori , but he wants this reasoning is applied to a very concrete reality, on any issueaffecting the moral or political life of society. In the fresco of Gaddi, the seven secular sciences and

the seven sacred sciences are rows all at the feet of St. Thomas, in similar niches in dignity, equalrank, and none of them, nor the dialectic, represented by Zeno, or speculative theology, that facePeter Lombard leads the chorus of her companions. Here the thinking is much less than in the restof the West, ancilla theologiae . The general trend of philosophy is secular. Dante, the disciple of our University, is in fact the beginning of the XIV th century, the exact expression of the ItalianScholastic. His Convito , written in the vernacular, gives fair measure of what the peninsulaaccepted to the school. There is no question of pure Being, or universals, matter or form, but allviews concerning the good of man, his happiness, his morals, the regime of its cities, thanks to theyouth, the duties of middle age to old age virtues. It is a work, not a logician, but mora list and

policy. This notion comes back there again that moral philosophy is the mother of the other

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sciences, the source of all wisdom [50] the authority of theEthics dominates, and not that of theMetaphysics . It is also a rational work, and Dante affirms emphatically that the use of reason

makes the value of men and presides over their happiness [51] but we need the right to be free,mistress and servant not, as was that of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and Seneca [52] .

Thus, we are faced with a practical instinct philosophy and independent method I added that,by the nature of his works, this philosophy closely approximates the dominant science of Italian

universities, law. Roman law, the Gothic kings preserved and whose political circumstances havemaintained employment, is the great doctrinal originality of Italy in the Middle Ages. Paris is, for

all of Europe, the dialectic Bologna, case law [53] . And this science, formed of pure reason andexperience, which reconciles the interests mo galls with fixed principles of right, stands in theschools of the peninsula to its highest degree of nobility, with the same severity the interests itseeks to grant, and affecting the government and world peace. The Pope and the Emperor,relationships and the limits of spiritual and temporal and feudal domination, universal monarchyand freedom of the cities, this is the top object on which to focus the scientific effort of Italy . InParis we Aristotle dispute over the original text missing Bologna, Rome, commented on theauthentic monuments of written law this science, protected by the emperors and their vicars,

practiced by Innocent III, encouraged by forensic Avignon popes sought by students such as St.Thomas of Canterbury, reigns over all directions of the mind with a similar empire that of ourscholasticism: it draws its part philosophers, and maintains its method in rational way its influence

extends, always equal, Dante's treatise on theMonarchy , theDe Regimine Principum Giles of Rome, the SommeFrom Potestate Ecclesiastica of Trionfo of Ancona, theDe Regimine Christianoof Jacques Viterbo, in the book of Savonarola of the Government and to thePrince of Machiavelli[54] .

So it is not surprising point with Tiraboschi, the number of extremely rare professionalphilosophers at the universities of Bologna and Padua, in the course of the XIII th century andbeyond [55] . This is Accursius and his son Jacopo Arena, Cino Pistoia, Barthole and Baldo, who

then illustrate the schools. The XIV th century, it is still the law which, for the Italians, the bottom of a liberal education. At fourteen, Petrarch begins to Montpellier during his Pandects he finished inBologna, at the foot of the pulpit of John Andre, where sometimes sit down, hidden by a curtain,the learned professor's daughter, the beautiful Novella. But it is curious to observe how one of theItalians who was, after Dante, the most deeply imbued with scholastic, Savonarola, a free spiritwhen it comes to pure logic. The Dominican, this Thomist, taught at the very end of his novitiate,the peripatetic philosophy [56] . He summarized accurately, in a scholastic manual, the generaldoctrine of the School [57] . And yet, it escapes incessantly to Aristotle, he rejects the theory of thesoul [58] . "Some people, he says, are so bent to the yoke of antiquity and so enslaved freedom of intelligence, not only that they do not want to say anything contrary to the views of the ancients,

but they don ' dare move anything that has been said by them [59] . "the Treaty ofgovernmentbegins with an accurate paraphrase ofPolitics of Aristotle, which he reproduced the judgments on

the various forms of corporations, over tyranny, its characters and its miseries, and he translated thestrongest maxims [60] . But by rapid change, it eludes the peripatetic line model, and concludes with

a theory of theocratic democracy and proof of this earthly paradise where he tried to lock Florenceand on the threshold of which he died a martyr [61] .

III

Italy therefore has not suffered mental harm that excess dialectics did to the French spirit. Whenthe danger was past, from the first hour of the Renaissance, she thought with some irony thatdespotic education which hindered us so closely in the exercise of reason. Petrarch has notconciliated scholasticism. He denounced wherever he encounters it, in "the city of Paris

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disputatious" contentiosa Parisios and talkative arguments of our Latin mountain [62] , in thepseudo-Aristotelian schools of Italian averrosme, charlatanism doctors, ridiculous pumps

university examinations [63] . He says Aristotle is not the source of all knowledge [64] and noauthority is superior to reason [65] . Finally, he reiterated that the work of education is to learn not togo, but to think. " Cura ut ISAF non Ventosus disputator, sed realis artifex ," he wrote to a youngman [66] . He accepts the dialectic as a useful armor, a gymnastics of the mind. "But if it is right togo through it, it would be wrong to stop. Only the foolish traveler to which authorization of theroad forget the goal he had set [67] . "He finally returns, even in the name of Aristotle, which he

entered, they say he, the true spirit in this familiar thought to ancient sages, that science isespecially by the internal progress of the soul of the scientist, and need only study to become better[68] .

Half a century had scarcely elapsed since the death of Petrarch which was aptly nicknamed "thefirst modern man" [69] humanists, which he had so ardently promoted effort, looked behind themand saw a great distance forgetting all they needed him, they taunted him, and with him Dante andBoccaccio, the founders of the Renaissance, in which we saw only men of the Gothic period as theItalian genius in his free impulse toward science, seemed impatient of tradition. A curious novel of that time, theParadise Alberti [70] , by Cino da Rinuccini, reveals the contemptuous prejudicescholars who laugh the Trivium and Quadrivium , despise each of the Seven Arts, logic as well asmusic and astrology, only interested in stories of the age of Ninus, Varro revere as the greatest

theologians, and believe in pagan gods more devoutly than Savior. As for the old poets of Italy, thevulgar language writers, what have they left, in the judgment of the new doctors? Nurses tales.Certainly, Petrarch had good spirit and soul very liberal, but he was jealous of his own glory, andwas distressed at being relegated among the Scholastics, who loved him so little scholasticism andtried to 'erase the rather slight trace of the education of his contemporaries.

IV

This freedom, which remains intact in the intellectual life of the Italians, also holds the secret

fibers of religious consciousness. We touch on this point, a singular feature of their moral history.How they intend to Christianity and the Church is the characteristic sign of their genius.In the vast Christian family, they form the Middle Ages, an original group to which no nation

looks like. They have neither the righteous faith of the Byzantines, nor the fanaticism of theSpaniards, nor the severe dogmatism Germans and French. The subtle metaphysics, theologyrefined, excessive discipline, extreme scrupulousness of devotion, casuistry concerned, all thesechains that weigh on the faithful and make it immobile in penance or in the dream, they have notsupported the . Compare St. Francis St. Dominic, St. Catherine in St. Ignatius, or Savonarola CalvinJansen. The ultramontane , which sees the Church from a great distance, indistinguishable in it asdogma, which is unchanging and inflexible. He lives in the contemplation of an abstract doctrinethat eternal truth known as the geometric, and pending a judgment he feared, because he did not

quite hear the human voice around the Vicar of God, one who binds and loosens. Anxiety about thefuture life of the mysterious region which Hamlet speaks from which no traveler has returned theturmoil. But when his thought, by dint of digging the folds of dogma, key to uncertainty, especiallyon the day when the priest seems to him an unworthy minister of the divine law, he rebels andseparates it comes from the old church, but he is quick to found a new one, because the habit of

blind faith hath not prepared to free thought, and in the circle indefinitely widened Christianity, thathe dare not cross, it establishes a schism or heresy.

Other is Italian. For him, the universal Church is the Church of Italy, and the building whereChristianity is partly his work home to be. On the chair of St. Peter, in the Sacred College, in majorinstitutions of monasticism, it recognizes itself he knows what earthly passions president and

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government of souls which mobile interests are agitated under the veil of the sanctuary. It is muchless struck by the authority and the fixity of the doctrine of virtues or weaknesses of those who'teach. As it is satisfied that all the human frailties have access to the house of God there betweenhimself without terror and familiar touch to the holy ark, without fear of being struck by lightning.People have ever more freely fashioned in his own image Catholic dogma and discipline, andnowhere does the Church of Rome was more lenient interpretation of the free consciences. Evennow, they hold the belief and especially of religious practice that parties approve them, and turnaside the sense of intimate paganism or mysticism touched the canonical rule of faith. Therefore, in

the time that occupy us, they were never tempted to reject as too heavy coat traditional religion.Italy has not experienced major national heresies we only live in it any uplift souls resembling theprofound popular movements caused by Valdo, Wycliffe, Huss and Luther. The two Florentines

Dante sees in the circle of heretics [71] , Farinata and Cavalcanti, are just incredulous. Some obscuresects appear, around one thousand here and there in the countryside of Padua, Ravenna, Asti [72] .Later, heresy creeps from all parts of Europe in the peninsula: the Cathars, the Vaudois, thePatarins fulfill their missionary Lombardy and Tuscany at the end of the XII th century, theManichean advance to Orvieto. TheFraticelli , proceeding from St. Francis, form yet, the XIII thand XIV th centuries, an isolated communion. None of these strange doctrines, based on all Easternmetaphysics or the absolute renunciation of the goods of the earth and joy, could not be popularamong the Italians. While the Inquisition, in the Languedoc, in Marseille, in Cologne, Germany,

London, multiplies the trial simply because of faith, and, a hundred years after the Albigensiancrusade, burning miserable for having welcomed, to have seen only- vidisse -the heretics, or keptreading a bad book, or evenpoorly thought of religion - quod of religione male felt [73] , -in Italy,she turns his stake for Dolcino of Novara Pistoja Francis, who preached the abolition of private

property it burns in Florence, in 1327, the poet Cecco d'Ascoli, for astrology and necromancy [74] in 1452, in Bologna, the priest Nicolas Verona, condemned for witchcraft, is kidnapped by the moband saved at the foot of the pyre. The Holy Office was happier with Savonarola. We know that thisgreat Christian was the victim, not his religious doctrines, but political business he fell with thedemagogic and monastic party he had imposed the yoke in Florence he paid with his life, as askeptical Pope, three centuries of satire and free criticism of the papacy [75] .

This, indeed, had hardly been formed by the Italians, and the common father of Christendomhad amazingly suffered from the franchise's most beloved children. Dante was not afraid to lock thePope Anastasius in the burning tombs of heretics, and to reserve, to the circle of simony, a place forBoniface VIII in the wells where he first sank Nicolas III [76] . Right in Paradise, he had lent to St.Peter himself these Ghibelline words: "He who on earth usurps my seat, my vacant seat before theSon of God made my tomb a blood and rotting cesspool ! "And Petrarch, taking this living image,compares the papal city of Avignon" to a sewer Where would gather all the garbage of the world[77]. " "We are God despises, he said, the money we love it, we will trample divine and human laws,it is making fun of people of good [78]." Here, Judas wi t h hi s t hi rt y pi eces , woul d be wel come, and t he poor Chri st woul d

be rej ect ed. The Italians, who so cruelly tormented the pope in Rome, can take comfort from the exileof the papacy on the banks of the Rhone. Violent invectives, entreaties, prayers, mischievous

legends, for seventy years they spare nothing to bring the pontiff in the Eternal City. "You elected adonkey," says a cardinal after the conclave that has appointed Benedict XII and Villani is toohappy about the report [79]. "C' was a great eater and drinker elite,potator egregius" written onthe same Pope Galvaneo della Fiamma [80]. Italy invents the proverbBibere papaliter. The oldGallic satire on the clergy, slander Boccaccio on the monks are just children playing with irony thatthis flagellum boldly face of the Holy Father. The Franciscan Jacopone of Todi sounds the whole of a terrible song against Italy Boniface VIII. "O Pope Boniface! you played the game a lot of thisworld I do not think you're in-kind content. As the salamander lives in the fire, so in the scandalyou find your joy and your pleasure. "Boniface threw in a bottom of the dungeon where theindomitable monk threw one day the pontiff who leaned toward the bars a defiant prophecy.Catherine of Siena, the bride of Christ, asks Gregory XI to leave Avignon sometimes she tenderly

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calls "my sweet Gregory," "my sweet father," "my grandfather" - the pope was thirty-six years -tantt she bullies, ordered him to have the manly courage, he is ashamed of his cowardice, remindshim of the divine word: ". That a man must die for the salvation of the people" Soon begins theschism of the West, and this extraordinary woman, seeing the danger, cries aloud the wordreformation Urban VI ordered it to reform itself first, then his cardinals, who "fill the garden of

poisonous flowers Church" she denounced the scandals of the papal court as boldly as Petrarch.One day she sent to Pope candied oranges, she advised him to soften similarly "by honey and sugarcharity." Until the end of her life she gourmandera the Holy See, and it was the Church's misfortune

not to have obeyed [81].Jacopone died in his monastery on Christmas night, the song of the Gloria in excelsis, and wasbeatified [82]. Catherine of Siena died in Rome and was canonized. The church devoted to these

two memories the tradition of love and freedom that is in the middle ages, the soul of ItalianChristianity.

V

Saint Francis of Assisi and his apostolic descent, which dominate in this tradition, re wellpresent the religious conscience of Italy. If the Franciscan order had, in the peninsula, an

astonishing popularity, it has, as it were, formed a church in the Church is that it meets the deepestaspirations of a people. Escape the narrow outlet of priestly authority go straight to God andconverse familiarly with him, face to face freely taste, with more tenderness than terror, eternalthings and fall asleep in a childlike peace in the heart of Christ, as was the work of St. Francis. Heknew how to accomplish this miracle, more singular than the conversion of the very fierce wolf of Gubbio, to return without schism, the simplicity of the Gospel age, and in the precincts of theRoman Church, to allow the to be faithful, not heresy, his own priest and the craftsman of his faith.The penitent of Assisi revelation is based on this doctrine, consistent with the original Christianity,in the eyes of God all creatures are equal, there is no hierarchy in the order of souls, and that, as itis written in theFioretti[83], "all the virtues and all goods are from God and not of the creature no person shall glory

in his presence but if anyone should boast, let him boast in the Lord. "Are there a better worshipthe spontaneous impulse of the soul to God, and the intimate dialogue that is exchanged betweenfather and children? "St. Francis was once at the beginning of his order, with Brother Leo, in aconvent where they had no books to tell the Divine Office. When it came time for matins, StFrancis said to St. Leo: "My beloved, we have no breviary with which we can say matins but inorder to use the time to praise God, I will speak and you will answer me as I teach you [84]. "

If he had a free mind, it's that love had its heart. His poems, like his life, is just a love song:

In foco mi amor implementation

It is in the fire, he is dying of sweetness. By dint of love, he staggers like a drunken man, he dreams

like crazy [85]. Jesus stole his heart: "O sweet Jesus! in your embraces give me death, my love. ""My heart melts, O love, love, flame of love [86]! "He becomes one wi t h t he Savi or, whose st i gmas marked on hi shands and on hi s feet like him, he has his witnesses, his apostles that will bring throughout Italy and theworld through the gospel of Assisi. "Christ, say the Franciscans, did nothing that Francis had done,and Francis did more than Christ [87]." The Italian souls, which he opened an infinite field of mysticism, waiting withoutanxiety in the very shadow of the church, the renovation of the church.

The hope of a third religious law, the law of the Spirit of Love, which was to replace the law of the Father and of the Son, or the Word, charmed dreams of XIII th century Italy. The spiritual familyof St. Francis spoke on all sides with a new Gospel, the everlasting gospel, which a prophet, aCistercian monk, Father Joachim of Fiore, had, it was said, received the revelation in Calabria, tothe end of the XII th century. This mysterious doctrine of Joachim obligingly drawn works, adopted

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by the General Juvenile John of Parma, received its definitive form in theIntroduction Gerard of Borgo San Donnino, in 1254. The time seemed very close. The Church of Christ, the clerical order,the Holy See of Rome were to fall in 1260 [88] pure contemplative life, the rule of the monks, theera of the Holy Spirit began then. Religious three ages of humanity, "the first wa

the origins of the renaissance in italy, by emile gebhart

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