They did

Characteris

subjects from the Bible or the lives of the saints. not trouble themselves to secure correctness of costume, but represented ancient Jews, Greeks, tics of Italian and Romans in the garb of Italian gentlemen. painting Many of their pictures were frescoes, that is, the colors were mixed with water and applied to the plaster walls of churches and palaces. After the process of mixing oils with the colors was discovered, pictures on wood or canvas (easel paintings) became common. Renaissance painters excelled in portraiture. They were less successful with landscapes.

Among the "old masters" of Italian painting four, besides Michelangelo, stand out with special prominence. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519 A.D.) was architect, sculptor, The "old musician, and engineer, as well as painter. His masters" finest work, the "Last Supper," a fresco painting at Milan, is much damaged, but fortunately good copies of it exist. Paris has the best of his easel pictures the "Monna Lisa." Leonardo spent four years on it and then declared that he could not finish it to his satisfaction. Leonardo's contemporary, Raphael (1483-1520 A.D.), died before he was forty, but not before he had produced the "Sistine Madonna," now at Dresden, the "Transfiguration," in the Vatican Gallery at Rome, and many other famous compositions. In Raphael Italian painting reached its zenith. All his works are masterpieces. Another artist, the Venetian Titian (1477?-1576 A.D.), painted portraits unsurpassed for glowing color. His "Assumption of the Virgin" ranks among the greatest pictures in the world. Lastly must be noted the exquisite paintings of Correggio (1494-1534 A.D.), among them the "Holy Night" and the "Marriage of St. Catherine."

Another modern art, that of music, arose in Italy during the Renaissance. In the sixteenth century the three-stringed rebeck received a fourth string and became the Music violin, the most expressive of all musical instru

ments.

A forerunner of the pianoforte also appeared in the harpsichord. A papal organist and choir-master, Palestrina (1526-1594 A.D.), was the first of the great composers. He gave

music its fitting place in worship by composing melodious hymns and masses still sung in Roman Catholic churches. The oratorio, a religious drama set to music but without action, scenery, or costume, had its beginning at this time. The opera, however, was little developed until the eighteenth century.

213. Revival of Learning and Art beyond Italy

Spread of humanism in Europe

About the middle of the fifteenth century fire from the Italian altar was carried across the Alps, and a revival of learning began in northern lands. Italy had led the way by recovering the long-buried treasures of the classics and by providing means for their study. Scholars in Germany, France, and England, who now had the aid of the printing press, continued the intellectual movement and gave it widespread currency.

Desiderius
Erasmus,

A.D.

The foremost humanist of the age was Desiderius Erasmus. Though a native of Rotterdam in Holland, he lived for a time in Germany, France, England, and Italy, and died at Basel in Switzerland. His travels and exten1466 (?)-1536 sive correspondence brought him in contact with most of the leading scholars of the day. Erasmus wrote in Latin many works which were read and enjoyed by educated men. He might be called the first really popular author in Europe. Like Petrarch, he did much to encourage the humanistic movement by his precepts and his example. "When I have money," said this devotee of the classics, "I will first buy Greek books and then clothes."

Erasmus performed his most important service as a Biblical critic. In 1516 A.D. he published the New Testament in the

Greek Testa

ment of Erasmus

original Greek, with a Latin translation and a dedication to the pope. Up to this time the only accessible edition of the New Testament was the

old Latin version known as the Vulgate, which St. Jerome had made near the close of the fourth century. By preparing a new and more accurate translation, Erasmus revealed the fact that the Vulgate contained many errors. By printing the Greek text, together with notes which helped to make the meaning

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION MURILLO FLEMISH, DUTCH, AND SPANISH PAINTINGS OF THE RENAISSANCE

clear, Erasmus enabled scholars to discover for themselves just what the New Testament writers had actually said.1 Erasmus as a student of the New Testament carried humanism over into the religious field. His friends and associates, especially in Germany, Humanism continued his and the work. "We are all

Reformation

learning Greek now," said Luther, "in order to understand the Bible." Humanism, by becoming the handmaid of religion, thus passed insensibly into the Reformation.

Italian architects found a cordial reception in France, Spain, the Netherlands, and other countries, The artistic where they intro- revival in Europe duced Renaissance

DESIDERIUS ERASMUS

Louvre, Paris

styles of building and ornamentation. The celebrated palace of the Louvre in Paris, which is used to-day as an art gallery and museum, dates from the sixteenth century. At this time the French nobles began to replace their somber feudal dwellings by elegant country houses. Renaissance sculpture also spread beyond Italy throughout Europe. Painters in northern countries at first followed Italian models, but afterwards produced masterpieces of their own.2

1 The so-called Complutensian Polyglott, issued at Alcalá in Spain by Cardinal Jimenes, did even more for the advance of Biblical scholarship. This was the first printed text of the Greek New Testament, but it was not actually published till 1522 A.D., six years after the appearance of the edition by Erasmus.

2 A list of the great European painters would include at least the following names: Dürer (1471-1582 A. D.) and Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543 A.D.) in Germany; Rubens (1577-1640 A.D.) and Van Dyck (1599-1641 A.D.) in Flanders; Rembrandt (1606-1669 A.D.) in Holland; Claude Lorraine (1600-1682 A.D.) in France; and Velásquez (1599-1660 A.D.) and Murillo (1617-1682 A.D.) in Spain.