The Renaissance

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The Renaissance may be considered in a general or a particular sense, as (1) the achievements of what is termed the modern spirit in opposition to the spirit which prevailed during theMiddle Ages; or (2) the revival of classic, especially of Greek, learning and the recovery of ancient art in the departments ofsculpture,painting, and architecture, lost for a thousand years inWestern Christendom.

Impossible though it be to separate these elements from the whole movement into which they enter, we may distinguish them from it for our present purpose, viz., to sum up the influences, whethergood orevil, which are traceable to the antique, pre-Christian, orpagan world of letters and plastic remains, as it came to be known and studied from the end of the fourteenth century onwards, in relation to theCatholicChurch. Forecclesiastical history goes through periods analogous to the changes brought about by secular revolutions. Roughly speaking, the age of the Fathers corresponds to the Imperial Roman period, closing in A.D. 476; theMiddle Ages occupy those tumultuous years when barbarians turnedChristians were learning slowly to be civilized, from 476 to 1400; while the modern relations ofChurch and State begin with the definite emergence of nationalities in the West, at an era most critical, signalized by the destruction of the Greek Empire, the invention of printing from movable type, the discovery of America, and all this leading on to theProtestant Reformation. History, like life, is a continuous web; its various stages pass into one another by the finest degrees. But after the Great Schism was healed by theCouncil of Constance in 1417, theChurch, turning her back once for all on a worn-outfeudalism, and no longer engaged in strife with Teuton emperors, found herself in the presence of new difficulties, and the character of the times was manifestly altered.

We are dwelling now in this modern epoch. TheMiddle Ages have become an interlude, clearly bounded on both extremities by a more civilized or humaneidea of life, which men are endeavouring to realize in politics,education, manners and literature, and religion. This blending of widely dissevered ages and peoples by virtue of a complex type into a consistent, though greatly enlarged historical system, has been due to the Renaissance, taken as a whole. A glance at the map will remind us of the striking fact thatChristianity is bound up in space no less than in time with the Greek and Roman World. It has never yet flourished extensively outside these borders, except in so far as it subdued to ancient culture the tribes to which it offered the Gospel. There is a mysterious and providential link, recognized in theNew Testament bySt. Paul, St. John, and St. Peter, betweenRome as the head of secular dominion and the visible Kingdom of Christ.Roman law protected as well aspersecuted the disciples; Greek philosophy lent its terms toCatholicdogma. The School of Alexandria, taught by Clement andOrigen, did not scruple to quote Athenian literature in illustration ofrevealedtruths.St. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote Greek poems in a style which was moulded on the classic tragedians. There was always in the West aPuritan spirit, of which fromTertullian andNovatian down to the Spanish Priscillian we may note examples; but thesaints who established ourtradition—Cyprian, Augustine,Jerome—held more tolerant views; and thoughSt. Jerome felt compunctious visitings for the days and nights he had given to Plautus or Cicero, his own diction is severely classic. HisLatin Vulgate, also, while it obeys the construction of the Hebrew, is written in cultivated, not in rustic, language.St. Gregory, the Great despised grammar as a subordinate accomplishment, but was himself a good scholar.

The loss of Greek authors and the decline of Church Latin into barbarism were misfortunes in a universal ruin; neither of these events was the consequences of a deliberate break with antiquity. Latin and Greek had become sacred languages; the Western and Easternliturgies carried them withHoly Scripture wherever they went.CatholicRome was Latin by tradition and by choice. No German dialect ever attained to the privileges of the sanctuary which St. Cyril won for the OldSlavic fromPope Nicholas I. Under these circumstances, a revival of learning, so soon as the West was capable of it, might have been foreseen. And it was equally to be anticipated that the Vatican would not reject a movement of reconciliation, akin to that whereby so many of the ancient usages had been long ago adapted toChristian ends. Speaking of the second century, Walter Pater observes: "What has been on the whole the method of theChurch, as a 'power of sweetness and patience', in dealing with matters likepagan art,pagan literature, was even then manifest." There had been, at that day, an "earlier and unimpeachable Renaissance". TheCatholic principle, in accordance with its name, assimilates, purifies, consecrates, all that is notsin, provided that it will submit to thelaw ofholiness. And the central classic authors, on whose study liberaleducation has been set up from the age ofAristotle among Greeks, from the Augustan era inRome, were happily amenable to the cleansingbaptism. As a literature, the chief schoolbooks were singularly free from moral deformities; their teaching fell short of theNew Testament; but it was often heroic, and its perils admitted of correction.Newman happily describes Graeco-Roman civilization as "the soil in whichChristianity grew up". And Pater concludes that "it was by the bishops of Rome. . .that the path of what we must call humanism was thus defined", as the ideal, namely, of a perfect training in wisdom and beauty. Quite in unison with such a temper of mind,Pope Leo X in 1515 wrote to Beroaldo, the editor of Tacitus: "Nothing more excellent or useful has been given to men by the Creator, it we except thetrueknowledge and worship of Himself, than these studies".

When, therefore,Nicholas V (1447-55) founded the Vatican Library, his act was inspired by the tradition of theHoly See, deservedly known as the nursing-mother ofschools anduniversities, in which the seven "liberal arts" had always been taught.Paris, the greatest of them, had received formal recognition in 1211 fromInnocent III. Between the years 1400 and 1506 we may reckon some twenty-eight charters granted by thepopes to as manyuniversities, from St. Andrews to Alcalá and from Caen andPoitiers toWittenberg and Frankfort-on-the-Oder. ButHumanism was propagated chiefly from Italian centres and by Italian or Greek professors. We must bear in mind a fact which is often lost sight of, that theScholastic philosophy had never taken deep root in the Peninsula, and that its masters chiefly flourished north of the Alps.Alexander of Hales,Scotus, Middleton, Occam, were Britons;Albert the Great was a German;St. Thomas Aquinas, his disciple, taught atParis. On the other hand, that renaissance ofRoman Law which enabledFrederick Barbarossa and his successors to withstand thepapacy, began withIrnerius at Bologna. Again, it wasPetrarch (1303-1374) who inaugurated the far-reaching movement which claimed for literature, i.e., for poetry, rhetoric, history, and all their branches, the rank hitherto maintained bylogic and philosophy;Dante, who crystallizes the"Summa" ofSt. Thomas inmiraculous verse, remainsmedieval;Petrarch is modern precisely by this difference, although we must not fancy him opposed to Church or Bible. Now when Greekmanuscripts were eagerly sought after, and when Cicero dictated the canons of Latin style, the syllogism with its arena of disputation could not be give place to the orator's chair and the secretary's desk. Notscience but life was the end of study. We remark no considerable achievement inmetaphysics until the culminating period, both ofHumanism and theReformation, had passed away.

In 1455, thelibrary ofPope Nicholas contained 824 Latin and 352 Greekmanuscripts. In 1484, at the death ofSixtus IV, the Greekmanuscripts, had increased to one thousand. From the catalogues we infer that much interest was taken in collecting the great Fathers, the canon law, andmedievaltheology.Nicholas owned the famousVatican Codex (B) ofHoly Scripture;Sixtus has in his possession fifty-eight bibles or parts of bibles.Cardinal Bessarion gave his magnificent stock of books to St. Mark'sVenice; and the Medicean Library, collected atFlorence, where it still reposes (the Laurentian), was for a while transferred toRome byClement VII. At Basle theDominicancardinal,John of Ragusa, left important Greekmanuscripts, of parts of theNew Testament, which were used by Reuchlin andErasmus with advantage. These illustrations may suffice to indicate the movement, becoming universal throughoutCatholicEurope, towards recovery from all sides of the treasures of the past. Another and most important step was to print that which had been so recovered. Printing was a German invention. The local ordinaries andreligious houses favoured it greatly. Cloisters became the home of the Press; among them we may quote Marienthal (1468), St. Ulrich, atAugsburg (1472), theBenedictines atBamberg (1474). Typography was introduced atBrussels in 1474 by theBrothers of the Common Life. They called themselves "preachers in not in word but in type". And the early printed books inGermany were of a popular devotional,educational, and Biblical character.

To the Renaissance in its opening stage thehonour belongs of scattering broadcast the printedLatin Vulgate as well as translations of it in mostEuropean languages, of course with approval from theChurch. Ninety-eight complete editions of theVulgate were sent our before 1500; a dozen editions preceded the appearance in type of and Latin classic. The first book produced byGutenberg was that exceedingly beautiful "42-line" Bible according toSt. Jerome's version afterwards known as the Mazarine Bible and still extant in several copies. The first dated Bible came out atMainz in 1462; the firstVenetian, in 1475, was followed by twenty-one editions. The Hebrew test was printed at Soncino andNaples between 1477 and 1486; the Rabbinic Bible was dedicated atVenice toLeo X in 1517. Cardinal Ximenes renewed the labours ofOrigen by his Polyglot of Aleala, 1514-22, which included the GreekNew Testament. ButErasmus anticipated its publication by an indifferent text in 1516. Aldus printed theSeptuagint in 1518. As regards translations on theCatholic side, they went on before and afterLuther, from the Spanish of Boniface Ferrer in 1405 to the English ofDouai in 1609. All these were printed; but space will not all more than a reference to the details here, or to the changes in policy brought about, in consequence ofheretical translations and the abuse of Scripture-reading, underPaul IV and theCouncil of Trent. During the period commonly assigned to the Renaissance at its height (1453-1527), freedom was the rule.Nicholas V had it in mind to makeRome theintellectual centre of the world. His successors entered largely into the sameidea.Pius II (Piccolomini) was a man of letters, not unlike the greatErasmus.Paul II, though severe upon neopagans, such as Pomponazzo, did not condemn the Classical movement.Alexander VI was a statesman, not a scholar and not an Italian. The fierce and splendidJulius II, himself without culture, gave commissions toRaphael andMichelangelo, but openly despised the pedants about his court. FromLeo X his age receives its title—he was the "incarnation of the Renaissance in its most brilliant form".

An extraordinary enthusiasm for antiquity had set in, combined with boundless freedom of opinion, with a laxity ofmorals which has ever since givenscandal to believers and unbelievers alike, and with a festal magnificence recalling the days and nights ofNero's "golden house". The half-century which ends in the sack ofRome byLutheran soldiers, however dazzling from a scenic point of view, cannot be dwelt on with satisfaction by anyCatholic, even when we have discounted the enormous falsehoods long current in historians who accepted satires and party statements at their own value. Churchmen in high places were constantly unmindful oftruth,justice, purity, self-denial; many had lost all sense ofChristian ideals; not a few were deeply stained bypagan vices. The temper ofecclesiastics likeBembo and Bibbiena, shown forth in the comedies of this lattercardinal as they were acted before the Roman Court and imitated far and wide, is to us not less incomprehensible than disedifying. The earlier years of Æneas Sylvius, the whole career of Rodrigo Borgia, the life of Farnese, himself as well as theCuria, these all exhibit the union of subtlety, vigour, and other worldly qualities, which leaves us in dumb and sorrowful amazement.Julius II fought and intrigued like a mere secular prince;Leo X, although certainly not an unbeliever, was frivolous in the extreme;Clement VII drew on himself the contempt as well as thehatred of all who had dealings with him, by his crooked ways and cowardly subterfuges which led to the taking and pillage ofRome.

Now, it is not unfair to trace in thesepopes, as to their advisers, a certain common type, the pattern of which was Cesare Borgia, sometimecardinal, but always in mind and action a condottiere, while itsphilosopher wasMachiavelli. We may express it in the words of Villari as a "prodigiousintellectual activity accompanied by moral decay". The passion for ancient literature, quickened and illustrated when the buried classic marbles were brought to light, simply intoxicated that generation. Not only did they fall away from monastic severities, they lost all decent and manly self-control. The survivors of a less corrupt age, asMichelangelo in his sonnets, remind us that native Italian genius had done great things before this new spirit took possession of it. But there is no denying that in its triumphant days the Renaissance looked up to beauty, and looked away fromduty, as the standard and thelaw of life. It had neither eyes nor sense for the beauty ofholiness. When it is called "pagan" we mean this corruptinganarchic influence, represented more gracefully by genuine poets and men of letters like Politian, more grossly by such licentious singers as Lorenzo de' Medici, by Poggio,Bandello, Aretino, and a thousand others who declared that themorals of Petronius Arbiter were good enough for them. WhenSavonarola in 1475 fled to theDominicancloister atFerrara, and there composed his lament on "the ruin of the Church", he cried out: "The temple is fallen, and the house of chastity". But the earthquake had not yet come. Worse things were to happen than he had seen. And a catastrophe was inevitable, of which he would be theprophet in St. Mark's,Florence, sent to a partly credulous and a still more exasperated world.

Savonarola (1453-98),Erasmus (1466-1536), andSir Thomas More (1478-1535) may be taken as figures in what has been sometimes called theChristian Renaissance. They represent beyond question the mind of theChurch concerning those ancient authors, not sacrificingfaith to scholarship, orHoly Writ to Homer and Horace, while they allow to culture its province and its privileges. Such was to be the lasting concordat between divinity and the humanities, but not untilpaganism had robbedItaly of its independence, after thepopes had set their house in order, and theSociety of Jesus had been entrusted with theeducation of youth. On the strength of his protest against the unseemly and degrading literature which abounded in his time,Savonarola was condemned as aPuritan; his "burning of the vanities" in 1497 has been cited inproof; and he employed scathing language (see the Letter to Verino, 1497) that may be strained to this conclusion. But among his penitents were artists, poets, and learned men: Pico della Mirandola,Fra Bartolommeo,Botticelli,Michelangelo. The friar himself bought for St. Mark's at a heavy charge the famous Medicean Library; and every candid reader will perceive in his denunciation of current books andpaintings an honestChristian's outcry against cancerous vices which were sapping the life ofItaly. When we come toErasmus, no fanatic assuredly, we discover that he too made a difference betweenclean and unclean.Erasmus laughed to scorn the Ciceronian pedantries ofBembo andSadoleto; he quoted with disgust thepaganizing terms in which some Roman preachers travestied thepersons and scenes of the Gospels. He had azeal for the inspired Word, and his Greek and LatinNew Testament was the chief literary event of the year that saw its publication. He editedSt. Jerome with minute care (1516); he did something for the chiefLatinFathers, and not a little for the Greek. In his preface to St. Hilary histrue scholar commends all learning, old or new, but he would have its proper value given to each department from the Scriptures even to theSchoolmen. His "Praise of Folly" and other satirical writings were an attack, not uponmedieval genius, but upon the self-confidentignorance which declaimed against good literature without knowing what it meant. So rare and indefatigable an appraiser of literary works in every form could not be insensible to the merits ofSt. Augustine, however much he delighted in Virgil. The scholarship ofErasmus, given to the world in a lively Latin, was universal and often profound. It was also honestlyChristian; to makeHoly Scripture known and understood was the supreme purpose he kept in view. And thus the "prince ofhumanists" could remainCatholic, while looking for a moral restoration, during the whirlwind ofLuther's revolt. In him the Renaissance had cast away itspaganism.

His friend,Sir Thomas More, a liberal scholar, asaint, and amartyr,proved by the enchanting courtesy of his daily converse and by the simple, almost ironical heroism which he displayed on the scaffold, how antique learning andCatholic virtue might combine in the loftiest of ideals.More's "Utopia" won a place by itself, which it still keeps, far above the imitative and passing literature of those Latin versifiers, those vain rhetoricians, who at best were scholiasts, but too commonly wasted their small talents in feebly reproducing the classic themes and metres. The English chancellor took a firm grip of social and religious problems, not so much regarding theory as intent on reform according toCatholic principles. He wrote Latin with greater force than elegance; his works in the vernacular have salt and savour, wit and idiom to commend theirorthodoxy. In the same category ofChristianhumanists we may associate withMore a goodly number ofEnglishmen, from theBenedictines, Hadley and Selling, who were students at Padua in 1464, to Crocyn, Linacre, Colet, Fox, and themartyredCardinal Fisher.

InGermany the first stages of revived learning had been free from Italian dissoluteness andheathen doctrines.Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa reformed theChurch, while promoting philosophy by his own speculations and collectingmanuscripts.Rudolf Agricola (1443-85) united the study of the ancients with devotion toHoly Scripture; von Langen, consummate Latinist, remodelled theschools ofWestphalia; he wascathedralprovost at Deventer. The illustriousWimpheling, born in 1450, taughteducation in principle and practice onorthodox lines. He was Reuchlin's master, a genuine scholar,zealous against the newly-imported unchristian ways of the so-called "poets"; and whenLuther rose up,Wimpheling opposed him as he had opposed the encroachments ofRoman Law. With Reuchlin we are plunged into debate and controversy; but he, too, was sincerely religious, and in 1516 he triumphed atRome over his adversaries, gaining thereby a victory for Hebrew erudition, which in other ways thepopes had taken into favour. Many Humanists, by and by, made common cause with theReformation;Melanchthon,Zwingli,Calvin, were eminently learned. But the Renaissance never was absorbed into anytheological movement; reformingzeal scatteredlibraries, emptieduniversities, and too often threw backeducation, until its first fury was spent. The spirit of whichPuritanism is a complete expression had no affinity with Classic literature; at its touch the world of art, of dramatic poetry, ofpainting, sacred or secular, ofHumanism in life and outside of schoolbooks, fell into dust. Heine (Ueber Deutschland) saw that theReformation was, in effect, a Teutonic answer to the Renaissance; and we now perceive that, while thedogmas ofLuther andCalvin have lost their hold upon men's hearts, the revival of letters is broadening out into a transformation of democracy by means of culture: hic labor, hoc opus; the question of how to reconcile a perfectly-equippedhumanlife with an ascetic religion and the demands of freedom for all, is one which non of theReformers contemplated, much less did they succeed in resolving it.

AmongFrenchmen, to whom we owe the wordrenaissance, that problem was not mooted at first. The Italian, Aleandro, coming toParis in 1508, gave lectures in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. He was maderector of theuniversity. Aleandro became a strenuous opponent ofLuther; and the Sorbonne is charged by Mark Pattison with persecuting the great printer, Robert Estienne (1503-59), though he always obtained license to sell his bibles and testaments. The Sorbonne objected, however, to any publication of Scripture without approvedCatholic notes; and this in a day which might be justly termed on of rebuke andblasphemy.France had its own type of Humanist in that extraordinary man, Rabelais (1490-1553), a physician,priest, and obscene jester whose book is the glory and the shame of his native tongue. Rabelais, treating theChristian religion as a creed outworn, falls back upon a kind of liberalPlatonism; he would leave men to theirinstincts and thejoy of life. Much the same philosophy, though in graver tones, is insinuated by Montaigne (1533-92) in essays tinged with scepticism and disenchantment. These two writers, who lie beyond the spring-tide of the revival, open inFrance the anti-Christianwar which has lasted, with growingviolence, down to our time. But the seventeenth century witnessed an adaptation of the classical forms to literature and preaching byCatholics of genius, byPascal,Bossuet,Racine, andFénelon, which yielded a highly original blending of religion with eloquent prose and refined verse. In general, nevertheless, we shall probably allow Taine's convention that the influence of the Classics (Latin rather than Greek always) onFrencheducation has not been favourable toChristianity.

AtRome and "incredible Liberty" of discussion prevailed under the spell of the Renaissance. Lord Acton quotes well-known instances. Poggio, the mocking adversary of theclergy, was for half a century in the service of thepopes — Filelfo, apagan unabashed and foul, was handsomely rewarded byNicholas V for his abominable satires.Pius II had the faults of a smartsociety journalist, and took neither himself nor his age seriously. Platina, with whomPaul II quarreled on political grounds, wrote a vindictiveslanderous book, "The Lives of the Roman Pontiffs", which, however, was in some degree justified by the project of reformation in "head and members" constantly put forth and never fulfilled untilChristendom had been rent in twain. YetSixtus IV made Platina librarian of the Vatican. It is equally significant that "The Prince", byMachiavelli, was published withpapal licence, though afterwards severely prohibited. This toleration ofevil bore one good consequence: it allowed historical criticism to begin fair. There was need of a revision which is not yet complete, ranging over all that had been handed down from theMiddle Ages under the style and title of the Fathers, the Councils, he Roman and other official archives. In all these departmentsforgery and interpolation as well asignorance had wrought mischief on a great scale.

In 1440 Lorenzo Valla counselledEugenius IV not to rely upon the Donation of Constantine, which be proved to be spurious. Valla's tract was printed by Ulrich von Hutten; it became popular among Germans, and influencedLuther. But it opened to this enemy of the temporal power a place in the household ofNicholas V. For another commencement of criticism we are indebted to the same unpleasant but sharp-sighted man of letters. It was Valla who first denied the authenticity of those writings which for centuries had been going about as the treatises composed byDionysius the Areopagite. Three centuries later theBenedictines of St. Maur and theBollandists were still engaged in sifting out thetrue from thefalse in patristic literature, inhagiology, in the story of the foundation of local churches.Mabillon, Ruinart, Papebroch, and their successors have cleared the ground for research into theChristian origins; they have enabled divines to consider a theory of development, the materials of which were hopelessly confused when Valla tilted against the Donation itself, accepted and deplored as a fact byDante. How great that confusion was, theBenedictine editions of the Fathers, which largely put an end to it, abundantly show: the "authentic andnecessary evidences of historical religion" could not be given their full value until this work was done. It called for a disposition at once literary and critical, which the old method of training did not create and scarcely would tolerate. But this chapter falls outside the limits of our subject.

It is remarkable that the healthyChristian use of ancient literature was destined to be taught by a Spanish reforming saint, himself not learned and certainly nodilettante. This was Ignatius Loyola, whose antecedents did not promise him the inheritance whichBembo and the other Ciceronian pendants had turned to such ill account. St. Ignatius, who began his order inParis, who walked the same streets withErasmus,Calvin, and Rabelais, did the most astonishing feat recorded in modern history. He reformed theChurch by means of thepapacy when sunk to its lowest ebb; and he took theheathen Classics from neo-pagans to make them instruments ofCatholiceducation.Spain had been but little affected by the Renaissance. In temper crusading and stillmedieval, its poetry, drama,theology, were distinguished by qualities peculiarly its own. The Italian manner had not yet imitators at its court when Ignatius wrotechivalrous sonnets to an unknown lady. His intensely practical turn of mind led him to employ every talent in the Divine service; and he saw that learning, if it could be cleansed from its present stains, would not only adorn but defend the Holy Place. He had looked into the lighter productions ofErasmus; they gave him a shock; but he recognized the power, if not the charm, whichHumanism wielded over young imaginations. His militant company took up again, without distinctly perceiving it, the task thatErasmus intended andPetrarch had set beforeItalians two hundred years previously.

In May, 1527,Rome was laid waste, itschurches profaned, itslibraries pillaged, by a rabble of miscreants. "But", saidCardinal Cajetan, "it was a just judgment on the Romans." Thepagan Renaissance fell, stricken to death; it was high time for theCounter-Reformation to begin. TheCouncil of Trent and theSociety of Jesus took in hand to distinguish between what was permissible and what was forbidden in dealing with literature. The Roman Index was established byPaul IV. A rigorous censorship watched over the Italian printing press. By 1600 German importation of books across the Alps had ceased. If we would reckon the greatness of the change now wrought, we may compare the "Orlando Furioso" ofAriosto, dedicated in 1516 to Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, withTasso's "Gerusalemme", especially as revised by the poet himself, and at the dictation of the Roman censor, Antoniano. It was a change so marked that Scalinger termed theItalians generallyhypocrites; but weknow from the calendar ofsaints at this time and other sources how much had been done to check the wild licence of thought and speech in the Peninsula.Giordano Bruno, renegade and pantheist, was burnt in 1600;Campanella spent long years inprison. The different measures meted out toCopernicus byClement VII and toGalileo byPaul V need no comment. Thepapacy aimed henceforth at becoming an "ideal government under spiritual and converted men".Urban VIII was the last who could be deemed a Renaissance pontiff (1623-44).

St. Ignatius, alive to the causes which had provoked many nations into revolt from theclergy, made learning,piety, and obedience governing principles in his plan of reform. The old system of arts and teaching was already growing obsolete, previous to 1450.Humanism had begun to take the place ofScholasticism. Vittorino da Feltre (1378-1446), a devoutlayman, set up his classes atMantua in 1435 on the basis of good Latin, including poetry, oratory, Roman history, andStoic discipline. He gave an all-round training: social, physical, religious. AtVenice andFerrara his friendGuarino (1370-1460) was another eminent schoolmaster, mighty in Greek. We have seen howErasmus by example and by criticism advanced the cause of literature, which was henceforth acknowledged as the proper subject of a liberaleducation. A gentleman—thecortegiano whomCastiglione described—ought to be proficient in the language of antiquity; such was theidea of the publicschool everywhere; and such it remains inEngland to this day. TheJesuit Order, springing up after 1530, not founded on the tradition of Benedict orDominic, adopted this view, and their"Ratio Studiorum" (1599) was, in consequence, a literary classical scheme. The first of their colleges arose at Coimbra (1542); inParis they had the Hotel de Clermont; inGermany they began at Ingoldstadt. The German College atRome, due toSt. Francis Borgia, like the Roman College of theSociety itself, the English and other houses governed by them, attested theirzeal for learning and their success in controversy. The Fathers were always cultivated men; they taught "a good silver Latin": and they wrote with ease, though scarcely with such idiomatic vivacity as we admire inErasmus and Joseph Scaliger. Soon they possessed a hundred houses and colleges; "For nearly three centuries", says a recent critic, "they were accounted the best schoolmasters inEurope."Bacon's judgment can never be passed over: "As for the pedagogical part, the shortest rule would be, consult theschools of theJesuits; for nothing better has been put in practice." (De Augment., VI, 4). They established free day-schools, devised new schoolbooks, expurgated objectionable authors, preached sound doctrines in a clear Latin style, and bestowed even upon the technicalities ofmedievallogic in a certain grace. Some, like Mariana, wrote with native power in the classic forms. But their most telling man in the field oftheology isPetavius, who belongs toFrance and the seventeenth century. His large volumes on the Fathers may be compared in point of language withCalvin's "Institutes" and the "Augustinus" of Jansen. They discard the method familiar toScotus andSt. Thomas; they furnish to some extent criticism as well as history. And they suggest the development ofdogma with an approach to its philosophy, which neitherBossuet norBull could quite comprehend.

All these things form part of "that matured and completed Renaissance" whereby theevil was purged out which had made it perilous in the same degree tofaith and tomorals.Nicholas V and otherpopes did well in not refusing to add culture, even the finest of the Greek, to religion. Their fault lay in the weakness which could not resistpagan luxury and a frivolous dilettantism. Now serious work was undertaken for the good of theChurch.Gregory XIII reformed the calendar; the text of the canon law was corrected underSixtus V andClement VIII theLatin Vulgate after years of revision attained its actual shape; and the VaticanSeptuagint came forth in 1587.Baronius, urged by St. Phillip Neri, brought out eleven folio volumes of "the greatestchurch history ever written". TheRoman Breviary, enlarged and edited anew, was republished by authority ofSt. Pius V andUrban VIII.

But the Renaissance had indulged its "pride of state, ofknowledge, and of system" with disastrous consequences to ourChristian inheritance. It trampled on theMiddle Ages and failed to understand that in them which was truly original. The Latin of Cicero which urban VIII cultivated, the metres of Horace, did grievous wrong to the prose and verse of our church offices, so far as they were altered. The showy architecture now designed, though sometimes magnificent, was not inspired by religion; before long it sank to therococo and the grotesque; and it filled the churches withpagan monuments to disedifying celebrities. Inpainting we descend from theheaven ofFra Angelico to the "corregiosity" of Corregio, may, lower still, for Venus too often masquerades as the Madonna.Christian art became a thing of the past when the Gothiccathedral was looked upon as barbarous even by such champions of the Faith asBossuet andFénelon. Never did a poet inspired by Renaissance models—not even Vida norSannazzaro—rise to the sublimity of the "Dies Irae" never did that style produce a work equal to the "Imitation".Dante triumphs as the supremeCatholic singer;St. Thomas Aquinas cannot be dethroned from his sovereignty as theAngelic Doctor, still, as regardsfaith and philosophy, he is thetrue "master of those thatknow". ButDante andSt. Thomas lived before the Renaissance. It was not large or liberal enough to absorb theMiddle Ages. Hence its failure at the beginning as a philosophic movement, its lack of the deepest human motives, its superficiality and its pedantries; hence, afterwards, its fall into the commonplace, and the extinction of art in vulgarity, of literature in empty rhetoric. Hence, finally, the need of aFrench Revolution to teach it that life was something more serious than a "Carnevalde Venise", and of Romanticism to discover, among the ruined choirs and in the neglected shrines which men had scornfully passed by, tokens of that mightymedieval genius,Catholic, Latin, Teuton, and French, misunderstanding of which was the folly, and the spoiling of its achievements the crime, that we must charge upon the Renaissance in the day of its power. "It remained for a later age", says one who glorified it, "to conceive thetrue method of effecting a scientific reconciliation ofChristian sentiment with the imagery, the legends, the theories about the world, ofpagan poetry and philosophy" (Pater, "Renaissance", 49). Not less did it become the task of Goethe, Scott,Chateaubriand, Ruskin, of Friedrich Schlegel and the best German critics, to show thatEuropean culture,divorced from theMiddle Ages, would have been a pale reflection of dead antiquity.

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