Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 911
In these days great visions opened. First the grand Past offered to man visions, beautiful adventures, marvellous thoughts. It was as if the soul and mind had been shut up in a box, in the old narrow way of dogmatic faith, and now was set free into all the air and space and splendour of free, pure thought and deep understanding. No wonder men were excited and glad, no wonder they set off in search of new worlds, new lands on earth. So, secondly, the great sailors crossed the sea, America was discovered, and Southern Africa. Here was a whole world of the future opening ahead, a whole grand world of the past opening behind.
No wonder the period is called the Renaissance, or rebirth. During the dark, violent Middle Ages man was alive, but blind and voracious. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, he awoke. The human spirit was then like a butterfly which bursts from the chrysalis into the air. A whole new world lies about it. The narrow, devouring little world of the caterpillar has disappeared, all heaven and all earth flash around.
With the Renaissance the new way of life comes into being. Men do not live just to fight and conquer and capture possessions. They live now in the joy of producing, the joy of making things. So Europe begins to weave and work, instead of fighting or fasting or making crusades. Then the goods produced must be exchanged. Commerce needs good safe roads, safe seas. Peace begins to win her great victories over war.
By the Renaissance we do not mean just the Revival of Learning. We mean a whole new way of life. Men shake themselves ever more and more free. The greatest institutions, Empire and Papacy, are broken; men are freed from the enclosure of these vast forms. Then kings rise up, to hold millions of people in their hands. But as kings are rising, so is commerce. Kings are really war-lords, war-leaders. Commerce needs no king. Thus the power of kings declines as the power of commerce increases. And yet there is something even more powerful than commerce, or industry.
At the Re-birth, great kings, dukes, tyrants shine splendid where emperors and popes have fallen. Popes are no more than dukes, tyrants like the rulers of other Italian towns. But side by side with kings and dukes commerce and industry are slowly, almost invisibly rising, at last to overshadow all kingly rule. And against the slowly rising flood of commerce moves the almost invisible power of learning, wisdom, understanding. Emperors have reigned, and popes; kings, tyrants, dukes have had their turn; commerce has taken full power in the world. There still remains the last reign of wisdom, of pure understanding, the reign which we have never seen in the world, but which we must see.
Florence in Boccaccio’s day had probably not more than 100,000 inhabitants. London had only 50,000. But the great cloth industry of Florence brought in more than a million florins a year. It was very difficult in those days for Florence to make her payments in other countries to pay for wool in England, or undressed cloth in Flanders. For money was continually changing, and what was valuable one year might become worthless the next. In early days rich Jews had kept moneys of all kinds. Florence would pay her coin to a rich Jew, and he would pay her debt in England, with English coin out of his treasury. But he charged heavily for the transaction. Then the agents of the Pope, secretaries of bishops and cardinals, had been empowered to carry money from one State to another, and this enriched the papal revenue.
But now rich Florentine merchants established in their counting-houses a department for exchange of moneys. They received coin of all kinds from every country. So they could pay a bill for a man in any country, and charge for doing so. Then they would receive bills of promise instead of coin for payment. Trusting to these bills they would settle accounts for a merchant, and wait until he paid the cash later on. For this delay they charged him a certain percentage. So money was made to breed money. Then the banking merchants began to lend cash to princes or States, large sums, from which they drew good interest. And so the great banking system of the modern world began.
Of course there was risk in this. When in 1339 Edward hi. of England repudiated his debts, there was great distress in Florence, for he owed that city great sums. Many merchants became bankrupt and penniless, and Florence cursed England. In 1318 came the Great Plague, when night and day the inhabitants of Florence died in the streets. Many citizens fled, the city was deserted, work at a standstill. But the plague passed, people returned, in a few years’ time all was busy as before.
The control of the city was changing hands. The new banking merchants had been insignificant citizens. Now, they became very rich indeed. Meanwhile the old noble merchants, who had been the governing class in the city, began to wane and sink in importance. For they kept up the old system, and so were outstripped by the new men. These new families became very powerful and famous. The chief of the Florentines were the Medici, the Strozzi, the Albizzi, all bankers, not productive manufacturers or merchants.
The Medici became world-famous. They were not a noble family by origin, only well-to-do citizens. But as their wealth increased their importance grew in Florence. In 1421 Giovanni de’ Medici became Gonfaloniere of the city. The Gonfaloniere was the prime citizen, the leader of the Priors of the Guild, the president of the Councils of the State.
Though the great cities of Italy were established upon peace and commerce, they were by no means peaceful. They were liable at all times to attack. And they were ready in their jealousy to fight a rival city. Now any State which must needs act quickly, either in the defensive or offensive, must be under the supreme control of one man: since many minds, though they may be sure, are usually slow. Therefore the chief citizen in Florence was really in supreme command of the State, at least during the city’s great days. And a citizen in supreme command was named, after the Greek style, a tyrant. But a tyrant is not in this sense a bully. He is merely a supreme commander of a civilian State, a president who has an almost absolute authority.
So the Medici became tyrants of Florence. They had to defend and fight for their city. But in the fourteenth century a new way of fighting had sprung up. The Florentines were busy, they did not want to be soldiering. Therefore with their power of money they hired special trained bands of soldiers. These condottieri, or Hired Ones, were soldiers of every nation, united under some clever captain. The greatest of these captains was Sir John Hawkwood, who commanded the famous White Company in Italy.
He was the son of a tanner in Essex. He served in the armies of Edward III., fought no doubt at Crecy and Poitiers, and was knighted. When France and England signed the Peace of Bretigny in 1360, Sir John Hawkwood turned to Italy, hoping for more fighting in that divided land.
The roving bands of soldiers united under him. He trained them perfectly. New methods of fighting were coming into fashion; war was re-born, as well as peace.
Edward III. had created the professional soldier. Instead of madly hurling themselves at one another, as in the old days, armies now entered into careful and skilful campaign.
Sir John Hawkwood was perhaps the most skilful campaigner of his day. With his White Company he sought always to out-manoeuvre the enemy, not to destroy him. He did not want to lose his own carefully trained professionals. So in the wars of the condottieri not many men were killed, though cities triumphed or were defeated.
When the condottieri hired themselves out, they were perfectly faithful to their pledge. But immediately the campaign was over, the connection was finished, they might hire themselves to any other bidder. In 1363 Hawkwood with his company fought for Montferrat against Milan; in 1364 for Pisa against Florence; in 1368 he was fighting for the Visconti, Lord of Milan; in 1373 he was engaged by the Pope against this same Visconti. After this he was chiefly engaged by the Florentines, who appreciated him greatly. He was a kindly, human soldier, who loved the skill and science of the fight. In 1392 he led the Florentine forces and defeated the Visconti, although he had married a daughter of Bernabo Visconti, Tyrant of Milan. He spent the remainder of his life in a beautiful villa outside Florence, and his children were Italian nobles. He died in 1394, and the citizens gave him a splendid funeral.
So the tyrants of the Italian cities fought against one another, without shedding the blood of their citizens. The Visconti, Tyrants of Milan, were cruel and vindictive, though they built some lovely edifices, and under their rule the great cathedral of Milan was begun. But the Medici, the merchant bankers who became Tyrants of Florence, excelled all in peace and in cunning diplomacy.
The first great Medici was Cosimo, who in practice ruled the city till he died in 1464. He was splendid as a king. He kept a gay court, and spent great sums in beautifying the city. He built the Medici Palace, and chiefly assisted the architect Brunelleschi to raise the dome of the cathedral of Florence, one of the first and most famous domes of Europe. Perfect painters, whose works have rejoiced all men in all lands, worked for Cosimo, poets and musicians thronged the courts.
But in 1478 rich citizens, with the connivance of the Pope, conspired to murder the Medici and the Priors. The two young Medici, Giuliano and Lorenzo, were attacked in the cathedral. Giuliano was stabbed, Lorenzo escaped. The populace, who at this time loved the Medici, rose in anger, crying Palle! Palle! Palle! For the arms of the banker Medici were three red balls, three red pallc.
Lorenzo de’ Medici then became Tyrant of Florence. He is called the Magnificent, Lorenzo il Magnifico. He was one of the most splendid men in the Renaissance. Frail in health and ugly to look at, he was yet delightful, witty and gay, yet learned, a loveT of poetry and all the arts, yet a clever ruler. He was very, simple in his manner, and kept no pomp and ceremony. He always said he was but a citizen, no noble, no aristocrat, even if he were first citizen. So he tried in his manner and appearance to be like one of the people themselves.
The citizens loved him for it. And so, because he was loved, he had supreme power, far more perfect in its way than any papal or Visconti power. He kept a most gay and splendid court — which the Florentines loved. They were delighted by Lorenzo’s splendours and gaieties. But at the same time the Magnificent left us treasures for which we cannot praise him enough, the clever Tyrant. There are pictures which might not have been produced if he had not splendidly commissioned and supported the painters, lovely works such as those of Botticelli, besides the sculptures, poems, songs, and beautiful architecture of other men.
The three greatest painters of the day were Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, and Raphael. Leonardo and Michael Angelo were both Florentines. In 1447 the Sforza, a son of a condottieri captain, became Duke and Tyrant of Milan. His son, called II Moro, or the Moor, because he was so dark, invited Leonardo da Vinci to the extravagant court oi’ Milan. He gave Leonardo a house and an irregular supply of money, and in Milan the great painter produced his famous pictures. Still we can see the large wall-painting called ‘ The Last Supper,’ though it is in a dilapidated condition. Leonardo was a tall, handsome, fair man. He loved science, and perfected the science of painting. But he loved all scientific pursuits. Above all he longed to fly. For years he worked with his smith at marvellous great wings which he hoped would carry him. His failure to fly was a great sorrow to him. But Ludovico Sforza, the Duke, remained his friend till the French invasion.
Michael Angelo was a little younger than Leonardo, but his morose nature was jealous of the elder man. Michael Angelo’s greatest work was done for the Pope — the marvellous frescoes in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican.
Raphael was the youngest of the painters, and the darling of all. He worked incessantly for the Pope, and beautified the Vatican superbly. He was rich as a lord with the proceeds of his painting, and was followed by a gay retinue through the streets of Rome, like any prince. But he remained kind and lovable, and was much mourned when he died in 1520, at the age of thirty-seven.
Whilst Italy and Rome were glittering with creative activity, the last vestige of the old Roman Empire disappeared. Constantinople, which had remained the beautiful home of the eastern emperors since Constantine’s day, was taken by the Turks in 1453. The Empire in the East vanished utterly. The Turks took possession of the home of Constantine, the first Christian city fell into Mohammedan hands, the first great Christian cathedral, the Hagia Sophia or Church of St. Sophia, became a mosque of Mohammedan worship.
But the Turks and Mohammedanism had reached their western limit. In the north the Spaniards roused the old Gothic spirit, and drove out the Moors. Since the eighth century the Moors had held a great part of Spain. There they had a beautiful, fertile civilisation. The Moors alone had kept science alive during the Middle Ages; they were the great teachers of botany, medicine, geography, mathematics. In Spain their palaces were graceful and delicate, their gardens lovely; they had a flourishing trade in silk, a busy, refined population. But in 1492 their last stronghold, Granada, fell, and all Spain was in the hands of the Spaniards.
So the great century came to an end. The west coast of Africa had been discovered and opened; the Grand Canary and the Azores were settled; the Cape of Good Hope was discovered. In 1492 Columbus discovered America, in 1497 Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and came upon India. He landed in Calicut in 1498. The sea-way to the East was opened.
Thus the world opened out to man. And even at the same time the heavens were explored. Copernicus, the great astronomer, was born in 1473. Before his day men believed, according to Ptolemy’s system, that our earth was the centre of the universe, and that man was at the centre of creation. Round the earth were the seven spheres, or globes of crystal atmosphere, one inside the other, each one containing a planet, and all revolving in different directions. So the planets were supposed to be carried on their different paths. Outside of all was a great outer sphere containing all the stars like many bright specks in a glass globe. This great outer sphere set all the others moving, and in their diverse turning they made a fine universal music called the music of the spheres.
Copernicus after thirty-six years of study proved that the theory of the moving spheres was wrong. He showed that the earth moves in a path round the sun. This roused a great storm of wrath, for it put the Church out of her proud, central position. If our earth were not the centre of the universe, then man, instead of believing himself undisputed lord of creation, must humble himself and allow that there may be other worlds with other lords. So the great mediaeval pride of man received its great blow.
After Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, who was born in 1546, built the first observatory for accurately studying the heavens. He also constructed the sextant and quadrant, which have been of such invaluable service to mankind.
In 1564 was born the great Galileo, ‘ the Italian star- wright.’ He invented the telescope, and proclaimed the new theories and discoveries of the heavens to mankind, for which he was imprisoned by the Pope, who found it necessary that the earth should remain the centre of the universe. With Galileo modern astronomy began.
Chapter XIV. The Reformation
It was the north, the northern Teutonic race that had defied the Caesars of Old Rome, which was now finally to break the power of the Roman Papacy. The Germanic temperament all through our course of history has reacted against the old social forms, gradually breaking them down and making room for a wider individual liberty. From the south come the impulses that unite men into a oneness: from the north come the strong passions which break up the oneness and shatter the world, but which make in the long run for a freer, more open way of life.
The great men of the New Learning were northerners. It was in the north that men began to use their reason fearlessly in all matters that interested them. It was in the north that the great men passionately desired to be free to understand all that their souls were troubled with.
The first of the northern teachers before the Reformation was the German, John Reuchlin. He studied Hebrew so that he could get at the true meaning of the Old Testament. He tried hard to save the Jewish writings from the flames of the Inquisitors. For he wanted to show the natural, human side of the Old Testament. The priests of the Church had hidden the Bible from the people and had tried to make everything out of Scripture seem marvellous and supernatural and awful. The men of the New Learning wanted to see things naturally, in the light of the true human understanding. For this reason they were called humanists, because the human understanding was to them the measure of truth and reality. They did not wish to believe in abnormal or monstrous things, just because men had always believed in these monstrosities. They did not want to consider life awful and supernatural. They wished to see everything in the human light, the light of the deep, real human intelligence, which is the best that man is capable of. Another early German reformer and scholar was Ulrich von Hutten, called the Stormy Petrel of the Reformation, for he was very fiery and passionate. These Germans were very eager to slay old lies, old untruths, to expose old impostures, to destroy the old imposed authority of the Church.
The Oxford reformers were different. They loved the new learning, but they did not want to break with Rome. They wanted more purity in the Church, but peace, not schism. John Colet, son of the Lord Mayor of London, came back from the study of Greek in Italy, in the year 1496. He began to lecture on the Epistles of St. Paul. The New Testament, as wc know, exists in its earliest form in Greek. So Colet was able to read the real words, and to connect them with the history of the times, and to understand St. Paul’s relations to the great Greek thinkers and to the Roman governors of his own day. So the Epistles became human documents, not just mysterious religious utterances. They belonged to the real history of mankind, to the history of pagan Rome as well as to Christendom.
Colet became Dean of St. Paul’s, and used his father’s fortune to found St. Paul’s School, in 1510. His advice to his students was: ‘ Keep to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed, and let Churchmen, if they like, dispute about the rest.’ Colet had great influence in Oxford, over Sir Thomas More, Grocyn, Linacre, and the great Erasmus — also over Tyndale and Latimer.
