The Renaissance
But when Florence had fallen to her worst tyrants, and terror ruled where once Lorenzo had governed happily, the artist who had carved a criticism of life, and no mere theory of government, in the marbles of the Medici shrine, felt that those melancholy figures expressed, as well, the glory gone of the city that had nursed the Renaissance. On the unveiling of the statue of Night the poet Gianbattista Strozzi wrote a quatrain of literary exposition:
The Night thous seest here, posed gracefully
In act of slumber, was by an angel wrought
Out of this stone. Sleeping, with life she’s fraught.
Wake her, incredulous wight; she’ll speak to thee.
Michelangelo pardoned the complimentary pun on his name, but rejected the interpretation. He gave his own in four lines that are the most revealing in his poetry:
Caro m’è il sonno, e più l’esser di sasso
Mentre che ‘l danno e la vergogna dura.
Non veder, non sentir m’è gran ventura;
Però non mì destar; deh! parla basso.—
Dear is my sleep, but more to be mere stone,
So long as ruin and dishonor reign.
To see naught, to feel naught, is my great gain;
Then wake me not; speak in an undertone.62
XI. THE END OF AN AGE: 1528–34
Clement did not die until he had made one more reversal of policy, and had crowned his disasters by losing England for the Church (1531). The spread of the Lutheran revolt in Germany had created for Charles V difficulties and dangers that might, he hoped, be eased by a general council. He urged this upon the Pope, and was angered by repeated excuses and delays. Irritated in turn by the Emperor’s award of Reggio and Modena to Ferrara, Clement veered again toward France. He accepted a proposal of Francis that Caterina de’ Medici should marry the King’s second son Henry, and he signed secret articles binding himself to help Francis recover Milan and Genoa (1531).63 At a second conference in Bologna (1532) between Pope and Emperor, Charles again proposed a general council at which Catholics and Protestants might meet and find some formula of reconciliation; he was again rebuffed. He suggested a marriage of Catherine with Francesco Maria Sforza, imperial vicar in Milan; he found that the proposal came too late; Catherine was already sold. On October 12, 1533, Clement met Francis at Marseille, and there married his niece to Henry, Duke of Orléans. It was a prime defect of the Medici as popes that they thought of themselves as a royal dynasty, and sometimes rated the glory of their family above the fate of Italy or the Church. Clement tried to persuade Francis to make peace with Charles; Francis refused, and had the audacity to ask papal acquiescence to a temporary alliance of France with the Protestants and the Turks against the Emperor.64 Clement thought that this was going a bit too far.
“Under these circumstances,” says Pastor, “it must be considered fortunate for the Church that the Pope’s days were numbered.”65 He had already lived too long. At his accession Henry VIII was still Defensor fidei, defender of the orthodox faith against Luther; and the Protestant revolt had as yet proposed no vital doctrinal changes, but only such ecclesiastical reforms as the Council of Trent would legislate for the Church in the next generation. At Clement’s death (September 25, 1534) England, Denmark, Sweden, half of Germany, part of Switzerland had definitely broken away from the Church, and Italy had submitted to a Spanish domination fatal to the free thought and life that had for good or evil marked the Renaissance. It was beyond doubt the most disastrous pontificate in the history of the Church. Everyone had rejoiced at Clement’s accession, everyone rejoiced at his death; and the rabble of Rome repeatedly defiled his tomb.66
BOOK VI
FINALE
1534–76
CHAPTER XXII
Sunset in Venice
1534–76
I. VENICE REBORN
IT is something of a mystery that this age of thralldom and decline for the rest of Italy was for Venice a golden age. She had suffered severely from the wars of the League of Cambrai; she had lost many of her Eastern possessions to the Turks; her trade with the Eastern Mediterranean was repeatedly disturbed with war and piracy; her commerce with India was passing to Portugal. Why, then, could she support in this period architects like Sansovino and Palladio, writers like Aretino, painters like Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese? In this same age Andrea Gabrieli played the organ and led the choirs at San Marco, and wrote madrigals that sounded through Italy; music was a pampered passion of rich and poor; the palaces on the Grand Canal were rivaled in interior luxury and art only by those of bankers and cardinals in Rome; a hundred poets recited their verses in booths and taverns and public squares; a dozen companies of players performed comedies, permanent theaters were built, and Vittoria Piissimi, la bella maga d’amore, “the lovely sorceress of love,” was the toast of the city as an actress, singer, and dancer as women replaced boys in female parts, and the reign of divas began.
Only the lamest explanation of the mystery will be given here. Though deeply injured by war, Venice had never been invaded; her homes and shops remained intact. She had recovered her mainland possessions, and included populous cities like Padua, Vicenza, and Verona among her tributaries in education, economy, and genius (Colombo and Cornaro at Padua, Palladio at Vicenza, Veronese from Verona). She still dominated large areas of trade in and near the Adriatic. Her leading families had still unspent treasures of nursed and inherited wealth. Old industries continued to flourish, and found new markets in Christendom; it was now, for example, that Venetian glass reached its tenuous crystalline perfection. The Venetian leadership in luxury products was maintained, and in this age Venetian lace first acquired fame. Despite religious censorship, Venice still gave asylum to political refugees, and to intellectual refugees like Aretino, who fumigated his hilarious ribaldries with periodical contributions to the literature of piety.
Toward the end of this period Venice twice demonstrated her civic vigor and resilience. In 1571 she took a leading part, with Spain and the papacy, in equipping the armada of two hundred vessels that destroyed a Turkish fleet of 224 ships off Lepanto in the Gulf of Corinth. That victory, which may have saved western Europe for Christendom, was celebrated by Venice with three days of mad rejoicing: the region of the Rialto was hung with cloths of turquoise or gold; every window made the canals colorful with flags or tapestries; a great triumphal arch rose at the Rialto bridge; and paintings by the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and Michelangelo were displayed in the streets. The subsequent carnival was the wildest that Venice had ever known, setting the pace for many later carnivals; everyone masked and frolicked, laying a moratorium upon morality; and clowns like Pantalone and Zanni (i.e., Johnny) gave their names to a dozen languages.
And then, in 1574 and 1577, tragic fires in the Ducal Palace gutted several rooms; paintings by Gentile da Fabriano, the Bellini, the Vivarini, Titian, Pordenone, Tintoretto, and Veronese were destroyed; in two days the labor and art of a century disappeared. The spirit of the republic shone out in the rapidity and resolution with which the damaged interiors were restored. Giovanni da Ponte was commissioned to rebuild the chambers on their former lines; Cristoforo Sorte designed in twenty-nine divisions the marvelous ceiling of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio; and the walls were painted by Tintoretto, Veronese, Palma Giovane, and Francesco Bassano. In other rooms—the Collegio or meeting place of the Doge and his council, the Anticollegio or antechamber, the Sala de’ Pregadi or Senate Hallceilings and doors and windows were designed by the greatest architects of the age—Iacopo Sansovino, Palladio, Antonio Scarpagnino, Alessandro Vittoria.
Iacopo d’Antonio di Iacopo Tatti was by birth (1486) a Florentine. He “went very reluctantly to school,” says Vasari, but took eagerly to drawing. His mother encouraged this disposition; his father, who had hoped to make a merchant of him, was overruled. So Iacopo went to serve as apprentice to the sculptor Andrea Contucci di Monte San Savino, who loved the lad so well, and taught him so conscientiously, that Iacopo came to look upon him
as a father, and adopted Andrea’s cognomen, Sansovino, as his own. The youth had also the good fortune to make a friend of Andrea del Sarto, and perhaps learned from him the secrets of graceful and animated design. While in Florence the young sculptor carved the Bacchus now in the Bargello, famous for its perfect balance, and for the skill with which arm, hand, and vase—lightly poised on the finger tips—were cut from one piece of marble. Everyone (except Michelangelo) was kind to Andrea, and helped him up the hill to excellence. Giuliano da Sangallo took him to Rome and gave him lodging. Bramante commissioned him to make a wax copy of the Laocoön; it was so well done that it was cast in bronze for Cardinal Grimani. Perhaps through Bramante’s influence Andrea turned from sculpture to architecture, and soon received lucrative commissions.
He was in Rome when the sack came, and, like many other artists, he lost all his possessions. He made his way to Venice, thinking to go to France; but the Doge Andrea Gritti begged him, instead, to strengthen the pillars and cupolas of St. Mark’s. His work so pleased the Senate that he was made state architect (1529). For six years he labored to improve the Piazza San Marco, banishing the butchers’ shops that had sullied the Piazzetta, opening new streets, and helping to make St. Mark’s Square the spacious delight that it is today.
In 1536 he built the Zecca or mint, and began his most celebrated building, the Libreria Vecchia, facing the Palace of the Doges. He designed the façade with a stately double portico of Doric and Ionic columns, handsome cornices and balconies, and decorative statuary. Some have rated this Old Library “the most beautiful profane edifice in Italy”;1 but the multiplication of columns is excessive, and the structure can hardly compare with the Palace of the Doges. In any case the Procurators liked it, raised Sansovino’s salary, and exempted him from war taxes. In 1544 one of the main arches collapsed, and the vault crashed down. Sansovino was thrown into jail and heavily fined, but Aretino and Titian persuaded the Procurators to release and pardon him. The arch and vault were repaired, and the building was successfully completed in 1553. Meanwhile (1540) Sansovino had designed the pretty Loggetta, or vestibule for police, on the eastern side of the Campanile, and had adorned it with bronze and terra-cotta sculptures. In St. Mark’s he cast bronze doors for a sacristy, and took occasion to portray, among the reliefs, not only Aretino but Titian and himself.
The three men had now become firm friends, enviously known in Venetian art circles as “the Triumvirate.” Many an evening they spent together, talking shop, or entertaining such beauty as could be engaged for the time. Iacopo rivaled Aretino in popularity with women, and Titian in longevity. He remained strong and healthy, and (we are assured) enjoyed perfect eyesight, till his eighty-fourth year.2 For fifty years he never consulted a physician; during summers he lived almost entirely on fruit. When Paul III invited him to succeed Antonio da Sangallo as chief architect at St. Peter’s, he refused, saying that he would not exchange his life in a republic for service under an absolute ruler.3 Ercole II of Ferrara and Duke Cosimo of Florence in vain offered him large stipends to take up residence at their courts. He died peacefully in 1570, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.
In that year appeared an epoch-making work—Four Books of Architecture—by Andrea Palladio, who gave his name to a style that endured here and there into our own time. Like so many others, Andrea went to Rome and was thrilled by the ruined grandeur of the Forum. He came to love those broken columns and capitals as the finest conceptions that architecture had ever reached; he almost memorized Vitruvius; and his own book strove to restore to Renaissance building all those principles which, he thought, had created the glory of classic Rome. It seemed to him that the finest architecture would avoid all ornament that did not spring spontaneously from the constructive style itself; it would pledge itself to a strict proportion, connection, and congruity of the parts in an organic whole; it would be classically noble and strong, as chaste as a vestal virgin, and as dignified as an emperor.
His first major work was his best, and is one of the outstanding structures of secular Italy. Around the Palazzo della Ragione or Town Hall of his native Vicenza he built (1549f) magnificent and powerful arcades, transforming an undistinguished Gothic core into a Basilica Palladiana that might vie with the Basilica Iulia of the Roman Forum itself: a tier of arches sustaining Doric columns and pilasters, a massive architrave, a railing and balcony elegantly carved, a second tier of arches, on Ionic columns, a classic cornice and railing, and—above each spandrel—a statue rising to oversee the city and give it an exemplar of greatness. “I do not question,” he wrote in his book twenty-one years later, “but that this fabric may be compared with the ancient edifices, and be looked upon as one of the most noble and beautiful buildings erected since the time of the ancients.”4 If he had confined his challenge to civic buildings the boast might stand.
Palladio became the hero of Vicenza, which felt that he had surpassed Sansovino’s Libreria Vecchia. Rich men plied him with commissions for palaces and villas, ecclesiastics for churches; before he died (1580) he had transformed his city almost into an ancient Roman municipality. He built a loggia for the city administration, a pretty museum, a splendid Teatro Olimpico. Venice called him, and there he designed two of her finest churches—San Giorgio Maggiore and the Redentore. Even before his death he had become a powerful influence in Italy. Early in the seventeenth century Inigo Jones brought the Palladian style into England; it spread through Western Europe, and came to America.
Perhaps it was a misfortune. It never really captured the dignity of Roman architecture; it confused its façades with a plethora of columns, capitals, cornices, moldings, and statuary; the details detract from the simple lines and clarity of a classic edifice. And by reverting so humbly to an ancient style, Palladio forgot that a living art should express its own epoch and mood, not those of another age. That is why, when we think of the Renaissance, we do not call to mind its architecture, nor even its sculpture, but above all its painting, which bore lightly the traditions of Alexandria and Rome, freed itself from cramping and uncongenial Byzantine molds, and made itself the authentic voice and color of the time.
II. ARETINO: 1492–15565
To make sure that 1492 would be memorable, Pietro Aretino, Scourge of Princes and Prince of Blackmailers, came into the world on Good Friday of that year. His father was a poor shoemaker of Arezzo, known to us only as Luca. Like many other Italians, Pietro received in time the name of his birthplace, and became Aretino. His enemies insisted that his mother was a prostitute; he denied it, and claimed that his mother was a pretty girl named Tita, who posed as a Madonna for painters, but in a careless moment conceived Pietro while in the arms of a casual but noble lover, Luigi Bacci. Aretino did not mind being a bastard, having such distinguished company in that class; and Luigi’s legitimate sons, when Pietro became famous, did not mind his calling them brothers. But his father was Luca.
Having attained the maturity of twelve years, he set out to make his fortune. He found work as a bookbinder’s assistant in Perugia, and there he studied art sufficiently to become in later years an excellent critic and connoisseur. He himself did some painting. In the chief square of Perugia was a holy picture, fondly reverenced by the people, showing Magdalen fervent at the feet of Christ. One night Aretino painted a lute in the arms of the Magdalene, changing her prayer into a serenade. When the city seethed with anger at the prank, Pietro slipped out of Perugia and examined Italy. He earned his bread as a servant in Rome, as a street singer in Vicenza, as an innkeeper in Bologna. He served a term in the galleys, became a hired man in a monastery, was discharged for lechery, and returned to Rome (1516). There he labored as a lackey for Agostino Chigi. The banker was not unkindly, but Aretino had discovered his own peculiar genius, and fretted under servantry. He wrote a bitter satire describing a scullion’s life: “cleaning privies, polishing chamberpots… performing lewd offices for cooks and stewards who soon see to it that he is all pricked out and embroidered with the French disease.”6 He showe
d his poems to some of Chigi’s guests, and word went around that this Pietro was the sharpest and witties satirist in Rome. His pieces began to circulate. Pope Leo enjoyed them, sent for the author, laughed at his rough frank humor, and added him to the papal staff as a cross between poet and jester. For three years Pietro ate well.
Suddenly Leo died, and Aretino was afloat again. As the conclave dallied in choosing a successor, he wrote satires on the electors and the candidates, affixed the sheets to the statue of Pasquino, and poked fun at so many dignitaries that soon he had hardly a friend in the city. When Adrian VI was elected, and began a most unwelcome campaign of reform, Pietro fled to Florence, then to Mantua (1523), where Federigo took him on as court poet at a moderate salary. When the death of Adrian answered Rome’s prayers, and a rich Medici sat again on the throne of thrones, Pietro, like a thousand other poets, artists, rascals, and rakes, hurried back to the capital.