History of art . sitive art of his ancestors andabandoned the unreal lyrism of the religious architectsof his country to set, on its eightfold ribbing of stone,the dome which rises above the roofs of Florence witha sweep so powerful and so firm, he was accomplishinga more radical revolution against the artists of theItalian Gothic than that which the men of the FrenchGothic had accomplished, three centuries earlier,against the monks who built in the Romanesque rendered to the genius of his race the homage ofrecognizing that genius in himself. Ill And so at the hour when northern Franc
History of art . sitive art of his ancestors andabandoned the unreal lyrism of the religious architectsof his country to set, on its eightfold ribbing of stone,the dome which rises above the roofs of Florence witha sweep so powerful and so firm, he was accomplishinga more radical revolution against the artists of theItalian Gothic than that which the men of the FrenchGothic had accomplished, three centuries earlier,against the monks who built in the Romanesque rendered to the genius of his race the homage ofrecognizing that genius in himself. Ill And so at the hour when northern France was liftingup, amid the tremendous vibration of the bells, sonor-ous poems of stone and glass that hover and sway overthe cities, Italy was defining herself in the violent,straight-lined palaces by the quality which, muchlater, will define her Renaissance. Already, here inthe Middle Ages, she was affirming the rights of theindividual. The Romanesque architects of Italy often THE MISSION OF FRANCIS OF ASSISI 397. signed their works and all of Tuscany knew NicolaPisano, the sculptor, when not one of the image makersof France had thought to tell his name. The Scaligers,erect on their war horses, were already stamping thedust. It was not possible for popular Christianity totake on the formin the Italian im-agination which <^.^^^French sensibilityhad given it. Onlyfew individualscould, without be-ing consumed byit, embody in theirlives the poetry ofexalted sentimentwhich marked thecharacter of theChristianity of thepeople. There is,indeed, a cathedralin Italy. But allthe crowd coulddo was to cherishan ardent desirefor it. It did not set its hand to the work. The body of the cathedralis Francis of Assisi. Its towers are Dante and foundation of the century is violence. Thefeudal Church, here, weighs down more heavily thanin other places. The tiara and the miter are bought,when they are not taken by assault. Through thefear of hell the priest obtains obedience of the po
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectart, bookyear1921
