History of art . try. The south had not been so deeply plowed bythe successive invasions. The Norman barons, insouthern Italy, had had to defend themselves against aclimate very different from their own and against arace that had been enervated by an effort reachingback farther into the past than did that of continentalItaly. Moreover, they asked the protection of thePope in repressing the conquered provinces. Thewhole of the feudal organization was used in breakingdown the activity of the native population. In the north, on the contrary, the cities profited bythe struggle between the Pope and
History of art . try. The south had not been so deeply plowed bythe successive invasions. The Norman barons, insouthern Italy, had had to defend themselves against aclimate very different from their own and against arace that had been enervated by an effort reachingback farther into the past than did that of continentalItaly. Moreover, they asked the protection of thePope in repressing the conquered provinces. Thewhole of the feudal organization was used in breakingdown the activity of the native population. In the north, on the contrary, the cities profited bythe struggle between the Pope and the Emperor inorder to gain their autonomy and to fortify it by asystem of alternative alliances with one or the other of THE MISSION OF FRANCIS OF ASSISI 389 the two powers that were fighting for the dominationof Italy. Guelphs and GhibeUines, Blacks and Whites,Pisa, Florence, Lucca, Siena, Parma, Modena, Ber-gamo, Mantua, Milan, Pavia, and Cremona, took nowthe one standard and now the other, to live their life. Giovanni Pisano. Nativity. (Museum of Pisa,) of incessant warfare either under the cross of the Churchor under the flag of the Empire. They had, indeed, tochoose between death—at a moment when the passionfor living was rising in floods—and a life which dependedfor its strength upon active vigilance, unwearying curi-osity, and a continuous physical and moral , the energy of the Italian Republic, out of whichthe modern mind has evolved, whether we like to admitit or not. If, amid all these rival cities which were ready to fall 390 MEDIAEVAL ART upon one another on the morrow of their violent recon-ciHations, the rise of Florence was the most violent—to the point of absorbing Tuscany in two centuries, ofplaying a mighty role in the life of Europe, and ofinscribing herself upon our memory with lines of steel—it was because she was at the crossing of the roads
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectart, bookyear1921
