294 General History of Europe the greater part of the fourteenth century, and then there had followed for forty years a struggle between rival lines of popes at Avignon and at Rome. Conditions were accordingly highly unfavorable for improving the city. But later, in the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, it became possible for the popes to turn their attention to reviving the ancient glory of Rome. Architects and painters and men of letters were called in and encouraged by the popes to erect and adorn magnificent buildings and to collect a great and still famous library in the Vatican Palace. 492. St. Peter's and the Vatican. The old church of St. Peter no longer satisfied the aspirations of the popes. It was gradually torn down, and the present church, with its vast dome and im- posing approach, took its place. The old palace of the Lateran, where the government of the popes had been carried on for a thousand years, had been deserted after the return from Avignon, and the new palace of the Vatican was gradually constructed to the right of St. Peter's. It has innumerable rooms, great and small, some of them, such as the famous Sistine Chapel, adorned by the most celebrated Italian painters of the Renaissance ; others are filled with ancient statuary. As one visits Venice, Florence, and Rome today he may still see, almost perfectly preserved, many of the finest of the build- ings, paintings, and monuments which belong to the period we have been discussing. II. THE ART OF THE RENAISSANCE 493. Development of Art in Italy. We have already de- scribed briefly the work of the medieval architects and referred to the striking carvings that adorned the Gothic cathedrals and to the pictures of saints and angels in stained glass which filled the great church windows. But in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries art developed in a most astonishing manner in Italy and set new standards for all of western Europe. Florence was the great center of artistic activity during the fifteenth century. The greatest sculptors and almost all of the
