CHAPTER VII
THE VENETIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS
53. General Survey.—The 16th century is perhaps the most
fascinating of any before the 19th, since it was the meeting-point
of mediæval and modern life. Into it as towards a focus
various lines of progress converged, only to be recombined and
redirected. All Europe was stirred by the great mental movements
of the Renaissance and the Revival of Letters, which
originated further back, but were now hastened to maturity by
certain events that gave an unexampled expansion to intellectual
and artistic interests.
Note especially (a) the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, which sent a
wave of Byzantine learning into the West, making real the richness of
ancient literature and art, (b) the invention of printing with movable
types about 1450, making it possible to multiply and distribute the tools
of culture indefinitely, (c) other inventions that tended to alter society,
like gunpowder, changing the whole aspect of war and politics, and the
mariner's compass, opening the door to explorations beyond the sea, and
(d) startling discoveries of far-off geographical facts, as of America
(1492), the Cape of Good Hope and the sea-route to India (1498), the
Pacific (1513), etc., enlarging men's horizons, awakening adventurous
zeal, and provoking dreams of foreign domain and fabulous wealth.
In place of the stiff and abstract scholasticism of the Middle
Ages the New Learning now asserted itself, being really the
first expression of the modern historical and scientific spirit.
Other signs of the mental vigor of the age were the advances
of arts like painting and poetry under masters of permanent
importance.
As illustrations, note that Erasmus, the leader of the Humanists, was
born in 1465 and died in 1536, that here belong typical Italian painters
of the first rank, like Da Vinci (1452-1519), Michelangelo (1475-1564),
Raphael (1483-1520) and Titian (1477-1576), with the German Dürer
(1471-1528), and that here was the brilliant blossoming of the Elizabethan
Era in England.
As the century opens, we find ourselves on the verge of the
tremendous upheaval of the Reformation, appearing just before
