§ GG. THE ARTISTS. 601
period in which some of them acquired undying Jame. Micjielangelo lived to be 89, while Correggio died before he was" 44. Titian, had he lived one year longer, would have rounded out a full century, wliile death took the brush out of Raphael's hand before he was 31, a marvellous example of production in ashort period, to be compared with Mozart in the department ofjiiusic and Blaise Pascal in letter^. And again, several of the great artists are remarkable examples of an extraordinary combination of talents. Lionardo da Vinci and Michelangelo excelled alike as .architects, sculptors, painters and poets. I^ionardo was, besides being these, a chemist, engineer, musician, merchant and profound thinker^ yea, "the precocious originator of all modern wonders and ideas, a subtle and universal genius, an isolated and insatiate investigator," and is not unjustly called, on his monument at Milan, " the restorer of the arts and sciences." ^ His mural picture of the Last Supper in Milan, best known by the engraving of Raphael Morghen, in spite of its defaced condition, is a marvellous reproduction of one of the sublimest events, adapted to the monks seated around their refectory table (instead of the reclining posture on couches), and every head a study. As for Michelangelo, he_has been classed by Taine with Dante, Shakespeare and Beethoven among the four great intellects in the world of art and literature.
Distinguishing in the years between 1300-1550 two period^, the^arlier Renaissance to 1470 and the high Renaissance, from that date forward, we find that Italian art had its first centre in Florence, and its most glorious exhibition under Julius II. and Leo X. in Rome.^ The earlier period began with Cimabue, who died about 1302, and Giotto, 1276-1336, the
1 Taine, Lectures on Art, I. 16. — Liibke, Hist, of Art, II. 280 sq. says: " Lionardo was one of those rare beings in whom nature loves to unite all conceivable human perfections, — strikingly handsome, and at the same time of a dignified presence and of an almost incredible degree of bodily strength; while mentally he possessed such various endowments as are rarely united in a single person," etc. See also Symonds, III. 314.
2 Julius ordered a colossal tomb wrought for himself, but he could not be depended upon as a paymaster, as Michelangelo complained. See Klaczko, p. 62.
602 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
f rieud of Dante. According to the story, Cimabue found Giotto, then ten years old, drawing sheep on a stone with a piece of charcoal and, with his father's consent, took the lad to Florence. These two artists employed their genius in the decoration of the cathedral erected to the memory of St. Francis in Assisi. The visitor to S. Croce and other sacred places inFlorencelooks upon the frescos of Giotto. His Dante, like Guido Reni's Beatrice Cenci, once seen can never be forgotten. Symonds has remarked that it may be said, without exaggeration, that Giotto and his scholars, within the space of little more than half a century, painted upon the walls of the churches and the public places of Italy every great conception of the Middle Ages.^ Fra Angelico da Fiesole, 1387-1455, is the most religious of the painters of this period, and his portraiture of saints and angels is so pure as to suggest no other impression than saintliness.
The mind is almojjt stunnj<lby the combination of brilliant artistic achievement, of which the pontificate of Julius II. may be taken as the centre. There flourished in that age Perugino, 1446-1524, — Raphael's teacher, — Lion^rdo da Viniji, 1452- 1519, Raphael, 1483-1520, Michelangelo, 1475-1564, Cofreggio^ 1493-1534, And^rea del SartQ, 1487-1531, and Titian, 1477-1576, all Italians.
Of Ra.phnplp his German biographer has said his career is comprised in four words, " he lived, he loved, he worked, he died young. "^ He was an attractive and amiable character, free from envy and jealousy, modest, magnanimous, patient of criticism, as anxious to learn as to teach, always ready to assist poor artists. Michelangelo and he labored in close proximity in tlie Vatican, Michelangelo in the Sistine chapel, Raphael in the stanze and loggie. Their pupils quarrelled among themselves, each depreciating the rival of his master; but the masters rose above the jealousy of small minds. They form a noble pair, like Schiller and Goethe among poets. Raphael seemed almost to have descended from a higher world. Vasari
^ The Renaissance, III. 191.
2 Seine Geschichte ist in den vier Begriffen enthalten: leben, lieben. arbeiten und jiing sterben.