THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.

There are few matters regarding art more worthy of consideration than the narrowness of the limits that bound human invention: or, to speak more exactly, we should say the simplicity of the laws and principles in obedience to which the imaginations of men are exercised. The return of the painters, sculptors, and architects to the old types of classical art after the reign of the Gothic seems at first sight as if in the arts there could be nothing new under the sun: as if the imagination, so fertile in creation during many centuries since the establishment of Christianity, had been utterly worked out and come to an end, and that there was nothing left but to repeat and copy what had been done ages before.

There is, however, in reality more connection between classic and mediÆval art than appears on the surface, and although all the great masters of the revival studied eagerly such remains of antique art as were discovered in Italy during the early years of the renaissance, they only came into direct contact with or absolute imitation of those models occasionally; and the works of that age have a grace that is peculiarly their own, and an inventiveness in painting and sculpture, if not in architecture, that seems, when we look at such cities as Venice and Florence, inexhaustible. The renaissance began in Italy many years before the year 1500. Most changes, indeed, of manners or arts which are designated by any century are perhaps more correctly dated twenty years before or after its beginning, and in the notices which we are here putting together we are compelled to make divisions of time occasionally overlap each other.

The revival of learning in Italy was accompanied by other circumstances which had a powerful influence on the arts, and particularly on the sumptuary arts of the century. It has been already remarked that while the nations of Europe were more or less convulsed with war it was not easy or possible for the inhabitants, even the wealthy, to do much in furnishing dwelling-houses with any kind of comfort. Rich furniture consisted in a few costly objects and in hangings such as could be carried about on sumpter horses or in waggons, and, with the addition of rough benches, tables, and bedsteads, could make bare walls look gay and comfortable, and offer sufficient accommodation in the empty halls of granges and manors seldom lived in, for the occasions of a visit or a temporary occupation. Churches indeed were in those ages respected by both sides in the furious contests that raged throughout Europe. The violation of holy places was a crime held in abhorrence by all combatants, and the treasuries and sacristies, therefore, of churches were full of examples of every kind of accomplishment possessed by the artists of the day. They contained objects collected there during many generations, as was the case of shrines like that of the Virgin del Pillar in Spain, of which the offerings so long preserved have been very lately sold and dispersed, and represented the art of many successive ages. But in private houses it was scarcely possible to have any corresponding richness, though in the instance of kings and potentates there was often much splendour.

As in England the fifteenth century saw the close of a series of great wars and the establishment of one powerful government, so during its conclusion and the beginning of the next century a similar disorder gradually gave place to tranquillity in Italy.

The practices of painting gilt furniture of all kinds, and of modelling terra-cotta work on the wood, were not altogether new accomplishments or confined to the artists of one city. When, therefore, the French having been driven out of Italy, the popes were in security in Rome and the accomplished Medici family reigned in Florence, those states as well as Urbino, Ferrara, and other independent cities were free from the perpetual attitude of defence against foreign invasion; they could indulge their enthusiasm for classic art, and the impulse given to the study of it found a ready response, as great noblemen while building palaces and digging gardens came upon statues, frescoes, vases, bronzes, and many glorious remnants of antiquity. In the various Italian states were artists well skilled and carefully trained, and there was no difficulty in finding distinguished names with whole schools of enthusiastic admirers behind them who, with these precious objects in their view, formed their style on the old classic models. We are to consider such acquirements here only so far as they came to be applied to secular woodwork (of which this cornice from Venice is an example) and the objects of daily use; to coffers, chests, caskets, mirrors, or cabinets, sideboards of various kinds, seats, tables, carriages and furniture of every description.

The best artists of the day did not hesitate to give their minds to the making of woodwork and furniture in various materials and employed every kind of accomplishment in beautifying them. Of this fine renaissance period there are so many examples in the South Kensington collection, and some of them of such excellence, that the student need scarcely have occasion to travel beyond the limits of that museum to illustrate the quattrocento and cinquecento furniture and woodwork.

Many materials were employed by the renaissance artists. Wood first and principally in making furniture, but decorated with gilding and paintings; inlaid with agate, carnelian, lapis lazuli and marbles of various tints; with ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl; and with other woods. They also made many smaller objects, such as mirror cases in iron, damascened or inlaid with gold and silver. For many years, however, mirrors continued to be of polished metal, the enrichment being devoted to the outer case. Glass mirrors were not common till a somewhat later period.

As the general material of furniture in the sixteenth century continued to be wood, its chief decoration was sculpture. The number of remarkable pieces of carved wood furniture belonging to this period in the museum is considerable. The most striking are the chests, cassoni, large coffers for containing clothes or ornamental hangings and stuffs that were kept in them when not in use. Rooms, however large, of which the walls, floors, and ceilings are decorated, do not require many substantial objects in addition; and these chests, with a table and chairs placed against the wall, nearly complete the requirements of great Italian halls and corridors.

The general form of the carved chests is that of a sarcophagus. They are supported on claw feet, and have masks, brackets, or caryatid figures worked into the construction as in the accompanying woodcut, leaving panels, borders, or other spaces for historic sculpture. The subjects are sometimes from Scripture, often from the poems of Ovid. They are carved in walnut wood, which is free in grain and very tenacious: and the work, like most of the old furniture carving, is helped out with gilding. Sometimes the ground, at others the relieved carvings are touched or completely covered with gilding. Most of these fine chests are in pairs, and probably formed parts of still larger sets, fours or sixes, according as they were intended for the wall spaces of larger or smaller rooms or portions of wall between two doors.

Carved chests commonly in use, and given to brides as part of their dowry or as presents to married couples, or simply provided as the most convenient objects both for receptacles and occasionally for seats, were often made at less cost in cypress wood. They are generally decorated with surface designs etched with a pen on the absorbent grain of that wood, the ground being slightly cut out and worked over with punches shaped like nail heads, stars, &c. Cypress chests were especially used for keeping dresses or tapestries; the aromatic properties of that timber being considered as a specific against moth. This kind of chest, when intended to hold a bridal trousseau, was occasionally made with small drawers and receptacles inside for fans, lace, combs, or other feminine ornaments. Allusions to cypress chests in England are numerous in the wardrobe and privy purse accounts of Edward the fourth and his successors.

The tables of this period are sometimes solid (as n^o. 162, which is covered with spirited designs of mythological subjects). Dinner tables were "boards" fastened on trestles, according to the old usage already alluded to, and could be removed when the meal was over; or several could be laid together, as in our modern dining-room tables, to meet the demands of the noble hospitality exercised in those days.

The Italian chairs of the quattrocento period have been spoken of above. We have, however, another very rich and effective form of chairs usual in the sixteenth century, and which were in general use in Venice. In these the seat is fastened into two planks, one before and one behind, as in the woodcut. The planks are richly carved, and a third plank is let in to form a back. The several portions, particularly the back, were sometimes sufficiently thick to admit of carving in massive relief. The flanks of the back piece are usually grotesque monsters, and the arms of the owner carved on a scutcheon in the centre. They seem to have been generally richly gilt. They also formed the decoration of a great corridor or hall, and were used without cushions.

The frames of pictures were bold and rich. Those of the previous century had been mostly imitative of small Gothic shrines, being generally for religious subjects and for use in churches or oratories. In the cinquecento period they were square panels, carved and richly gilt. There are in the Kensington museum remarkable examples of frames made for mirrors, either for the sitting-rooms or saloons of the lady of the house, or for her bedroom. Three of these are type pieces of such productions. N^o. 7695 is a square frame carved in walnut, standing on a foot, and meant to be carried about. From the daisies in relief on the foot it may perhaps be ascribed to Marguerite of Valois, and have been used in the court of Provence. Nothing in the collection surpasses the elegance and perfection of the ornamental work on the mouldings. The mirror itself is of polished metal. Another is in a circular frame, n^o. 7694, shaped like a shield, and meant to be hung up. It was probably made for a duchess of Ferrara. There are classical details of architectonic kind on the edges of the carving, which is highly finished. The mirror itself is of metal, and the back has figures on it in relief and is solidly gilt. The third of these, n^o. 7226, is larger. In design it is like a monumental mural tablet, with a carved rich finish on the four sides, and the mirror furnished with a sliding cover in the form of a medallion, containing a female head of singular nobleness and beauty. In this case the material is walnut relieved by broad surfaces of inlaid wood. We may also mention the superb Soltykoff mirror, n^o. 7648. This is an example of metal work throughout, the case, stand, and sliding cover being of iron damascened with gold and silver in every variety of that costly process.

Some of the richest pieces of carved walnut furniture belonging to this period are the bellows. As these are characteristic of the Italian style of the period in furniture of various kinds, we give woodcuts of two examples in the South Kensington collection. They are generally of walnut touched with gilding; and in the form still familiar to ourselves, which is as old as the classic times.

Besides furniture carved in this way out of solid wood, there were other materials used and other methods of decorating household furniture. The tarsia or inlaid work has been alluded to. The first methods were by geometrical arrangements of small dies; but magnificent figure designs had been executed in inlaid wood in the early period of the renaissance, and before it. Work of this kind was made in two or three woods, and much of it is in pine or cypress. The large grain is used to express lines of drapery and other movements by putting whole folds or portions of a dress or figure with the grain in one direction or another, as may be required. The picture is thus composed of pieces inclined together; a few bold lines incised and blackened give such outlines of the form as are not attainable by the other method, and slight burning with an iron is sometimes added to produce tone or shadow.

"'Tarsie' or 'Tarsiatura,'" says Mrs. Merrifield, "was a kind of mosaic in woods. This consisted in representing houses and perspective views of buildings, by inlaying pieces of wood of various colours and shades into panels of walnut wood. Vasari speaks rather slightingly of this art, and says that it was practised chiefly by those persons who possessed more patience than skill in design; that although he had seen some good representations in figures, fruits, and animals, yet the work soon becomes dark, and was always in danger of perishing from the worms and by fire. Tarsia work was frequently employed in decorating the choirs of churches as well as the backs of seats and the wainscoting. It was also used in the panels of doors."

Another method of ornamentation dependent on material that came into use in this century was the Pietra Dura or mosaic panelling of hard pebbles. The work is laborious and costly. Not only are the materials (agate, carnelian, amethyst and marbles of all colours) expensive, but each part must be ground laboriously to an exact shape and the whole mosaic fitted together, a kind of refinement of the old marble work called Alexandrinum. Besides being formed into marble panels for table tops and cabinet fronts, pietra dura was let into wood, and helped out with gay colours the more sombre walnut or ebony base of the furniture.

Vasari, speaking of particular pieces of furniture of his day, mentions a "splendid library table" made at the expense and by the order of Francesco de' Medici in Florence. This table was "constructed of ebony," that is, veneered with ebony, "divided into compartments by columns of heliotrope, oriental jasper, and lapis lazuli, which have the bases and capitals of chased silver. The work is furthermore enriched with jewels, beautiful ornaments of silver, and exquisite little figures, interspersed with miniatures and terminal figures of silver and gold, in full relief, united in pairs. There are, besides, other compartments formed of jasper, agates, heliotropes, sardonyxes, carnelians, and other precious stones." This piece was the work of Bernardo Buontalenti. Another piece of such work is described as a table "wholly formed of oriental alabaster, intermingled with great pieces of carnelian, jasper, heliotrope, lapis, and agate, with other stones and jewels, worth twenty thousand crowns." Another artist, Bernardino di Porfirio of Leccio, executed an "octangular table of ebony and ivory inlaid with jaspers." This precious manufacture has been patronised in the grand ducal factories down to recent times, and is continued in the royal establishments of the king of Italy.

A feature which was strongly developed in the sixteenth century furniture is the architectural character of the outlines. It has already been observed that in the fifteenth century, chests, screens, stall fronts, doors and panelling followed or fell into the prevailing arrangements of architectural design in stonework, such as window tracery, or wall tracery. But in the cinquecento furniture an architectural character, not proper to woodwork for any constructive reasons, was imparted to cabinets, chests, &c. They were artificially provided with parts that imitated the lines, brackets, and all the details of classic entablatures which have constructive reasons in architecture, but which, reduced to the proportions of furniture, have not the same propriety. These subdivisions brought into use the art of "joinery." The parts obviously necessary for the purpose of framing up wood, whether a box or chest, a door, a piece of panelling, or a chair, offer certain opportunities for mouldings or carvings; some are the thicker portions forming the frames, some the thin flat boards that fill up the spaces. To add a variety of mouldings, such as subdivide the roofs of temples or their peristyles, is, of course, to depart from the carpenter's province and work, and rather to take furniture out of its obvious forms for the express purpose of impressing on it the renaissance type.

The artists of that time did this with the object of designing "in character," and special models, such as the old triumphal arches, and sarcophagi, at Rome, were in view in these designs. On both arches and tombs sculptured bas-reliefs abounded. Figures reclined over the arches, and were arranged in square compositions in the panels, for which the upper stories of the arches made provision. The renaissance cabinets fell into modifications of this ideal. A century later they grew into house fronts, and showed doors, arches, and balustrades inside, with imitative paved floors, looking-glasses set at angles of 45°, so as to make reflections of these various parts; and in this humorous fashion the inside of a walnut or ebony cabinet was turned into the model of an Italian villa.

Again, in place of the running foliated borders and mouldings having a continuous design, or of compositions of foliage, animals, &c., forming in each arch moulding or cornice line a homogeneous line or circle, the renaissance arabesques introduced an entirely new method of decoration. In arabesque ornament all sorts of natural objects are grafted on a central stalk, or, as in the best work, on something like the stem of a candelabrum. The resources of this method are limited only by the fancy and skill of the artist, who grafts here a mask, there a leaf on his stem, and so on. The temptation is the license and discordance that come in when no unity is needed in a piece of ornament, and no continuous effort of mind required to think out and execute one definite idea in designing it. The central stem leads to an exact balance or reversal of one half of each element in the ornament, so that one half only of a panel or border has to be designed. In the hands of great artists this kind of ornamentation has been used with consummate grace.