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Decadence or Shift? Changes in the Civilization of Italy and Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

H. G. Koenigsberger
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Extract

The idea that certain periods and certain countries were outstanding in their contribution to civilization is as old as the writing of literary and art history. ‘All ages have produced heroes and politicians’, wrote Voltaire in his Siècle de Louis XIV; ‘all peoples have experienced revolutions: all histories are practically equal for him who does not want to remember anything but facts. But whoever thinks and, what is rarer still, whoever has good taste, will count only four centuries in the history of the world.’ According to Voltaire, one needed to remember only the Greece of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., the Rome of Caesar and Augustus, Medicean Italy, and France in the century of Louis XIV. Almost two hundred years earlier, Vasari had pointed to the same phenomenon in Italy. In the introduction to his Life of Michelangelo he says that God in his mercy had shown pity on the vain endeavours of man by sending down to earth a spirit who could work perfection in every art and profession, in painting, sculpture and architecture, no less than in moral philosophy and poetry. And since Florence was more deserving of this grace than all other cities, because of the great and marvellous achievements of Cimabue and Giotto, of Donatello, Brunelleschi and Leonardo, he wanted ‘to crown the perfection merited by all these achievements through one of her citizens’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 10 , December 1960 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1960

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References

page 1 note 1 Voltaire, , Siècle de Louis XIV (Paris, 1919), pp. 1–2Google Scholar.

page 1 note 2 Vasari, G., Le Vite, ed. Ricci, C. (Milan, 1930), iv, p. 391Google Scholar.

page 5 note 1 Cf. Pinder, W., ‘Zur Physiognomik des Manierismus‘, Festschrift Ludwig Klages (Leipzig, 1932), pp. 152–53Google Scholar.

page 6 note 1 ‘Una varietà del brutto’, quoted in Titone, V., La politica dell'Età Barocca (Caltanissetta, 1950), p. 37Google Scholar.

page 6 note 2 Ibid., p. 47. G. B. Ciotti, the publisher of Marino's Rime, wrote in his preface, in 1602: ‘…questo divino ingegno, istimato per universale aviso di tutti giudiciosi huomini d'ltalia un de'maggiori lumi della Lirica Poesia, anzi miracolo de'nostri tempi…’

page 7 note 1 Croce, B., Storia dell'Età Barocca in Italia (Bari, 1929), pp. 16–17 (my translation)Google Scholar.

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page 7 note 4 Ibid., p. 327. For an excellent analysis of Boccalini's thought, see Meinecke, F., Die Idee der Staatsraison (Munich, 1929)Google Scholar, book 1, ch. 3; translated by Scott, D., Machiavellism, ed. Stark, W. (London, 1957)Google Scholar.

page 7 note 5 Botero, G., The Reason of State, transl. , P. J. and Waley, D. P. (London, 1956)Google Scholar.

page 8 note 1 As far as I am aware, Olschki, L., in The Genius of Italy (Oxford, 1949)Google Scholar, is the only author to have appreciated the significance of this shift in creative activity.

page 8 note 2 Ibid., pp. 402–405.

page 8 note 3 Castiglione, B., Il libro del Cortegiano, ed. Cian, V., 4th ed. (Florence, 1947), pp. 190–91Google Scholar.

page 9 note 1 Cooper, G. M., ‘Instrumental Music’, The Oxford History of Music, 2nd ed., ii, p. 422Google Scholar.

page 9 note 2 Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Blom, E., vi (5th ed., 1954), p. 195Google Scholar.

page 9 note 3 Significantly, the first performance of this opera took place in the house of another musical amateur, Count Corsi; see Bukofzer, M. F., Music in the Baroque Era (London, 1948), p. 56Google Scholar.

page 10 note 1 Encklopedia Italiana, xxx, p. 758; Lorenzetti, G., Itinerario Sansoviniano a Venezia (Venice, 1929), p. 21Google Scholar.

page 10 note 2 Cf. Boccalini, who admired Venice more than any other state: ‘…Apollo fermamente crede che nelle patrie libere, più che in altra specie di governi, le leggi sieno dirette al ben comune degli uomini, che in esse gli animi de'cittadini più si accendino ad intraprendere e ad eseguir opere virtuose e che più vi fiorischino le scienze e ogni civil polizia, sommamente ha in abbominazione quei tiranni che commettono l'eccesso di occupar la libertà di una ben ordinata republica…’ (Ragguagli di Parnasso, i, p. 63).

page 11 note 1 Enciclopedia Italiana, xxi, p. 830.

page 11 note 2 Panofsky, E., Idea (Leipzig-Berlin, 1924), pp. 41 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 11 note 3 ‘Marchese. Fra voi e me vi e qualche differenza. Conte. Sulla locanda tanto vale il vostro denaro, quanto vale il mio.’

page 12 note 1 Titone, V., La politica, dell'Età Barocca (Caltanissetta, 1950), pp. 90–91Google Scholar, and passim.

page 12 note 2 Ibid., p. 255.

page 12 note 3 Hall, A. R., The Scientific Revolution, 1500–1800 (London, 1954), pp. 188–90Google Scholar.

page 12 note 4 See Milton's remarks on his meeting with Galileo, in ‘Areopagitica’, Works (Columbia U.P., 1931), iv, pp. 330–31Google Scholar. I am indebted to Professor P. Zagorin for drawing my attention to this point.

page 13 note 1 Friedlaender, W., Caravaggio Studies (Princeton, N. J., 1955), p. xiiiGoogle Scholar.

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page 13 note 3 Ibid., p. 1.

page 13 note 4 Bukofzer, , Music in the Baroque Era, pp. 395–96Google Scholar.