'Questa provincia pare nata per risuscitare le cose morte, come si è visto della Poesia MACH. Arte della Guerra PART I. NEW EDITION LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1898 [All rights reserved] PREFACE1 THIS work on the Renaissance in Italy, of which I now give the last two volumes to the public, was designed and executed on the plan of an essay or analytical inquiry, rather than on that which is appropriate to a con·tinuous history. Each of its four parts-the 'Age of the Despots,' the Revival of Learning,' the 'Fine Arts,' and 'Italian Literature'-stood in my mind for a section; each chapter for a paragraph; each paragraph for a sentence. At the same time, it was intended to make the first three parts subsidiary and introductory to the fourth, for which accordingly a wider space and a more minute method of treatment were reserved. The first volume was meant to explain the social and political conditions of Italy; the second to relate the exploration of the classical past which those conditions necessitated, and which determined the intellectual activity of the Italians; the third to exhibit the bias of this people toward figurative art, and briefly to touch upon its 1 to the original edition of this and the next volume. |