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    Renaissance and Golden Age

    Author(s): E. H. GombrichSource: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 24, No. 3/4 (Jul. - Dec., 1961),pp. 306-309Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750798.

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    NOTESRENAISSANCE AND GOLDEN AGE1

    n his Relazionen the periodization f theRenaissance, written for the Tenth Inter-national Congress of Historians in Rome,Professor Cantimori pointed to the notoriousdifficulties which the historian experienceswhen he wants to define the links betweeneconomics, politics, literature and the arts."It would help us to understand these con-nections," he said, "if we could again focusour investigations on individual statesmenand their activities without, of course, idoliz-ing theirpatronage alla Roscoe-but so farwehave not even got a critical edition of Lorenzode Medici's correspondence,and"-he said sowisely-"in queste cose . . . si puo far cosifacilmente della retorica."2Perhaps the historian can best cope withthis type of rhetoric if he makes it, in turn, anobject of rational investigation. I should liketo follow Ernst Robert Curtius3rather thanKonrad Burdach4 in my approach to theformula of the Golden Age. And I proposebriefly to illustrate this aspect by drawingattention to the rhetorical roots of that idoliz-ing of Renaissance patronage mentioned byProfessor Cantimori. I believe it to be areflectionof the Vergilian formula. In Vergil,the Golden Age is the age of a particularruler. It is the divine child of the FourthEclogue who will being the Empire of peaceand magic prosperity,and it is Augustuswho,in the Sixth Book of the Aeneid, s prophesiedto do the same:

    Hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promittisaepiusaudis,AugustusCaesarDivi genus,aurea condetSaecula ..Perhaps the best example of this link which

    exists in historiographybetween the person ofa ruler and the character of an age is the casementioned by Professor Cantimori-what,for want of a briefer label, may be called theMedici myth, which makes the Medici ingeneral, and Lorenzo in particular, directlyresponsible for a magic efflorescence of thehuman spirit, the Renaissance. To do Roscoejustice, it was not he who invented what alater popularizer, Selwyn Brinton, called the"Golden Age of the Medici".When Roscoe wrote he had, among others,the example of Voltaire who, as ProfessorFerguson has shown us, brought the idea ofGreat Ages under Great Rulers into thestream of historiography. In his Siecle deLouisXIV, Voltaire lists three ages precedingthat of his hero as the only other eras worthyof attention to men of taste: those of Alexan-der, of Augustus, and of the Medici, "unefamille de simplescitoyens"who did what thekings of Europe ought to have done, andgathered in Florence the scholars the Turkshad driven from Greece.But of course the link is older. Think of thebeautiful inscription of I715 in the PalazzoMedici Riccardi which Roscoe quotes:"Hospes-aedes cernisfama celeberrimas ...hic litterae latinae graecaeque restauratae,mutae artes excultae, Platonica philosophiarestituta ... aedes omnis eruditionis quae hicrevixit." Or think of the early seventeenth-century fresco cycle in the Palazzo Pitti byGiovanni di San Giovanni and Furini dedi-cated to Lorenzo de Medici's glory, where heis seen providing a safe haven for the Musesfleeing from Mohammed's hordes and estab-lishing the Golden Age. At his death, as therhymes below explain, "La pace e Astreatornon dolenti al ciel". But this cycle, too,only continued a traditionwhich had been es-tablished in the sixteenth century by GiorgioVasari. It was Vasari who, in his enormousfresco cycles of the Palazzo Vecchio, whichare still largely unpublished, developed thepictorial tradition of dynastic pride whichlinked the ruling Medici, Cosimo I, with theage of Saturn and the Horoscope of Augustus,and wove a subtle net of mythologicalreferences between the glories of his ancestorsand the offspring of Saturn which he ex-plained in his Ragionamenti. t was Vasari,

    1 This paper was read at the Tenth Historical Con-gress in Rome in I955. A brief advance summaryhaving been published in the Relazioni del CongressoInternazionale i ScienzeStoriche,VII, 1955, PP. 304-5, nopurpose would have been served in producing yetanother reduced version of these remarks for the Attiof the same Congress. The publication, meanwhile, ofmy paper on "The Early Medici as Patrons of Art",Italian RenaissanceStudies, ed. E. F. Jacob, London,I960, and above all of Mrs. Alison M. Brown's studyof "The Humanist Portrait of Cosimo de' Medici,Pater Patriae" published elsewhere in this number ofthe Journal,may now provide a somewhat firmer set-ting for this sketch.2 Relazioni, IV, p. 327. Plans for the publication ofLorenzo de' Medici's Epistolariohave meanwhile faradvanced under the joint auspices of the IstitutoNazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, The RenaissanceSociety of America, and the Warburg Institute (editorsP. G. Ricci and N. Rubinstein).3E. R. Curtius, Europdiischeiteraturund lateinischesMittelalter,Bern, 1948.* K. Burdach, Reformation,Renaissance,Humanismus,Leipzig, 1926, p. 53 and pp. 59 ff. 306

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    RENAISSANCE AND GOLDEN AGE 307further, who inspired the idea of the firstAccademia el Disegnounder the patronage ofthe ruling Medici Duke and thus even pro-vided an institutional frameworkfor the rulerto exercisea tutelage over the artssuch as waspostulated in the myth. And it was of courseVasari who contributed most to the populari-zation of the Medici myth in his VitedePittori,ScultoridArchitetti,irstpublished in 1550 anddedicated to Cosimo I in words which antici-pate the inscription on the Palazzo: "si puodire che nel suo stato, anzi nella sua felicissimacase, siano rinate (le arti)". Throughout hisbiographies Vasari is at pains to give theimpression that the arts owed their rise andprosperity directly to the intervention of theMedici-the climax comes in the story, forwhich there is no contemporary evidence,that Lorenzo founded an art school for thestudy of antiques in his garden, and therediscovered the genius of Michelangelo, whooutstrips the ancients.5 In Vasari's Life ofBotticelli we also meet the tell-tale phrase:"Ne tempi del magnifico Lorenzo"-it opens-"che fu veramente per le persone d'ingegnoun secol d'Oro".It was my interest in Botticelli's life whichfirst brought it home to me how important itwas to discover the true Lorenzo under theincrustations of the rhetorical formula, for inthat instance Horne had shown6 that thepainter's true patron was not the Magnificobut his cousin and rival Lorenzo di Pierfran-cesco. Such facts about Lorenzo's patronageof the arts as are known, pending that editionof his correspondence which might throwfresh light on this problem as well, are con-veniently listed in Wackernagel'sbook on theLebensraumf artists n Quattrocento Florence.We would need similar sober assessments ofhis patronage and expenditure for letters,music and pageantry and such data as wemight gather about the relative costs ofhorses, falcons and humanists, to penetratethe cloud of incense. But I do not want to bemisunderstood. It would not serve our pur-pose if the somewhat sycophantic tone ofcourt historians, past or recent, provoked themodern historian into an attitude of scepticaldebunking. The Medici myth was not merelythe product of flattery and nostalgia, though

    nostalgia, as Professor Felix Gilbert hasshown,' certainly played its part in the earlysixteenth century, the time of Macchiavelliand the Orti Rucellai. It is precisely mypoint that the myth can be traced back toLorenzo's own age in the lines dedicated tohim by the poets and poetasters of his circle.Here is Bartolomeus Fontius:8

    Tempora nunc tandem per te Saturnia surgunt ...Nuncsurguntartes,nuncsunt n honorepoetae...or Aurelio Lippi Brandolini:Aureafalciferonon debentsaeculatantum,Nec tantum Augusto saecula pulchra suoQuantumnostra ibi, tibi se deberefatenturAurea, Laurenti, munere facta tuo ...9

    When we call these tributes flattery onVergilian lines we do not, perhaps, say verymuch. For may they not rather have beenpropaganda? Propaganda, as we know toour cost, is the art of imposing a pattern onreality, and to impose it so successfully thatthe victim can no longer conceive it in dif-ferent terms. Such a pattern will be the morelikely to exert its spell the deeper it is rootedin tradition, the more affinity it has with thetypical nightmares and dreams of mankind.The Messianic Ruler who brings back theGolden Age is precisely such a perennialdream,'0 and we have seen that it did exertthe spell on subsequent generations who sawthe teeming life of the real Quattrocento fallinto this deceptively simple configuration.When did this spell begin to work? For, un-like flattery, propaganda need not be cynical.Those who propound it may be its firstvictims.Now it certainly was in the interest of thehumanists and writers who surroundedLorenzo to hold up to him that ancient imageof liberality and bounty as the surest way tothe people's heart. As Poliziano wrote to himfrom Venice: "Questa impresa dello scriverelibri Greci, e questo favorire e docti vi datanto honore e gratia universale, quanto maimolti e molti anni non ebbe homo alcuno.""1Was this the golden age, or was it rather the

    5A. Chastel, "Vasari et la LUgende Medic6enne",Studi Vasariani(Atti del Convegno Internazionale peril IV Centenario della prima edizione delle Vite delVasari), Florence, I952. See also my paper on "TheEarly Medici . . .", quoted above.6H. P. Horne, AlessandroFilipepi, London, 1908,

    7 F. Gilbert, "Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Ori-cellai", Journal of the Warburgand Courtauldnstitutes,XII, 1949, pp. 10oI ff.8 Carmina, d. I. F6gel and L. JuhAsz, Lipsiae, 1932.* Printed in Roscoe, The Life of Lorenzode' Medici,4th ed., London, I8oo, Appendix L, p. 285.10 M. Eliade, Le Mythede l'dterneletour,Paris, I949;F. Kampers, VomWerdegangeerAbendliindischenaiser-mystik, Leipzig, I924; K. Borinski, Die Weltwiederge-burtsideen denneuerenZeiten, Munich, i919.11Roscoe, loc. cit., p. 289.

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    308 NOTESdiscovery of the power of public opinion? Ofa class of supportersmuch easier to buy andkeep happy than soldiers ever were? ThatLorenzo tried to live up to this image therecan be no doubt. May he not even haveaccepted it as true? He certainly used it inhis own poetry:

    Lasso a me or nel loco alto e silvestreOve dolente e trista lei si truovad'oro6 'etA,paradiso errestre,e quiviil primosecolsi rinnuova ..12One cannot help suspectingthat love conven-tions and political aspirations were fused inhis mind when he selected for his joust themotto, "le tems revient"-the French andchivalrous version of Dante's "il tempo sirinnuova".As a matter of fact Lorenzo could hardlyhelp seeing himself in the role of a secondMaecenas or Augustus. He had been cast forthis role by the poets while he was still a littleboy; he had inherited it from his fatherPiero,13whose patronage, at least of the arts,may have been much more substantial thanhis own, and, most of all, from his grand-father Cosimo of whom Ugolini Verino sang:

    Hic sacroscoluitvates,hic aureanobisCaesaris Augusti saecla redire dedit"1and Naldi:

    lam mihi, Jam,Medices,te consultore edibantAurea Saturnisaecla benignasenis...15With Cosimo Pater Patriae we may comea little closer to the heart of the problem.Why was he addressed in such terms? Oneanswer might be that the claim was true, asfar as such claims ever can be. There is nodoubt that Cosimo, no less than Lorenzo, orperhapsmore so, was a real patron of learningand the arts. But even if we accept all thecalculations of Vespasiano da Bisticci aboutthe money Cosimo spent on buildings, did hespend more on pious foundations and on the

    support of learning than, say, ChancellorRolin, his exact contemporary in the north,founder of Beaune Hospital and the Univer-sity of Louvain, patron of Jan van Eyck andRoger van der Weyden?My feeling is that there may be an addi-tional reasonfor this strangeand incongruous

    phenomenon that an "uomo disarmato", asMacchiavelli calls Cosimo, a mere bankerand city boss, should suddenly be invested bythe poets and orators with all the panoply ofan ancient Imperial Myth which, forinstance,in Dante's Monarchy applies to the WorldRuler alone.16 But let us put ourselves intothe shoes of a poet wanting to praise Cosimo.Conventionally there were two themes toenlarge upon in the eulogies of the mighty:the fame of their ancestors and their heroismin battle. The very fact that these well-wornformulae could not be used seems to me signi-ficant. It is always the illegitimate ruler whoneeds the most metaphysical props for hispower and propaganda. It may be no acci-dent that before Cosimo the Vergilian claimis applied to the notary Rienzi by Petrarch,just as self-appointedleaders in our days havesurrounded themselves with the mystique ofancient prophecies fulfilled.I do not claim that the novelty of his situa-tion alone explains the frequency of Vergilianreferences to Cosimo. The image, as weknow, came natural to a generation used tothe topic of laus saeculiand to metaphors of anew era. But in one sense Cosimo did repre-sent such a new era-the uomo disarmatowithout ancestors and without claim to war-like prowess,indeed even without overt claimto power, would make the poet cast about forsome extraordinary formula. And was theirfeeling quite unjustified, in the face of such aperson, that the age of iron had begun toyield to the age of gold-albeit in a slightlydifferent sense? To quote ProfessorJacob'srelazioneon that very point: "The Europeof chivalry had gone, the armies were paidand the risks of war calculated in financialterms.""17No wonder that Cosimo, in Gio-vanni Avogadro's eulogy, is made to say: "Sinumi vincunt, hercle est fas vincere nobis"'8-"If money can conquer, by jingo we shall".It is a thoroughly unheroic picture. But thisis precisely the aspect of the Renaissancewhich Professor C. Backuis so aptly charac-terizes as "civism".19 Wars, of course, therewere, but by and large in the eulogies of

    12Selve,II, 121.18 C. Landino, Carmina,ed. Perosa, Florence, 1939,p. 135.14U. Verino, Flametta,ed. L. Mencaraglia, Florence,1940, P. 1o7.1"Naldo Naldi, Elegariumlibri III, ed. L. JuhAsz,

    Leipzig, 1934, p. 89, lines 349-50.

    16 De Monarchia, , xiii; Kampers, op. cit.; Burdach,op. cit.; P. E. Schramm, Kaiser,RomundRenovatio,Leip-zig, 1929; R. Bonnaud Delamare, L'idle de paix iiI'6poquearolingienne, aris, i939; F. A. Yates, "QueenElizabeth as Astraea", Journal of the Warburg nd Cour-tauldInstitutes,X, i947, PP. 27 ff.17Relazioni,p. 341.18 In Giovanni Lami, Deliciae Eruditorum,XII,Florence, 1742, p. 146.19Relazioni,pp. 536-9.

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    THE 'INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST' BY CHARLES LE BRUN 309Cosimo's circle the pleasure of battle givesway to the romance of peace. And in thisancient dream of Aurea Pax I see one of theroots of the historiographic stereotype of anage where the arts of peace prospered underthe tutelage of a beneficent genius. As NaldoNaldi makes Cosimo prophesy in a speech tothe Milanese envoy:

    The templeofJanuswill be closed,Frenzied Mars chained,Ancient Faithwill returnand dispense ustice;Peace, with her purple wreath, will visit thedwellings of Italy,And the sheep will graze safely in the fields.20It is the theme of pax et libertas hat appearson the reverse of the famous posthumous

    medal of the Pater Patriae.We may no longer be able to accept theseclaims at their face value as Roscoe did.There was less liberty, less peace and lessplenty in the Medicean age than the poetsproclaimed, nor for that matter were lambsborn with scarlet wool, as in the FourthEclogue. But could all the villas have beenbuilt in the countryside if the milder forces ofinfluence and affluence had not graduallyreplaced the violence of local feuds as sym-bolized in the mediaeval towers of SanGimignano? The Renaissance did not haveto "discover man"; and yet, there may besome truth in Vico's vision that every timethe Age of Heroes ends an Age of Man maydawn at last. E. H. GOMBRICH0 Ed.cit.,p. 49.

    THE 'INSTITUTIONOF THE EUCHARIST' BYCHARLES LE BRUNAparticular interest is attached to anypainter's last statement. In the case ofCharles Le Brun our curiosity is whetted bythe intriguing account left by Perrault: "I1avoit entrepris un grand travail, qui estoitde peindre toutes les Actions principales de laVie de JESUS-CHRIST en Tableaux deChevalet de six " sept pieds de long surquatre pieds & demy de haut. . . Il travail-loit, lorsqu'il fut surpris de la maladie dontil est mort, au Tableau de la Cene, qui devoitestre, si l'on en juge par les Estudes qu'ilavoit faites sur la maniere dont les Juifscelebrent la Pasque, encore plus beau & pluscurieux que tous les autres."1The design was never committed to canvas(there is no record of such a subject in theinventory drawn up after Le Brun's death),2

    but it had been worked out in drawings.3 Weshould expect these to be among the drawingsseized for the King on the death of hisPremier Peintre and now in the Louvre, andwe should not be disappointed. Following thenumbers in Guiffrey and Marcel's Inventairege'neralesdessinsduMuseeduLouvretduMuse'ede Versailles,ecole ranfaise, vol. VIII, theyare: 6368 (on the verso are sketches for a'Baptism'), a preliminary composition sketch(P1.40a); 6367, a more worked-out study forthe principal group (P1. 40c); 6398, Christand St. John; 6396, three apostles (P1. 4od);6972, an apostle; 7044, an apostle; 6994, anapostle fastening his sandal (P1. 40b).Le Brun was a firm believer in the need forhistorical accuracy, in so far as it could bereconciled with the limitations of pictorialart,4and seventeenth-centuryscholarshiphadnot learnt to doubt the explicit Gospel

    1 Charles Perrault, Les Hommes llustres, Paris, I696,I, p. 92. The four completed paintings were 'TheRaising of the Cross' (1685), 'Christ Carrying HisCross' (1687), 'The Adoration of the Shepherds' (i688),and 'The Entry into Jerusalem' (1689); each waspresented to the king, and they now belong to theLouvre. Le Brun at that time was suffering bitterlyfrom official neglect, and some indication of the carehe lavished on these uncommissioned works is providedby the many drawings, some thirty for each, whichare now in the Louvre.2 Minutier Central, fonds LXV, liasse 126, 2 mars1690.

    8 Guillet de Saint-Georges wrote: "Dans ces inter-valles il fit les dessins de deux tableaux qu'il n'a pupeindre. Dans l'un il se proposait de repr6senterl'institution du Saint Sacrement ou la COne . . ."(Mimoiresinidits sur les membresde l'Acadimieroyaledepeintureet de sculpture, d. Dussieux etc., Paris, 1854, I,p. 47). The manuscript life of Le Brun by Nivelonalso implies that Le Brun did not carry the subjectbeyond the stage of drawings (Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS.fonds fr. no. 12987, f. 379).4 See in particular his lecture on Poussin's 'IsraelitesGathering Manna' (Fl61ibien,Confirences e l'Acadhnieroyale,in Entretiensur les vies et sur les ouvragesdesplusexcellens eintresanciens t modernes,d. of Trevoux, 1725,pp. 400-28).

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