New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-01-28
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
RENAISSANCE IN ITALY Italian Literature. By
JOHN ADDINGToH SYMoNDs vols, $40, pp' DOL
GAO Henry Holt 4 Co.

642. Henry Holt Co.
With these two volumes Mr.. Symonds brings DIS
Important work on Italy to an end. Without pre-
meditation and almost without intention we wrote
on Italy," but we allow our spontaneous words 10
stand without apology and without qnalihcatloh
for the five volumes of which those before us are
the last two although the Renaissance IN ltai' IL
their nominal subj ect. are series OF literary PIC.
lures of the Italian people from aboht the enu Vi
the thirteenth century to tie middle OF the SIX
tsenth These pictares, however, are Eot truly PIC
trial They are not works of representative art,
nor are they intended so to he. Mr.. Symonds has
not written In the spirit of Macaulay; he does not
wish to present us canvas on which there is COM
position sketched out in proportion, with grouping,
contrast of light and shade and strong local color
Still less does he seek TO produce effects, -efects
to which truth of detail, any truth. is sacrificed,
for purpose, honest or dishonest His work from
beginning to end is critical and may be compared to
q series of carefully studied and accurately drawn
anatomical plates, which place before us the struc-
ture and the mode of action of the various subjects
which ne has undertaken to illustrate. The result
Is knowledge. The attentive and thoughtful reader
of Mr. Symondss work will know more of Italy,
the great Italy which the active pioneer
Ia the regeneration OF Europe after the
middle ages, than can be- learned from
any other book known to rs in English lit
erature and it is not likely that such book upon
the same subject will be written in our language
fol- at least many years to COME All readers who
are interested in his subiect-one of the most I'M
portant and variously instructive in the history of
the hu nan mind-owe Mr.. Symonds thanks and
honor for his conception and his thorough execu-
tion of q great design. which he has fortunately
been able to carry out perfect and satisfactory
completion.
We have heretofore given the readers of THE
TRIBUNE an estimate of the preceding three volumes
of this series which began by presenting in The Age
of the Despots" the political and social condition
of Italy preceding end during the renaissance
period; which next IN 1.-The Revival OF
Learning" showed what the renaissance was and
how it was brought aDout and which then IN
Z" The Fine Arts" traced the influence of the new
birth of the European mind IN producing a develop
mont, or might almost rather say all etlores'
sence, of the arts of desgo unsurpassed by any
other. and unrivaled except by that of Greece IL
the days of PhIdias and Praxlteles We have now
to consider the authors presentation of the renais
sance literature; that literature which was the
consequence and the outcome of the hUmaniSm OF
the revival of learning acting upon the Italian
nature and the Italian society OF three centuries
ago Remarkable-in a large sense-as the result OF
that action was it rose in Importance and in
interest to equality with that which was produced In
art. The Italian poets and norethen ana publ
every way below Italian architects and sculptors
AMI painters of the same period The world could
better spare Boiardo and Ariosto anu PolIziano
and Pulci and Machiavelli and Aretino than |
il could spare Brunelleschi and Leonardo da |
vinci and Raphael and Michael Angelo and |
Titan and GiorgOhe and Benvenuto Cellini and |
John of Bologna, not to mention Others who were |
inferior only TO these and in some peculiar traits
their equals and their superiors for the tnrong
of great Italian masters of the arts OF design IN the
renaissance period is throng of anges nd arch
angels and all the company OF heaven-and OF hell.
For hell must never be left out of the renaissance.
II SCARED to regions celestial but 1T went down too
into the bottomess pit. And as to its literature.
heayenward il went never but " as most intensely |
human 1t was body and blood and fieshly lust OF |
power and of pleasure made vocal. 1t was as
lucio saws lin Measure for Measure y his wife was
not acardinaily GWEN; in which grotesquely
humorous twist of language Shakespeare perhaps
he'd a satirical as we'll a comcal purpose; Tor OF
all canal creatures the cardinals of his day and the
century preceding dhe renaissance period seem to
have been the carnalcst. But although the Italian
literature of the renaissance thus inferior to |
its ART and although its weakness was ON It's spirs
nal and moral and even we must say, on It's lntel-
lectual side using intellectual of higher ignh
canoe than mentally we must not. therefore under
rate its value nor shut our eyes to the influence |
which it exerts upon the soul of awakening Europe
The spendor of European literature in the last |
three centuries had not only its dawn, but It's |
bright morning in the renaissance literature OF Italy
Mr. symonds shows us step by step the develop |
roent of this literature. Man by man he marches |
the brilliant array In review before us;-poets, |
tuilers of tales, historians, writer's ON state |
craft philosophers dramatists, critics. and not dis
daining even the pedants, pompous and ponaerous'
or petty and bidding Most OF this somewhat
notle, although splendid band are all OF them
strongly Italian in feature ana in costume ana all
of them are loaded with spoils from the ruins OF
ancient Greece and Romej every one of them. with
two o, three notable exceptions. prding himself
mole upon what he has taken from Others than upon
what he was himself: being indeed not unlike in |
this respect most other Of all sorts of all times
and all countries, among whom to have has ever |
seemed of more importance than 10 he. Mt Sy- |
monds's volumes really critical study OF ltal-
ian literature from the trecentO PERIOD where
Dante's gloomy figure towers on the border OF the
middle ages down to the decadence Of the rensis- |
sance in the sixteenth century.
OF Petrarch the first famous poet and man OF
letters OF the new epoch, our author bias already |
said not little In his second volumt ana OF Deces
sitv. for Laura's lover was force OF the first
MAGNITUDE in the revival OF learning But we have |
here an appreciation of him as leader In Italian
poetcal literature which strikes as being notably
Just 10 its appreciation and subtle In its dscrmna
ton. Mr.. symonds points out that while Dante
remained q Florentne. Petrarch was the first lta
ian. Dante refused all honors because they were |
not offered to him by his commune. He was one OF
those impractcable men who insist both Oh being
prophets and being honored In their own country
and among their own people Petrarch, although
also @ Florentne, toook his laurel crown thank |
FULLY at Rome on the steps of the Capitol He |
shows no political prejudces. no local preferences
He writes Italian which is of Tuscan origin but with
no trace of dialect From his aud bis habit OF
example may have been formed tho long estab- |
lished rule and test of good Italian" lipgua Tus