The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-11-29

Aix-laIChapelle and at Tours. The
great emperor, Charlemagne, was the
direct patron of the art schools at
AK, and gave special attention to
the comfort of the artists who worked
on his great buildings and studied
in his schools The palace officials
were ordered to look after the needs
of the artists, and the men who came
from the distance were put under the
direct charge of Liutfrid the major
domo, who furnished them with food,
clothing, lodging and with all the
necessary implements of their craft.
All these art scools were devoted
to applied art and had had direct re-
lation with the decoration of public
and semi-public buildings.
1t would be we'll if we could learn
lesson from Charlemagne and dec
crate our public schools by a method
similar to that of the great emperor
at AK The work thus done in our
school buildings, now undecorated,
would furnish practical experience for
our younger generation and we would
be able in this way to develop a
thoroughly practical and self-support-
ing group of artists.
While these schools of the time of
Charlemagne were, first of all, eff
cient aids to his great building opera
tions, yet he saw to it that the theory
and the history of art received at
tention in a suitable time and place.
The minister of education under
Charlemagne, one named Alcuin,
seems to have founded a Post Gradu-
ate School of Architecture and the
allied arts at Tours. Both the Royal
School at AK and the monastic school
at Fulda sent their best pupils to
Tours for a special course of studies
to perfect them in the theory of their
profession and the finer qualities of
the arts. Many other examples could
be given of the wise educational sys-
TEN that gave such splendor to the
reign of Charlemagne. For instance,
there was a famous seat of artistic
learning at Monte Casino in Italy;
no less famous school at st. Gall
| in Switzerland, and also the then no
table school of painting of the Island
of Reichenan.
| The disasters that followed the
death of Charlemagne gave a serious
set back to art and culture all over
Europe, and it was not until the
eleventh century that the artistic pro-
fession again assumed an active part
in the affairs of the time.
The revival of artistic training
seems to have been led by Gerbert,
Archbishop of Rheims Cater, Pope
Sylvester), and by William, Abbot of
st. Benigue at Digon. Somewhere to-
wards the end of the tenth century
the future Pope, who was a native of
the Auvergue, took postgraduate
course in the Moorish universities of
Spain, where better education was
then possible than could be found in
France. The other leader in this
eleventh-century revival of art educa-
ton, William of Digon, was born in
northern Italy and was educated in
Rome, where the artistic guilds still
preserved many of the rights and
privileges granted to them by Con-
stantine.
While still young man the future
Abbot of ST. Benigue went from Rome
to Cluny in Burgundy. Cluny was at
that time the greatest monastery in
the world, with a church that sur
passed in size and splendor all the
other churches in Europe. A wonder
full school of art was maintained and
it's influence was felt throughout
Christendom. This very remarkable
monk passed several years at Cluny
and was then sent to Digon. He not
only reconstructed and decorated st.
Benigue, but it is said that he accom-
plished the same task for forty other
monasteries in northern France.
Wherever he went William of Digon
carried artists with him, and they at
once set up their ateliers, which be-
came centers of artistic instruction.