280 LANDSCAPE 



Qual lodoletta, che in aere si spazia 



Prima cantando, e poi tace contenta 

 Dell' ultima dolcezza che la sazia. 



A guisa di leon quando si posa. 



Noi andavam per lo vespAo attenti 



Oltre, quanto potean gli occhi allnngarsi, 

 Contro i raggi serotini e lucenti. 



In these, and in a hundred similar passages of the ' Divine 

 Comedy,' we feel that the poet has transcended the vagueness 

 of the Middle Ages. A new spirit is awake in the world 

 Man looks again with open eyes on nature, sees the earth as 

 the ancients saw it, but without the medium of myth through 

 which the Greeks and Komans viewed it. 



Contemporaneously with Dante though Dante hardly 

 shared this movement there began what is known as the 

 Revival of Learning : that resuscitation of classical literature 

 and art which exercised so potent an influence over the mind 

 of Europe. In so far as the assthetical appreciation of external 

 nature is concerned, this contact with antiquity was not an 

 unmixed blessing. It did much to emancipate the mind from 

 theological preoccupations. It established a sense of historical 

 continuity, and restored a truer feeling for the relation between 

 mankind and the material universe. But it brought back the 

 old mythology which had previously intervened between the 

 mind and natural objects. And this mythology was no longer 

 believed in. It reappeared as mere machinery, and literary 

 or artistic artifice. Furthermore, the uncritical respect for 

 classical tradition imposed fettering restrictions on creative 

 fancy. For a long space of time, poets thought that they 

 must imitate Virgil or Horace in their descriptions ; painters 

 only introduced scenery as an accessory to figure-subjects. 

 Though men could paint the external world like Titian, they 

 dealt sparingly and occasionally with its aspects. To manu- 

 facture Tritons, Nymphs, and Fauns was an easy matter for 

 dexterous masters of the human form. These antique per- 

 sonalities were accepted in lieu of waves and woods and 

 streams. They had the double advantage of being less 



