The Fine Arts [antikvár]

1:' ¦ ' I peefaoe' This third volume of my book on the * Renaissance in Italy' does not pretend to retrace the history of the Italian arts, but rather to define their relation to the main movement of Eenaissance culture. Keeping this, the chief object of my whole work, steadily in view, I have tried to explain the dependence of the arts on medigeval Christianity at their commencement, their gradual emancipation from ecclesiastical control, and their final attainment of freedom at the moment when the classical revival culminated. Not to notice the mediaeval period in this evolution would be impossible; since the revival of Sculpture and Painting at the end of the thirteenth century was among the earliest signs of that new intellectual birth to which we give the title of Eenaissance. I have, therefore, had to deal at some length with stages in the development of * To the original edition of this velum«.