this time, led
to the study of ancient art as well as of ancient literature, and the
love of antiquity led to the imitation of its buildings and statues as
well as of its books and poems. Until comparatively recent times
scarcely any ancient paintings were found, although buildings and
statues were everywhere to be seen, the moment anyone seriously thought
of looking at them. The result was that while the architecture and
sculpture of the Renaissance were directly and strongly influenced by
antiquity, painting felt its influence only in so far as the study of
antiquity in the other arts had conduced to better draughtsmanship and
purer taste. The spirit of discovery could thus show itself only
indirectly in painting,--only in so far as it led painters to the
gradual perfection of the technical means of their craft.

Unlimited admiration for genius and wonder that the personalities of
antiquity should have survived with their great names in no way
diminished, soon had two consequences. One was love of glory, and the
other the patronage of those arts which were supposed to hand down a
glorious name undiminished to posterity. The glory of old Rome had come
down through poets and historians, architects and sculptors, and the
Italians, feeling that the same means might be used to hand down the
achievements of their own time to as distant a posterity, made a new
religion of glory, with poets and artists for the priests. At first the
new priesthood was confined almost entirely to writers, but in little
more than a generation architects and sculptors began to have their
part. The passion for building is in itself one of the most instinctive,
and a man's name and armorial bearings, tastefully but prominently
displayed upon a church or palace, were as likely, it was felt, to hand
him down to posterity as the praise of poets or historians. It was the
passion for glory, in reality, rather than any love of beauty, that gave
the first impulse to the patronage of the arts in the Renaissance.
Beauty was the concern of the artists, although no doubt their patrons
were well aware that the more impressive a building was, the more
beautiful a monument, the more likely was it to be admired, and the
more likely were their names to reach posterity. Their instincts did not
mislead them, for where their real achievements would have tempted only
the specialist or antiquarian into a study of their career, the
buildings and monuments put up by them