od part to the
Renaissance, frequently exemplifies this feeling, perhaps nowhere more
strikingly than in the account of his pilgrimage to the temple of
Minerva at Assisi, which he lovingly describes, remarking, at the same
time, that he passed with only aversion the Church of St. Francis, with
its frescos by Cimabue, Giotto, and their followers, which no traveller
of our day willingly misses or soon forgets, though the temple may
probably occupy but a small space in his memory. "I made no doubt,"
says Goethe, "that all the heads there bore the same stamp as my
Captain's,"--an Italian officer, more orthodox than enlightened, with
whom he had been travelling.

In truth, however diverse in its first appearance, the Italian
Renaissance was the counterpart of the German Reformation, and, like
that, a declaration that God is not shut up in a corner of the universe,
nor His revelation restricted in regard of time, place, or persons. The
day was long past when the Church was synonymous with civilization. The
Church-ideal of holiness had long since been laid aside; a new world had
grown up, in which other aims and another spirit prevailed. Macchiavelli
thought the Church had nothing to do with worldly affairs, could do
nothing for the State or for freedom. And the Church thought so, too. If
it was left out of the new order of things, it was because it had left
itself out. "The world" was godless, _pompa Diaboli_; devotion to God
implied devotion (of the world) to the Devil. But the world, thus cut
adrift, found itself yet alive and vigorous, and began thenceforth to
live its own life, leaving the "other world" to take care of itself.
Salvation, whether for the State or the individual, it was felt must
come from individual effort, and not be conferred as a stamp or _visa_
from the Pope and the College of Cardinals. It was not Religion that was
dead, but only the Church. The Church being petrified into a negation,
Culture, the religion of the world, was necessarily negative to that,
and for a time absorbed in the mere getting rid of obstructions.
Sainthood had never been proposed even as an ideal for all mankind, but
only as _fuga saeculi_, the avoidance of all connection with human
affairs. Logically, it must lead to the completest isolation, and find
its best exponent in Simeon Stylites. The new ideal of Culture must
involve first of all the getting rid of isolation, natural and
artificial. Its representatives are such men as Le