even painting was not slow to suffer from the
stifling atmosphere of tyranny. Lorenzo deliberately set himself to
enfeeble the people by luxury, partly because he liked voluptuous living,
partly because he aimed at popularity, and partly because it was his
interest to enervate republican virtues. The arts used for the purposes of
decoration in triumphs and carnival shows became the instruments of
careless pleasure; and there is no doubt that even earnest painters lent
their powers with no ill-will and no bad conscience to the service of
lascivious patrons. "Per la citta, in diverse case, fece tondi di sua mano
e femmine ignude assai," says Vasari about Sandro Botticelli, who
afterwards became a Piagnone and refused to touch a pencil.[196] We may,
therefore, reasonably concede that if the Medici had never taken hold on
Florence, or if the spirit of the times had made them other than they were
in loftiness of aim and nobleness of heart, the arts of Italy in the
Renaissance might have shown less of worldliness and materialism. It was
against the demoralisation of society by paganism, as against the
enslavement of Florence by her tyrants, that Savonarola strove; and since
the Medici were the leaders of the classical revival, as well as the
despots of the dying commonwealth, they justly bear the lion's share of
that blame which fell in general upon the vices of their age denounced by
the prophet of S. Marco. We may regard it either as a singular misfortune
for Italy or as the strongest sign of deep-seated Italian corruption, that
the most brilliant leaders of culture both at Florence and at
Rome--Cosimo, Lorenzo, and Giovanni de' Medici--promoted rather than
checked the debasing influences of the Renaissance, and added the weight
of their authority to the popular craving for sensuous amusement.

Meanwhile, what was truly great and noble in Renaissance Italy, found its
proper home in Florence; where the spirit of freedom, if only as an idea,
still ruled; where the populace was still capable of being stirred to
super-sensual enthusiasm; and where the flame of the modern intellect
burned with its purest, whitest lustre.

FOOTNOTES:

[161] See Vol. I., _Age of the Despots_, p. 12.

[162] See Vol. II., _Revival of Learning_, pp. 122-129.

[163] His real name was Tommaso di Ser Giovanni, of the family of
Scheggia. Masaccio means in Tuscan, "Great hulking Tom," just as
Masolino, his supposed master and fellow-worker, means "Pr