d, the quality of
youth; it is still pliant, its forms have not become stiffened by age,
it is fit for larger use than has yet been made of it, and lies ready
and waiting, like a noble instrument, for the hand of the master which
shall draw from it its full harmonies and reveal its latent power in the
service he exacts from it.

But it was not in poetry alone that the life of Italy found expression.
Before the invention of printing,--which gave to the literary arts such
an advantage as secured their pre-eminence,--architecture, sculpture,
and painting were hardly less important means for the expression of the
ideals of the imagination and the creative energy of man. The practice
of them had never wholly ceased in Italy; but her native artists had
lost the traditions of technical skill; their work was rude and
childish. The conventional and lifeless forms of Byzantine art in its
decline were adopted by workmen who no longer felt the impulse, and no
longer possessed the capacity, of original design. Venice and Pisa,
early enriched by Eastern commerce, and with citizens both instructed
and inspired by knowledge of foreign lands, had begun great works of
building even in the eleventh century; but these works had been
designed, and mainly executed, by masters from abroad. But now the
awakened soul of Italy breathed new life into all the arts in its
efforts at self-expression. A splendid revival began. The inspiring
influence of France was felt in the arts of construction and design as
it had been felt in poetry. The magnificent display of the highest
powers of the imagination and the intelligence in France, the creation
during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries of the unrivaled
productions of Gothic art, stimulated and quickened the growth of the
native art of Italy. But the French forms were seldom adopted for direct
imitation, as the forms of Provencal poetry had been. The power of
classic tradition was strong enough to resist their attraction. The
taste of Italy rejected the marvels of Gothic design in favor of modes
of expression inherited from her own past, but vivified with fresh
spirit, and adapted to her new requirements. The inland cities, as they
grew rich through native industry and powerful through the organization
of their citizens, were stirred with rivalry to make themselves
beautiful, and the motives of religion no less than those of civic pride
contributed to their adornment. The Church was the objec