early stages, was the unwholesome demand for
_perfection_, at any cost. I hope enough has been advanced, in the
chapter on the Nature of Gothic, to show the reader that perfection is
_not_ to be had from the general workman, but at the cost of
everything,--of his whole life, thought, and energy. And Renaissance
Europe thought this a small price to pay for manipulative perfection.
Men like Verrocchio and Ghiberti were not to be had every day, nor in
every place; and to require from the common workman execution or
knowledge like theirs, was to require him to become their copyist. Their
strength was great enough to enable them to join science with invention,
method with emotion, finish with fire; but, in them, the invention and
the fire were first, while Europe saw in them only the method and the
finish. This was new to the minds of men, and they pursued it to the
neglect of everything else. "This," they cried, "we must have in all our
work henceforward:" and they were obeyed. The lower workman secured
method and finish, and lost, in exchange for them, his soul.

Sec. XXI. Now, therefore, do not let me be misunderstood when I speak
generally of the evil spirit of the Renaissance. The reader may look
through all I have written, from first to last, and he will not find one
word but of the most profound reverence for those mighty men who could
wear the Renaissance armor of proof, and yet not feel it encumber their
living limbs,[2]--Leonardo and Michael Angelo, Ghirlandajo and Masaccio,
Titian and Tintoret. But I speak of the Renaissance as an evil time,
because, when it saw those men go burning forth into the battle, it
mistook their armor for their strength: and forthwith encumbered with
the painful panoply every stripling who ought to have gone forth only
with his own choice of three smooth stones out of the brook.

Sec. XXII. This, then, the reader must always keep in mind when he is
examining for himself any examples of cinque-cento work. When it has
been done by a truly great man, whose life and strength could not be
oppressed, and who turned to good account the whole science of his day,
nothing is more exquisite. I do not believe, for instance, that there is
a more glorious work of sculpture existing in the world than that
equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleone, by Verrocchio, of which, I
hope, before these pages are printed, there will be a cast in England.
But when the cinque-cento work has been done by those meane