第 31 节
作者:九十八度      更新:2021-02-20 05:40      字数:9321
  led not only through Italy; but through other countries of the  old Orbis terrarum; and brought back countless inscriptions and  sketches。 When asked why he took all this trouble; he replied; 'To wake  the dead。' The histories of the various cities of Italy had from the  earliest times laid claim to some true or imagined connection with  Rome; had alleged some settlement or colonization which started from  the capital; and the obliging manufacturers of pedigrees seem  constantly to have derived various families from the oldest and most  famous blood of Rome。 So highly was the distinction valued; that men  clung to it even in the light of the dawning criticism of the fifteenth  century。 When Pius II was at Viterbo he said frankly to the Roman  deputies who begged him to return; 'Rome is as much my home as Siena;  for my House; the Piccolomini; came in early times from the capital to  Siena; as is proved by the constant use of the names 'neas and Sylvius  in my family。' He would probably have had no objection to be held a  descendant of the Julii。 Paul II; a Barbo of Venice; found his vanity  flattered by deducing his House; notwithstanding an adverse pedigree;  according to which it came from Germany; from the Roman Ahenobarbus;  who had led a colony to Parma; and whose successors had been driven by  party conflicts to migrate to Venice。 That the Massimi claimed descent  from Q。 Fabius Maximus; and the Cornaro from the Cornelii; cannot  surprise us。 On the other hand; it is a strikingly exceptional fact for  the sixteenth century that the novelist Bandello tried to connect his  blood with a noble family of Ostrogoths。
  To return to Rome。 The inhabitants; 'who then called themselves  Romans;' accepted greedily the homage which was offered them by the  rest of Italy。 Under Paul II; Sixtus IV and Alexander VI; magnificent  processions formed part of the Carnival; representing the scene most  attractive to the imagination of the time… …the triumph of the Roman  Imperator。 The sentiment of the people expressed itself naturally in  this shape and others like it。 In this mood of public feeling; a report  arose on April 18; 1485; that the corpse of a young Roman lady of the  classical periodwonderfully beautiful and in perfect preservation had been discovered。 Some Lombard masons digging out an ancient tomb on  an estate of the convent of Santa Maria Nuova; on the Appian Way;  beyond the tomb of Caecilia Metella; were said to have found a marble  sarcophagus with the inscription: 'Julia; daughter of Claudius。' On  this basis the following story was built。 The Lombards disappeared with  the jewels and treasure which were found with the corpse in the  sarcophagus。 The body had been coated with an antiseptic essence; and  was as fresh and flexible as that of a girl of fifteen the hour after  death。 It was said that she still kept the colors of life; with eyes  and mouth half open。 She was taken to the palace of the 'Conservatori'  on the Capitol; and then a pilgrimage to see her began。 Among the crowd  were many who came to paint her; 'for she was more beautiful than can  be said or written; and; were it said or written; it would not be  believed by those who had not seen her。' By order of Innocent VIII she  was secretly buried one night outside the Pincian Gate; the empty  sarcophagus remained in the court of the 'Conservatori。' Probably a  colored mask of wax or some other material was modelled in the  classical style on the face of the corpse; with which the gilded hair  of which we read would harmonize admirably。 The touching point in the  story is not the fact itself; but the firm belief that an ancient body;  which was now thought to be at last really before men's eyes; must of  necessity be far more beautiful than anything of modern date。
  Meanwhile the material knowledge of old Rome was increased by  excavations。 Under Alexander VI the so…called 'Grotesques;' that is;  the mural decorations of the ancients; were discovered; and the Apollo  of the Belvedere was found at Porto d'Anzio。 Under Julius II followed  the memorable discoveries of the Laocoon; of the Venus of the Vatican;  of the Torso of the Cleopatra。 The palaces of the nobles and the  cardinals began to be filled with ancient statues and fragments。  Raphael undertook for Leo X that ideal restoration of the whole ancient  city which his (or Castiglione's) celebrated letter (1518 or 1519)  speaks of。 After a bitter complaint over the devastations which had not  even then ceased; and which had been particularly frequent under Julius  II; he beseeches the Pope to protect the few relics which were left to  testify to the power and greatness of that divine soul of antiquity  whose memory was inspiration to all who were capable of higher things。  He then goes on with penetrating judgement to lay the foundations of a  comparative history of art; and concludes by giving the definition of  an architectural survey which has been accepted since his time; he  requires the ground plan; section and elevation separately of every  building that remained。 How archaeology devoted itself after his day to  the study of the venerated city and grew into a special science; and  how the Vitruvian Academy at all events proposed to itself great him;  cannot here be related。 Let us rather pause at the days of Leo X; under  whom the enjoyment of antiquity combined with all other pleasures to  give to Roman life a unique stamp and consecration。 The Vatican  resounded with song and music; and their echoes were heard through the  city as a call to joy and gladness; though Leo did not succeed thereby  in banishing care and pain from his own life; and his deliberate  calculation to prolong his days by cheerfulness was frustrated by an  early death。 The Rome of Leo; as described by Paolo Giovio; forms a  picture too splendid to turn away from; unmistakable as are also its  darker aspectsthe slavery of those who were struggling to rise; the  secret misery of the prelates; who; notwithstanding heavy debts; were  forced to live in a style befitting their rank; the system of literary  patronage; which drove men to be parasites or adventurers; and; lastly;  the scandalous maladministration of the finances of the State。 Yet the  same Ariosto who knew and ridiculed all this so well; gives in the  sixth satire a longing picture of his expected intercourse with the  accomplished poets who would conduct him through the city of ruins; of  the learned counsel which he would there find for his own literary  efforts; and of the treasures of the Vatican library。 These; he says;  and not the long…abandoned hope of Medicean protection; were the baits  which really attracted him; if he were again asked to go as Ferrarese  ambassador to Rome。
  But the ruins within and outside Rome awakened not only archaeological  zeal and patriotic enthusiasm; but an elegiac of sentimental  melancholy。 In Petrarch and Boccaccio we find touches of this feeling。  Poggio Bracciolini often visited the temple of Venus and Roma; in the  belief that it was that of Castor and Pollux; where the senate used so  often to meet; and would lose himself in memories of the great orators  Crassus; Hortensius; Cicero。 The language of Pius II; especially in  describing Tivoli; has a thoroughly sentimental ring; and soon  afterwards (1467) appeared the first pictures of ruins; with a  commentary by Polifilo。 Ruins of mighty arches and colonnades; half hid  in plane…trees; laurels; cypresses and brushwood; figure in his pages。  In the sacred legends it became the custom; we can hardly say how; to  lay the scene of the birth of Christ in the ruins of a magnificent  palace。 That artificial ruins became afterwards a necessity of  landscape gardening is only a practical consequence of this feeling。
  The Classics
  But the literary bequests of antiquity; Greek as well as Latin; were of  far more importance than the architectural; and indeed than all the  artistic remains which it had left。 They were held in the most absolute  sense to be the springs of all knowledge。 The literary conditions of  that age of great discoveries have often been set forth; no more can  here be attempted than to point out a few less…known features of the  picture。
  Great as was the influence of the old writers on the Italian mind in  the fourteenth century and before; yet that influence was due rather to  the wide diffusion of what bad long been known than to the discovery of  much that was new。 The most popular latin poets; historians; orators  and letter…writers; to… gether with a number of Latin translations of  single works of Aristotle; Plutarch; and a few other Greek authors;  constituted the treasure from which a few favored individuals in the  time of Petrarch and Boccaccio drew their inspiration。 The former; as  is well known; owned and kept with religious care a Greek Homer; which  he was unable to read。 A complete Latin translation of the Iliad and  Odyssey; though a very bad one; vas made at Petrarch's suggestion; and  with Boccaccio's help; by a Calabrian Greek; Leonzio Pilato。 But with  the fifteenth century began the long list of new discoveries; the  systematic creation of libraries by means of copies; and the rapid  multiplication of translations from the Greek。
  Had it