2θ6 Dante Sexcentenary Lectures
tains, we would be less blind to the fact if Italian civiliza-
tion, its great work performed, had been swept away by
a cataclysm three centuries ago; thus it would have achieved
the crowning glory of genuine classicism, which is death.
Now we are coming to the core of our question. The
whole Renaissance is tinged with Italianism : Dante is Italian
of the Italians, the most complete representative of his race.
This essential “Italianità” is the common element between
Dante and the Renaissance.
One of the most obvious characteristics of the Renaissance
spirit is the conscious cultivation and enjoyment of Art.
It would be ludicrous to maintain that the craftsmen of the
Middle Ages were not artists in the highest sense of the
term; yet their chief appeal to us lies in something different
from art, something which transcends art perhaps, and
veils itself in apparent artlessness. We love them for their
naïveté, for their indifference to formal beauty as such. We
may in this be the dupes of an illusion: those humble and
miraculous artisans may have been much more self-conscious
than we think, keeping distinct in their minds purpose,
technique, and personality. Erroneous or not, the impres-
sion exists. Now Italy developed early, and has preserved
to the present day, an unusual gift for artistic expression;
in this respect it is superior to ancient Rome, and ranks not
far below Greece. Why is it that even a mediocre work of
Italian art,—a picture of the Carracci, a Jesuit church, a
banal melody,—unmistakably belongs to the world of art,
whilst a more sincere and powerful product of the Northern
spirit may strike us as uncouth? The natural gifts of the
race and a long tradition of technical excellence partly ex-
plain such a superiority; but the fact of the matter is that
we have learned our conception of art from Italy, and that
it requires an effort for us to recognize as art anything that