influence of better art on the Gothic mind, it was not till the revival of the study of classic literature, in the fifteenth century, that men began to inquire into the art of the past ages, and endeavoured to obtain somewhat of its sacred fire for the use of their own time. The study was rewarded, and the style popularly known as that of the Renaissance rapidly spread its influence over the world of art, sanctioned by the favour of such master-minds as Raphael, and the great men of his era.

Fig. 1.

It was not, however, to be expected that any style should be resuscitated in all its purity without the admixture of some peculiarity emanating from the art which adopted it, and which was more completely the mode of the era. The Renaissance is, therefore, a Gothic classicality, engrafting classic form and freedom on the decorative quaintnesses of the middle ages. Fig. 1 is as pertinent a specimen as could be obtained of this characteristic: the Greek volute and the Roman foliage are made to combine with the hideous inventions of monkery, the grotesque heads that are exhibited on the most sacred edifices, and which are simply the stone records of the strife and rivalry that prevailed between monks and friars up to the date of the Reformation, and are therefore of great value to the student of ecclesiology and ecclesiastical history. In this instance they seem to typify death and hell, over whom the Saviour was victorious by his mortal agony: the emblems of which occupy the central shield, and tell with much simple force the story of man’s redemption. Mediæval art has not unfrequently the merit of much condensation of thought, always particularly visible in its choice of types by which to express in a simple form a precise religious idea, at once appealing to the mind of the spectator, and bringing out a train of thought singularly diffuse when its slight origin is considered.

Fig. 2.

The easy applicability of the revived art to the taste for fanciful display which characterised the fifteenth century, led to its universal adoption in decoration; but the wilder imaginings of the living artist always tampered with the grand features of the design. The panel, Fig. 2, is an instance. The griffins have lost their classic character, and have assumed the Gothic; the foliations are also subjected to the same process. The design is, however, on the whole, an excellent example of the mode in which the style appeared as a decoration in the houses of the nobility, whose love of heraldic display was indulged by the wood carver in panelled rooms rich with similar compartments.

Fig. 3.

Heraldry, with all its adjuncts, had become so great a passion with the noble, that the invention of the artist and student was taxed for badges and mottoes by noble families. The custom flourished most in Italy, where the impresa of a noble house spoke to the eye at once, whether it was found on a sword-hilt or over a church-door. We give as an instance, in Fig. 3, that adopted by the bold Dukes of Burgundy, sovereigns in their own dominions, and exciting much terror of rivalry in the minds of the kings of France themselves. Their badge, or impresa, was indicative of their rude power; a couple of knotted clubs, saltier-wise, help to support a somewhat conventional figure of the steel used for striking the flint to produce fire; the whole surmounted by the crown, and intended to indicate by analogous reflection the vigour of the ducal house. As a bold defiance, a rival house adopted the rabot, or carpenter’s plane, by which they indicated their determination to smooth by force the formidable knots from the clubs of the proud rulers of Burgundy.

Fig. 4.

Fig. 5.

The art of enamelling, which had reached a high degree of perfection in the Roman era, was refined upon in the middle ages, and ultimately its character was so much altered thereby that it ended in rivalling painting, rather than retaining its own particular features, as all arts should do. It may be fairly considered that originally it was used simply to enrich, by vitrified colour, articles of use and ornament. Metal was incised, and the ornamental spaces thus obtained filled with one tint of enamel colour, each compartment having its own. By this means very brilliant effects were often produced, all the more striking from the pure strength of their simplicity. It was not till the twelfth century that an attempt at floating colours together was made, and this led ultimately to a pictorial treatment of enamel which destroyed its truest character. The very old form was, however, practised in the latest days of its use; and our engraving of the very beautiful knife-handle designed by Virgil Solis at the end of the sixteenth century (Figs. 4 and 5), was intended to be filled with a dark blue enamel, in the parts here represented in black, while the interstices of the cross-shaped ornaments above would receive some lighter tint of warmer hue. The birds and foliage would be carefully engraved, the lines of shadow filled with a permanent black, thus assuring a general brilliancy of effect. Such knives were by no means an uncommon decoration of the table at the period when this was designed: it is now a branch of art utilised until all trace of design has gone from it; for we cannot accept the slight scroll work and contour of a modern silver knife-handle as a piece of art-workmanship, when we remember the beautiful objects of the kind produced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gorgeous in design and colour, and occasionally enriched by jewels