Renascence portraits

Preface

This book tries to illustrate the Renascence by describing three men who were affected by it and who were all living at the same time in Italy, England and Germany. For such an attempt to illustrate the Renascence a variety of reasons suggested the choice of Pietro Aretino, Thomas Cromwell and Maximilian I. One important reason is that they are all more or less unknown to the ordinary reader of history in English. On Aretino there is almost nothing in English except four pages of Buckhardt written many years ago. In German there is little more. The older French and Italian writers, and some of the newer ones, show him out of focus and without due regard to the perspective of history. Cromwell is known by a caricature rather than by a portrait. In the essay of the Appendix : Reginald Pole and Thomas Cromwell, the writer believes that he has shown the origin of the exaggerations of this current caricature in the distorted account of Cromwell's bitterest enemy. Of Maximilian there are accounts in English; a short one has recently been printed as the Stanhope Historical Essay by Seton Watson of New College, Oxford. But none attempts to use the best means for the interpretation of his character — Maximilian's own writings. Indeed, until recently it was not possible to do so for they were ascribed to his secretaries. Whatever light these three men may throw

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upon the Renascence will, therefore, seem to the ordinary reader more illuminating because it is new to him.

For this book is addressed to the ordinary reader and the writer frankly confesses a desire to be interesting. And though he is willing to plead guilty at once to a charge of dismal failure he insists upon a claim to credit for good intentions. Such a claim, however humble it may seem, is in reality a little bold. For a desire to be interesting in writing history is regarded by a number of historians as distinctly out of date. A school, which until recently threatened to become dominant, assures us that a writer on history has no more reason for trying to be interesting to the average reader of books than a writer on mathematics. One of them is credibly reported to have thanked God he had no style to tempt him out of the straight and narrow path of scientific exactness.

But the right of literature to try to keep the result of historical research in touch with life is happily being re-vindicated against this temporary fashion by men whose ability in the use of scientific methods cannot be disputed. Such words as these of Mr. Vinogradofif are gladly echoed in many minds :

"What I call literary history, has by no means done its work. There is too much in the action of men that demands artistic perception and even divination on the part of the historian to allow this mode of treatment to fall into decay."

To his desire to be interesting the writer has, however, set one limit. An Oxford Professor of history was once asked why he did not make his lectures more interesting. He replied, — he would be glad to do so if he saw any way

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except by making them less true. History cannot walk in the path of romance, and the writer has honestly tried to follow always the way of sober truth. He has never consciously exaggerated vices or heightened virtues to give scope for strong adjectives. He has tried to avoid the tone of the advocate, though it is easier to listen to than the tone of the judge. He has never tried to make up for the lack of exact knowledge about how things did happen by exuberance of imagination about how they might have happened, and there is no item in his description of any scene which is not suggested by contemporary evidence.

Beside the fact that he did not mcati to be dull, the writer makes one other claim upon the indulgence of the reader. He has tried to be short. Of recent years a flood of historical monographs has been poured forth in French, English, German and Italian. Most of them describe with more or less minuteness various points in the original contemporary records of historical events. But as a whole they make the events they treat no clearer to the average reader than they were before. This is especially true of the American reader. These works are often difficult to read ; they are written in foreign tongues — they are scattered in different libraries, many of them cannot be found in America at all. The monographs must be interpreted to the educated public even as they interpret the records to the specialist.

In Germany, the home of the monograph, this need has recently been clearly recognized. The words of Professor Baumgarten are an example of the recognition: " The most painstaking specialist cannot deny that collec-

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tions of sources are not issued for their own sakes, that the highest purpose of the investigations of monographs does not consist in clearing up some detail. * * * When the most extensive publications, the most acute investigations remain for years as good as unused, when at last their enormous extent renders the review of them impossible even for the historian, unless he is willing to confine his interest within the narrow limits of a few decades, such a result does little to advance true historical knowledge. To increase them without limit, making no attempt to draw the sum of historic results out of these costly materials, is an undertaking which is in direct contradiction to the true understanding of scientific investigation."

Therefore the writer, having the materials for two books in his notes and the ideas for a third in his head, decided to condense them all within a single pair of covers.

It seems as if there were now some prospect that American writers on history might be emancipated from the tyrannous fad of footnotes. The value of pages is no longer estimated everywhere by the amount of space upon them occupied in small print by miscellaneous observations on more or less irrelevant topics and citations from obvious authorities to support commonplaces. The remark made by Mr. Armstrong in the Bibliographical Introduction to his recent most interesting Biography of Charles V. strikes a responsive chord. "I had a few scruples as to abandoning the explanatory or supplementary footnote which is often the fruit of laziness or literary incompetence, for it is far easier to bury a stub-

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born fact or episode at the bottom of the page than to make it a living portion of the text."

But in works so condensed as these short biographies there are occasional remarks in the nature of asides, which may make the subject clearer and could be worked into the text only by misplaced ingenuity. And it seemed wise to indicate the places where citations from contemporary sources are to be found. The writer was confirmed in this practice by the experience of searching all obvious collections for an interesting document partially cited by Mr. Armstrong, without being able to find and enjoy the rest of it.

The author of Don Quixote tells in his preface how being one day in his study very uneasy about his book because he had for it no quotations for the margin or annotations for the end, and no bibliography to place at the beginning " as all do under the letters A. B. C, beginning with Aristotle and ending with Xenophon or Zoilus or Zeuxis," a friend came in and showed the way out of all his troubles. The bibliography w^as easily settled, — "Now," said the friend, — "let us come to those references to authors which other books have and you want for yours. The remedy for this is very simple. You have only to look out for some book that quotes them all, from A to Z, as you say yourself, and then insert the very same alphabet in your book. * * * p-Qj., at any rate, if it answers no other purpose the long catalogue of authors will serve to give a surprising look of authority to your book. Besides, no one will trouble himself to verify whether you have followed them or whether you have not, being in no way concerned in it."

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The writer has not taken this very practical advice in the preparation of his bibHography. In regard to Cromwell and Aretino he has read everything which promised to throw any light on the men. He has not been able to do this in regard to Maximilian. The secondary literature on the period of Maximilian's lifetime in Germany is so enormous that Ulmann, publishing, after years of preparation, the first volume of a sixteen hundred page life of him, confesses that he "had not been able to reach an exhaustive review of all the writings related to his subject."

The brief list in the Appendix gives only a small part of the titles of the books that have been read in preparing these essays, and consists of full titles of the works cited in the footnotes. The writer's main reliance has been the Calendar of State Papers, the writings and letters of Aretino, the writings and letters of Maximilian.

He is indebted for control and suggestion to many secondary sources, probably to some not named in the bibliography. He owes very much for Maximilian to the great work of Professor Ulmann, for Pietro Aretino to the labors among the archives, the acute criticism, the able reconstruction of Signor Luzio and Prof. Rossi. But he is afraid that for the book as a whole no one ought to be blamed except himself.

Parts of the material, sometimes in the form under which it is here presented, sometimes in different form, have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Outlook Magazine, Harper's Magazine, The Presbyterian Review (two articles), The American Historical Review (two articles).

Contents

I. The Renascence . . . . i.: ,.. » . . i II. PiETRO Aretino .,...:.:... 33

III. Thomas Cromwell 138

IV. Maximilian 1 259