Of this select number Botticelli is one; he has the
freshness, the uncertain and diffident promise which belongs to the
earlier Renaissance itself, and makes it perhaps the most interesting
period in the history of the mind: in studying his work one begins to
understand to how great a place in human culture the art of Italy had
been called.
1870.
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
The Italian sculptors of the earlier half of the fifteenth century are
more than mere forerunners of the great masters of its close, and often
reach perfection, within the narrow limits which they chose to impose on
their work. Their sculpture shares with the paintings of Botticelli and
the churches of Brunelleschi that profound expressiveness, that intimate
impress of an indwelling soul, which is the peculiar fascination of the
art of Italy in that century. Their works have been much neglected, and
often almost hidden away amid the frippery of modern decoration, and we
come with some surprise on the places where their fire still smoulders.
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