Donatello : "il maestro di chi sanno" / by Hope Rea.

  • Rea, Hope, 1860-
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Donatello : "il maestro di chi sanno" / by Hope Rea. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ment, his wealth steadily increased ; while at thè same time it became manifest that his genius was double- edged, for not only could he gain skilfully, but he could spend nobly and with discrimination. He became seized with thè passion for building, and not for himself alone, but for thè Church and thè city. As he was also keenly sensitive to all thè other artistic and intellectual influences of thè early Renaissance, it in time carne about that almost any great undertaking in thè way of art or learning which had its birth in Florence at that day asked and received from Cosimo its sinews of war, and also intelligent sympathy and encourage- ment. Scholars and antiquaries gathered around him. Was any rare discovery made of MSS., or in Art, he was applied to in order that thè treasure might be secured ; was even any distant place in Greece or elsewhere deemed likely to reward a careful search by scholar or artist, Cosimo would finance thè traveder, and rejoice with him in thè spoil brought back ; and withal he was an active citizen taking his due part in all thè politicai life of thè day. The events of one notable year in Cosimo’s life will serve in a remarkable degree to give us an insight into thè state of thè Fiorentine world at that time, thè nature of thè changes in process of evolution, and thè place which Cosimo personally held with regard to Art, and thè artists whom he had gathered round him. Florence would not have been Florence had she wit- nessed thè growth of her citizen’s wealth and power with supreme indifference, much less with an unques- tioning approbation. Some of Cosimo’s fellow-nobles saw in his increasing greatness a menace to their civic
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