I. EARLY RENAISSANCE 17

Rome, were, however, for that reason, still permitted; the cupola, and, internally, the waggon vault.¹

§ 19. These changes in form were all of them unfortunate; and it is almost impossible to do justice to the occasionally exquisite ornamentation of the fifteenth century, on account of its being placed upon edifices of the cold and meagre Roman outline. There is, as far as I know, only one Gothic building in Europe, the Duomo of Florence, in which, though the ornament be of a much earlier school, it is yet so exquisitely finished as to enable us to imagine what might have been the effect of the perfect workmanship of the Renaissance, coming out of the hands of men like Verrocchio and Ghiberti, had it been employed on the magnificent framework of Gothic structure. This is the question which, as I shall note in the concluding chapter,² we ought to set ourselves practically to solve in modern times.

§ 20. The changes effected in form, however, were the least part of the evil principles of the Renaissance. As I have just said, its main mistake, in its early stages, was the unwholesome demand for perfection, at any cost. I hope enough has been advanced, in the chapter on the Nature of Gothic, to show the reader that perfection is not to be had from the general workman, but at the cost of everything,-of his whole life, thought, and energy.³ And Renaissance Europe thought this a small price to pay for manipulative perfection. Men like Verrocchio and Ghiberti were not to be had every day, nor in every place; and to require from the common workman execution or knowledge like theirs, was to require him to become their copyist. Their strength was great enough to enable them to join science with invention, method with emotion, finish with fire; but in them the invention and the fire were first, while Europe saw in them only the method and the finish. This was new to the

¹ [i.e. the semi-cylindrical vault; for the primary forms of vaulting, see Fig. 1 in Vol. IX. p. 76.]

² [See below, pp. 226 seq.]

³ [See Vol. X. pp. 190 seq.]

XI. B

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