The doctrine of the Middle Age, in respect to art and letters, may thus
be regarded as of interest rather to the history of culture than to that
of general knowledge. A like remark holds good of the Renaissance.
Theories of antiquity are studied, countless treatises in many forms are
written upon them, but no really new Ideas as regards aesthetic science
appear on the horizon.
We find among the spokesmen of mystical Aesthetic in the thirteenth
century such names as Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Bembo
and many others wrote on the Beautiful and on Love in the century that
followed. The _Dialogi di Amore_, written in Italian by a Spanish Jew
named Leone and published in 1535, had a European success, being
translated into many languages. He talks of the universality of love and
of its origin, of beauty that is grace, which delights the soul and
impels it to love. Knowledge of lesser beauties leads to loftier
spiritual beauties. Leone called these remarks _Philographia_.
Petrarch's followers versified similar intuitions, while others wrote
parodies and burlesques of this style; Luca Paciolo, the friend of
Leonardo, made the (false) discovery of the golden section, basing his
speculating upon mathematics; Michael Angelo established an empirical
canon for painting, attempting to give rules for imparting grace and
movement to figures, by means of certain arithmetical proportions;
others found special meanings in colours; while the Platonicians placed
the seat of beauty in the soul, the Aristotelians in physical qualities.
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