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286 RECENT TIMES.
The suppression of robber bands and attacks on the
feudal system were prepared for and favoured by the
development of an independent and well-to-do burgherclass.
Art and science were recalled to the investigation
of antiquity and the observation of Nature by the study of
humane learning cultivated in Italy since the time, of
PETRARCH. The artists freed themselves from the traditions
of the middle ages and gave to the forms they
portrayed a freer expression, which having been learnt in
Nature's own school, was true and warmed men's hearts
by sympathy.
What the early times of the Renaissance did for art,
was accomplished for science by the study of the original
works of the Greeks and Romans and the commencement
of an independent investigation of nature. In the schools
of the middle ages the writings of the Roman classic
authors had seldom been studied in the original texts; those
of the Greek, never. The Latin which was spoken in
teaching and in the daily intercourse between teachers and
pupils was very different from the language of ClCERO or
QuiNTiLlAN. The Greek language was nowhere brought
into the domain of teaching and the knowledge of it was
so rare that PETRARCH in 1360 was able to name scarcely
ten men of learning in Italy who were acquainted with it.*
In other countries there was at least no improvement upon
this state of things. The literary works of antiquity were
made accessible to the middle ages chiefly by Latin
translations, commentaries, and abridgements which were
generally prepared not from the originals but from renderings
of these into Arabic. People attached little importance
here to form and expression of speech; for these were not
looked upon as means for education of the mind but were
esteemed to be nothing but the worthless shell containing
the rich treasure—the real object of pursuit. Even this
however was not maintained pure and unadulterated ; for
* G. VOIGHT : Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, Berlin 1881,
ii, 107.