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social system improved; and the individual man,—his wants, his objects, his pleasures, and his artistic predilections—assumed a marked importance. The profits of trade led to the accumulation of capital, and the expenditure of capital produced luxurious dwellings.

As more luxurious habits of life found no prototypes in the early mediæval system, men were thrown back upon the classic ages for instruction as to how to live with greater licence and enjoyment. Gradually, an admiration for monuments of ancient art, which had heretofore lain unnoticed and neglected on the soil of Italy and elsewhere, revived; and, with respect for the monuments came respect for the literature, and every relic of the arts of the ancients. Possibly it may have been that with increasing respect for the literature came respect for the monuments of the ancients, and as men's admiration for the monuments revived, so they were led to investigate with respect the artistic formulas, technical and æsthetic, in accordance with which those monuments had been fashioned.

To this revival of everything connected with the classic ages we are indebted for the origination of that new life in architecture which the French christened the Renaissance and the Italians the Renascimento.

The five orders were exhumed with all the various parts belonging to them, and through the labours of men such as Fra Giocondo, Alberti, Bramante, Baldassare Peruzzi, Vignola, Michael Angelo, Palladio, Sangallo, Sansovino, and ultimately Serlio, Scamozzi, and Bernini they received new forms of application, and new types of detail.

Men at length arose of whom Michael Angelo must be looked upon as the pioneer and leader—impatient of all rule, full of enthusiasm, gifted with fiery imaginations, and altogether incapable of control. By such men rules were absolutely scorned, and before long their enthusiasm overstepped their discretion.