‘It seems to be a lesson of history that the commonplace may be understood as a reduction of the exceptional, but that the exceptional cannot be understood by amplifying the commonplace.’ These words from the closing passage of a most important recent book, Professor Edgar Wind’s Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, draw attention to a great misconception in the usual interpretation of that movement, spread over a considerable stretch of time, which we call ‘The Renaissance’. It is most often thought that this movement represented simply a revival of classical learning, an enthusiasm for technique, for style in all aspects of life, and a deepening sense of wonder at the mystery of Man himself. All these were features of the situation naturally, but its core is lacking if we merely consider them. Professor Wind has given us the missing heart: the heart of Renaissance art, architecture, poetry, music and science. What he presents to us is, of course, a religious vision, for nothing else could have had these effects. An esoteric vision, which is why he says that he deals with the exceptional, and one that verges often on heresy. But something which has nevertheless deep roots in the Christian past.

What was this vision? What brought these mighty manifestations into being? Briefly, a belief that it is the spiritual and not the material which is the essence of man, and that the truth of Christ existed in the world before Christ. These might seem unexceptionable truths, but in them lurked grave dangers.