• I.—Literature of the Renaissance……3

• II.—Origin, Character, and Influence of the Renaissance, 7

• III.—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)……13

• IV.—Petrarca (1304–1372) .……22

• V.—Boccaccio (1313–1375) .……27

• VI.—Progress of Humanism in the Fifteenth Century. 31

• VII.—The Patrons of Letters and Arts.—Cosimo de' Medici, 33

• VIII.—Pope Nicolas V. as a Patron of Learning and Art. 36

• IX.—The Vatican Library .……39

• X.—The Italian Humanists of the Fifteenth Century—Salutato, Marsiglio, Bruni, Poggio, Traversari, Filelfo, Valla .……44

• XI.—The Greek Humanists of the Fifteenth Century—Chrysoloras, Plethon, Bessarion .…50

• XII.—The Second Period of Humanism—Æneas Sylvius. 55

• XIII.— The Last Popes of the Renaissance: Paul II., Sixtus IV., Julius II., and Leo X. 59

• XIV.—Lorenzo the Magnifcent (1449–1492) .…62

• XV.—The Platonic Academy in Florence .…64

• XVI.—Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499)……65

• XVII.—Picus of Mirandola (1463–1494)……67

• XVIII.—Bembo and Sadoleto………70

• XIX.—The Fine Arts………73

• XX.—The Religious Character of the Art of the Renaissance………78

• XXI.—Raphael (1483—1520)………81

• XXII.—Michel Angelo and Vittoria Colonna .…86

• XXIII.—The Revival of Paganism in Italy .… 93

• XXIV.—The State of Morals in Rome…98

• XXV.—The Art of Printing ……109

• XXVI.—The Revival of Letters in Germany .…115

• XXVII.—John Reuchlin and Hebrew Learning .…120

• XXVIII.—The Semitic Controversy. A Prelude to the Reformation ……123

• XXIX.—The Epistles of Obscure Men, and the Triumph of Reuchlin ………126

• XXX.—Erasmus and the Greek Testament .…128

Fruitful historical research to-day is, first and last, a study of original documents and other contemporary monuments. The successful historian must abandon the time-beaten track of artistic development and take the sterner path of exact science—inductive science. If he have any genius, it must hereafter be a genius for labor. He must leave behind him the allurements of the sunny plains, and must plunge into the great forest belt with its confusing paths, its almost insurmountable barriers, patiently struggling on, happy if some pioneer going before has blazed a road, and led on by the hope that although he himself may leave his bones in the wilderness some other toiler will break through at last to the bright uplands beyond.

New methods of historical study are securing important results. The demand now is not only that those who write history shall go back to the sources, but that by a thorough examination of the materials which the sources furnish, and by the employment of sound canons of criticism, the facts, so far as possible, shall be obtained. Because of this demand not a little of what has hitherto been regarded as veritable history has been discovered to be untenable and misleading. In no field of historic research are these results more conspicuous than in that which has been traversed in recent years by those who have directed their attention to the history of the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century.

When in the year 1534 Clement VII. decided against Henry VIII., King of England, in the matter of his divorce with Catharine of Aragon, and the spiritual corporations had resolved that the Roman pontiff had no more authority in the kingdom of England than any other foreign bishop, a royal edict abolished the usurped dominion of the Pope. This edict was succeeded in November of the same year by the Act of Supremacy, which reads as follows: “That the Kyng our Soveraign Lorde his heires and successours Kynges of this Realme shal be takyn accepted and reputed the onely supreme heed in erthe of the Churche of England callyd Anglicana Ecclesia.” By this act of Parliament the English Church ceased to be popish, but did not cease to be Romish. The worship was that of Mediæval Catholicism, mainly according to the Sarum Use; the theology was that of Thomas Aquinas, in which Henry himself had been well instructed.

The name of Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon when mentioned by Huguenot writers is usually accompanied by expressions of contempt and intense hatred. He has been called “the Cain of South America” and “a true savage among savages,” while Theodore Beza with more elaborate animosity has described him as “a man distinctly resembling the Cyclops Polyphemus both in the vast mass of his body and the ferocity of his nature.” The object of these execrations was born about the year 1510 in Provins, a French town some fifty miles to the southeast of Paris, where his father, Louis Durand, held an honorable position under the government.

It seems unfortunate that a matter of so great importance as the enterprise before us should run the risk of receiving less attention than it deserves from wanting a worthier advocate. It may not be out of place if I relate some of the circumstances that have led to my occupying the present position.

Early in 1887, in a conversation with Dr. Schaff, I learned with regret that it was not his intention to continue his admirable “History of the Christian Church” beyond the middle of the seventeenth century. His determination to close his work at this date was due, as I remember, to two considerations—advancing age and fulness of occupation, and the complexity of more recent Church history that makes it more suitable for monographic treatment than for treatment in general works. This conversation suggested to me the desirability of a uniform series of denominational histories, written, as far as possible, in the spirit of Dr. Schaff's general history, and, in a sense, forming a continuation of that work. My thought was that each monograph should be prepared by one of the best qualified Church historians of the denomination of which it should treat, and that the series should be prepared under a general editorship.

Church history is the story of the important events in the existence of a visible, organized body of persons professing faith in Christ as the divine Saviour. Which body, some would add, possesses a direct succession from the apostles under and through a continuous episcopate, or, as others would add, under and through the Roman Pontiffs.

It is the story of how Christians have believed within themselves, which is theology, of how they have behaved before one another and the world, which is morality, how they have worshipped God, which constitutes religious rites and observances, how they have governed their brethren, which is ecclesiastical discipline, how they have multiplied their friends, which is missions, and how they have received benefit or injury as a body from the world outside, which constitutes the Church's secular relationship.