Page:Studies in the history of the renaissance (IA studiesinhistor01pategoog).djvu/181

Rh painter then of note, and found a home near him, in the artists' quarter, in a place where he could 'overlook far and wide the eternal city.' At first he was perplexed with the sense of being a stranger on what was to him native soil. 'Unhappily,' he cries in French, often selected by him as the vehicle of strong feeling, 'I am one of those whom the Greeks call όψιμαθείς. I have come into the world and into Italy too late.' More than thirty years afterwards, Goethe also, after many aspirations and severe preparation of mind, visited Italy. In early manhood, just as he, too, was finding Greek art, the rumour of that high artist's life of Winckelmann in Italy had strongly moved him. At Rome, spending a whole year drawing from the antique, in preparation for 'Iphigenie,' he finds the stimulus of Winckelmann's memory ever active. Winckelmann's Roman life was simple, primeval, Greek. His delicate constitution permitted him the use only of bread and wine. Condemned by many as a renegade, he had no desire for places of honour, but only to see his merits acknowledged and existence assured to him. He was simple, without being niggardly; he desired to be neither poor nor rich.

Winckelmann's first years in Rome present all the elements of an intellectual situation of the highest interest. The beating of the intellect against