Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/40

* RENAISSANCE ABT. :i6 l)ooks of ivfc-ieiite are: liiiiikliaidt, Uer Vicerone (7th mlitioii, liy Bode, Leiiizig, ISilS) ; id., The Vivilizaliun uf the licnuissantv in Italy, trans. by iliddlciiias (London, ISW) ; iluntz, Uis- toirc de I'art pendant Iti iLiuiiiisance (Paris, IS'.M). (^'onsiill also: I'ater, The llenais- sancv (London, 1873) ; Synionds. Hcnaiimunce in Italy. The Fine Arts (ib., 1.S77); >rnon Lee, IJiiphorion (ib., 1884); t5Lott, The licnuisxuiicc uf Art in Italy (ib., 1888); Hoppin, The Early Uenaissunie and Other Essays on Art iSubjeets (Boston, 1802) : I'liilippi, Die Kunst der l't}iais- sauce in Jtalien (Leipzig, 18'.)7) ; WoellHiii, Die plastische Kunst: eine Einfiiliruiig in die italien- ische llcnaissanee (.Munich, ISH!)) ; and on the architecture, Anderson, Archileelure of the Re- naissance (London, 189G). For a detailed ac- count of the Kcnaissanee in l"'raiice, the best works are: 15erty. La renaissance inonumenlale en Franee (Paris, 18G4) ; Pattison, The Renuinsunee of the Fine Arts in France (London, 1879) ; Chateau, Histoire et caractcres dc I'archi lecture en Franee (Paris, 1864): Palustre, La Renais- sance en France (ib., 1879-8'J) ; id., L'arehitec- iure de la Renaissance (ib., 1892) ; Liibke, Ge- schichte der Renaissance in Frankreich (Stutt- gart, 1S8(>). For Germany, consult: Fritsch (ed.), DenlcmiiUr der deiilschen Renaissance (Berlin, 1882 et *.), which has plates; Liibke, (leschichte der Renaissance in DeutschUmd (Stuttgart, 1882). Other works on Renaissance architecture are: Eastlake, History of the Re- vival of Arehiteeture (London, 1871); Smith and Poynter, Gothic and Renaissance Architec- ture (ib., 1880) ; Goteli and Brown, Archileelure of the Renaissance in Enyland (ib., 1897); Jiischke, Die Antike in. der bihicnden KunS't der Renaissance (Strassburg. 1900). Consult also the articles on the principal artists referred to in the text. B.ENAIX, rr-na'. A town of Belgium, in the Province of East Flanders, picturesquely situ- ated, 24 miles by railway south of Ghent (Map: Belgium. B 4). It manufactures principally fine linen and damasks, woolen fabrics, tobacco, and pottery. Population, in 1900, 20,090. RENAL DISEASE. See Bright's Disease; Cirrhosis. RENAN, rc-niiN', Ernest (1823-92). A French religious historian and Semitic philologist, born at Trfguier, in Brittany, February 27, 1823. Of his childhood he told in i^ourenirs d'cnfance (1883). He lost his father in youth and owed it to a devoted sister that he could begin with neighboring priests the studies for which his frail health seemed to designate him. He was soon summoned to Paris and promoted to SaintSulpice, the chief training school of the French priesthood. His belief in the Cath- olic teaching soon began to leave him, but not his love for its beauty, nor his regard for its worthy professors. At twenty-two he abandoned his study for orders and taught Latin in a clerical school, still aided by his sister's savings, till at twenty-five he won his doctorate with such distinction as to assure a position that was already recognized by an academic prize for an essay >SiMr Ics langties semitiques. He won a second prize in 18.50 for an essay SiA- I'ctude du (jrec dans I'occident an moyen-iipe. was sent by the Academy to Italy, where he prepared an epoch-making work on Arab philosophy. Arcrroes RENAN. el rArerroisnie (18.32), and to Syria (18G0), where he found inspiration for his Vie de Jisus (1803), the first of seven volumes that occupied him from 1807 to 1881, dealing with the origins of Christianity to the death of ilarcus Aurelius. To this he added as an introduction E'hisloire du peupte tl'lsrail (1888-94). Though elected pro- fessor of Hebrew in the Collfego ile France ( 1802), lie was not allowed to lecture, because of his ex- pressed unorthodoxy. This gave wide popularit^v to his ideas and allowed him more leisure to propagate his enthusiastic belief that polities, education, and (ethics itself would be regenerated by the progress of science, especially of history and philologj'. The Vie dc Jesus was widely trans- lated; 300,000 copies were sold in France alone, and for every later work of Renan there was a popular as well as a scholarly demand. Les ajMres (1800) and Sain/ Pa«; "( 1869) were fol- lowed by a volume of essays on contemporary questicms (1808). Then came the Franco-(ierman war, which evoked from Renan two remarkable letters to David Strau.ss. the radical biblical critic of Tubingen, showing a patriotism free from every taint of Chauvinism. The Republic restored his professorsliip and he now published L'Antechrist (1873), Les ecangiles el la seconde generation chrctienne (1877), L'cglise chr^tienne (1879), Marc-Aurdle et la fin du monde antique (1881). Volumes of essays with the titles Etudes (1857), Essais (1859), Melanges (1878), Xouvelles etudes (1884), Discours (1887), accompanied or followed his more connected work. His Drames philosophiques were first collected in 1888. A vision of L'avcnir de la science, written in 1848, was given to the world as a sort of parting gift in 1890. During his last years Renan enjoyed all the honors, public and private, that Paris could give to a favorite scholar. He was made grand oflicer of the Legion of Honor and admin- istrator of the Coll6ge de France, dying as he Iiad wished, at his post, October 2, 1892. Renan saw so many sides of his subject that he was never as sure of any of them as he was of his own critical wit. He was by turns hazy, cau- tious, mythical, ironic, idealistic, skeptic, all with a romantic sentiment and a rosy optimism that regarded the nineteenth as "the most amus- ing of centuries," to be contemplated with "benev- olent and universal irony." He had a lofty con- ception of moral duty, and held that "few persons have a right not to believe in Christianity." He knew that he himself was "a tissue of contradic- tions, one half fated to be employed in destroying the other," and he said this fact gave him "the keenest intellectual pleasxire that man can enjoy." The clew to this psychic paradox is perhaps that Renan united two races, the Breton and the Norman, and two cultures, the ecclesiastical and the scientific, neither overcoming the other, and both possessing his mind. It is this, joined to a uniquely subtle, sensuous charm, that has made his influence a i)Owerful one in the literature of the present generation. He typifies the skepticism of modern France, its awakening religious curi- osity, its dilettante shrinking from 'the horrible mania of certainty,' its Protean inconsistency and its ea.sy tolerance, born of a conviction that no faith is worth a struggle, much less a martyrdom. Of Renan's works there is no uniform edition. To the writings named above may be added many lin- guistic studies in the M^moires of the Academy and in the Journal Asiatique. important con-