It was a new birth; no mere repetition of something dead and gone, but the product of vivid forces stirred to original creativeness by admiration for the past.

It corresponded, moreover, with exquisite exactitude to the halting of the conscience between Christianity and Paganism, and to the blent beauty that the poets loved.

On reeds dropped from the hands of dead Pan the artists of this period, each in his, own sphere, piped ditties of romance.
To these general remarks upon the style of the first period the Florentine architects offer an exception; and yet the first marked sign of a new era in the art of building was given at Florence.

Purity of taste and firmness of judgment, combined with scientific accuracy, were always distinctive of Florentines.

To such an extent did these qualities determine their treatment of the arts that acute critics have been found to tax them--and in my opinion justly--with hardness and frigidity.[30] Brunelleschi in 1425 designed the basilica of S.Lorenzo after an original but truly classic type, remarkable for its sobriety and correctness.