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the objects for which that age was impassioned are more glowingly described. This romantic and fantastic rhapsody mirrors every aspect of nature and art in which the Italians then took delight—peaceful landscape, where rivers flow by flower-starred banks and through bird-haunted woods; noble architecture and exquisite sculpture, the music of soft instruments,

Fig. 23.—The Crow and the Peacock. From “Æsop’s Fables.” Venice, 1491 (design, 1481).

the ruins of antiquity, the legends of old mythology, the motions of the dance, the elegance of the banquet, splendor of apparel, courtesy of manners, even the manuscript, with its covers of purple velvet sown with Eastern pearls—everything which was cared for and sought in that time,