Euphorion - Vol. II / Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the Renaissance

The collection of essays examines classical and medieval aesthetics and their influence on Renaissance art and literature, arguing that realism and idealism interweave in artistic practice and that art alternates between decorative selection and scholarly copying. It traces the Middle Ages as a fragmented succession of competing tastes and revivals that repeatedly recombine epic cycles and literary forms, contrasts the relative stability of architectural continuity with the mutability of poetry, and attributes the recovery of classical energies to transformative cultural movements that culminate in renewed artistic development, particularly where regional continuity preserved traditions.