ABSTRACT
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries valiant and varied attempts were made, especially in France, the Netherlands and England, at a further assimilation and a domestication of classical subject matter: through a moralization of classical mythology more definitely theological or even Christological than before. The German fifteenth-century copies of the pictures in the Chronograph of 354 or the De universo by Hrabanus Maurus, while bearing witness to the growth of antiquarian interests, evince a profound incomprehension for classical style. Stylistically, the reaction of the North to the aesthetic values of classical art may be said to have changed from indifferent to negative—in the terms of people previous simile, from "zero" to "minus"—in the course of the fifteenth century. In spite of the "Neo-Gothic" or "anti-classical" currents—which must be considered not only as a potential source of Mannerism but also as an actual and necessary prelude to the klassische High Renaissance—the Italian Quattrocento is and remains a rinascimento dell' antichita.
