It is difficult to say with any certainty when the first commencement of a new era actually takes place, but there is an incident related in Michael Bryan’s biographical notice of Leonardo da Vinci which gives us an approximate date.  Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, had appointed this great master Director of Painting and Architecture in his academy in 1494, and, says Bryan, who obtained his information from contemporary writers, “Leonardo no sooner entered on his office, than he banished all the Gothic principles established by his predecessor, Michelino, and introduced the beautiful simplicity and purity of the Grecian and Roman styles.”

A few years after this date, Pope Julius II. commenced to build the present magnificent Church of St. Peter’s, designed by Bramante d’Urbino, kinsman and friend of Raffaele, to whose superintendence Pope Leo X. confided the work on the death of the architect in 1514, Michael Angelo having the charge committed to him some years after Raffaele’s death.

These dates give us a very fair idea of the time at which this important revolution in taste was taking place in Italy, at the end of the fifteenth and the commencement of the following century, and carved woodwork followed the new direction.

[Illustration:  Reproduction of Decoration By Raffaelle.  In the Loggie of the Vatican.  Period:  Italian Renaissance.]

[Illustration:  A Sixteenth Century Room.  Reproduced from the “Magazine of Art” (By Permission)]

[Illustration:  Salon of M. Edmond Bonnaffe, Decorated and Furnished in the Renaissance Style.]

Leo X. was Pope in 1513.  The period of peace which then ensued after war, which for so many decades had disturbed Italy, as France or Germany had in turn striven to acquire her fertile soil, gave the princes and nobles leisure to rebuild and adorn their palaces; and the excavations which were then made brought to light many of the works of art which had remained buried since the time when Rome was mistress of the world.  Leo was a member of that remarkable and powerful family the Medicis, the very mention of whom is to suggest the Renaissance, and under his patronage, and with the co-operation of the reigning dukes and princes of the different Italian states, artists were given encouragement and scope for the employment of their talents.  Michael Angelo, Titian, Raffaele Sanzio, Andrea del Sarto, Correggio, and many other great artists were raising up monuments of everlasting fame; Palladio was rebuilding the palaces of Italy, which were then the wonder of the world; Benvenuto Cellini and Lorenzo Ghiberti were designing those marvellous chef d’oeuvres in gold, silver, and bronze which are now so rare; and a host of illustrious artists were producing work which has made the sixteenth century famous for all time.

[Illustration:  Chair in Carved Walnut.  Found in the house of Michael Angelo.]