236 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 



the interference of the government, in the search for terra cotta 

 figurines, which already were bringing a high price in the market, 

 though not so high as at present. 



In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries of our era, 

 with the new interest in ancient literature was awakened also interest 

 in the monuments of antiquit)% particularly in works of ancient 

 sculpture. Much digging was done in the neighborhood of Rome, 

 on the sites of ancient villas, and many statues were brought to 

 light. These were valued chiefly for themselves, however, as works 

 of art, and if (as almost always) they were broken they were "re- 

 stored " according to the ability, taste, and caprice of their owners. 

 No one shrank from adapting the head of one statue to the body of 

 another, if these could be made to fit by changing one or both of the 

 parts, nor would the owner hesitate bj' an alteration of attribute to 

 make a muse into an Artemis or a Demeter. This method of deal- 

 ing with objects of antiquity continued until recent times. They 

 were considered more valuable when "perfect," though the perfec- 

 tion were the result of a "restoration." Early in the nineteenth 

 century the statues from the pediments of the temple of Aphaea on 

 ^gina, having been purchased bj^ the crown prince of Bavaria, were 

 entrusted to the sculptor Thorwaldsen, who " restored " them most 

 carefully and conscientiously, but archeologists now regret that they 

 were "restored" at all. Canova deserves and receives credit for 

 declining to "add arms and noses and heads to the ' ' Elgin marbles ' ' 

 from the Parthenon at Athens, when this was suggested. But only 

 a third of a century ago most men of culture were not shocked — 

 onlj^ a few archeologists were troubled— at the thought of a " resto- 

 ration ' ' of the statues found on Cyprus. The proper treatment of 

 l^roken works of art, I may say parenthetically, has never before been 

 ■exemplified so well as in the French treatment of the sculptures found 

 in the recent excavations at Delphi, shown in the museum opened 

 there last May : the broken marbles are set up as nearly as possible 

 in their proper positions and relations, with no additions, while near 

 them are placed plaster models with the missing parts restored ac- 

 cording to the judgment of the archeologists and artists in charge. 



The early expeditions for archeological purposes were insuffi- 

 ciently equipped, and thus desire for objects to fill museums appears 

 as their exclusive aim. Even only thirty or forty years ago the 

 " science of the spade" was in its infancy. Fr. Lenormant pub- 

 lished in 1862 the results of his Recherches archeologiqiics at Eleusis 

 two years before ; but he has nothing to say except about the inscrip- 



