UNIVERSAL ERUDITION^ 



and that fo many learned men have wrote curious 

 and inftruftive treatifes concerning them ; and 

 lattly, that the knowledge of the fe precious mo- 

 numents is become a very extenfive branch of 

 fcience, under the title of Numismatographia > 

 and which we ftall now endeavour briefly to 

 explain. 



VII. Medals may be divided into different 

 clafies, 



(i.) According to the time when they were 

 ftruck : and in this refpect they are either, 



j. Antiques ; which are thofe that were 

 made from the moil ancient times of which we 

 Jiave any account, down to the Jixth or feventh 

 century of the Chriftian era. 



2. Thofe of the middle age ; which is from 

 the feventh century, or the death of Phocas and 

 Heraclius, in 641, when Italy became a prey to 

 the Barbarians , where thofe fine medals that 

 are called Imperials end, and where begin thole 

 of the lower empire, and of the Grecian empe- 

 rors, down t-O the taking of Conftantinople. 

 The Gothics continue the feries from the Impe- 

 rials. They are fo called, bccaufe they were 

 made in the time of the Goths, during the 

 decline of the two empires ; and they refemble 

 the ignorance of their age. The connoifleurs 

 pay but little regard to thefe: they are, however, 

 of great importance in hiftory, in afcertaining 

 the true chronology of events. Thefe come 

 quite clown to the fifteenth century. 



3. The 



