6i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Athens was in the possession of Italians from 1387 until it was cap- 

 tured by the Turks in 1458, and during that interval a few scholars 

 visited the city. After 1450 all is darkness until 1674, when the 

 Frenchman Jacques Carrey made his drawings of the Parthenon. 



Its sculptures could hardly have been known to the men of the 

 Eenaissance. A few of the greatest statues were known to Michel- 

 angelo — the Torso of the Belvedere especially, and he declared himself 

 its pupil. This figure was one of the chief promoters of the Renais- 

 sance in sculpture.'^ 



The especial reverence for classical antiquity, which in former times so 

 exclusively prevailed, invested every fragment of ancient sculpture, even the 

 most trivial, with a sentimental importance. . . . The antique had compara- 

 tively little to do with the truly great Italian school of sculpture of the 

 fifteenth century. . . . External nature, religious feeling, human character and 

 expression, these were alike the school, and in a far greater measure than the 

 antique, the inspiring motives, of (Ghiberti, della Querela, Donatello, Luca 

 della Robbia, Verocchio and a long list of splendid names).* 



Winckelmann's " History of Ancient Art " appeared in 1764, after 

 long years of preparation. Pater says : 



It is since his time that many of the most significant examples of Greek art 

 have been submitted to criticism. He had seen little or nothing of what we 

 ascribe to the age of Pheidias; and his conception of Greek art tends, therefore, 

 to put the mere elegance of the imperial society of ancient Rome in place of the 

 severe and chastened grace of the paloestra. For the most part he had to 

 penetrate to Greek art through copies, imitations, and later Roman art itself 

 ... a turbid medium.* 



The foregoing extracts give the true doctrine. Roman art, not 

 Greek, furnished the inspiration of the Renaissance sculptor, speaking 

 generally. The tables that immediately follow furnish a striking proof. 



Dates at which Seventy-six of the most Celebrated 

 Statues were Found — Unearthed 

 A selection was made of seventy-six of the most famous statues of 

 Greece, and from Mr. Edward Robinson's scholarly catalogue of the 

 casts of the Boston Museum the dates at which these statues became 

 known to the world were set down. 

 The little table follows : 



' Robinson, Boston Museum Catalogue, p. 324. 



•"Italian Sculpture of the Middle Ages," introduction by J. C. Robinson, 

 superintendent of the art collections of the South Kensington Museum, London 

 (1862). 



• W. Pater, " Renaissance," p. 205. 



