DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0377
LANSDOWNE COLLECTION.
333
tiques, till towards the end of the last century, when the
first Marquess of Lansdowne; Mr. Coke, of Hoikham,
since Lord Leicester; Mr. Thomas Hope, the Earls of
Carlisle and Egremont, Mr. Charles Townley, and others,
obtained and placed in their mansions, numerous and valu-
able fragments of antique sculpture.
The collection of the Marquess of Lansdowne dates
from about 1778. Gavin Hamilton, an English painter
and antiquary, who resided at Rome, before the papal go-
vernment had adopted those severe restrictions on the
exportation of antiques, which have since been thought ex-
pedient, found it a profitable speculation to commence exca-
vations on his own account, in the neighbourhood. He was
the first who, about 1769, opened up the site of Adrian’s
villa, at Tivoli, which has since proved an almost inex-
haustible mine of treasures. In a muddy pool, or swamp,
which had probably been a reservoir, or piscina, belonging
to the villa, were found many cart-loads of marble fragments
of heads, legs, arms, and bodies, which appeared to have
been purposely broken to pieces and thrown in; a proof that
the destruction here, as in other places, was not by the
sudden impulse of barbarian fury, but by the deliberate
operation of religious bigotry.* It appears certain that in
the time of Belisarius, all the ancient monuments of Rome
still remained entire, and were regarded by the inhabitants
with pride and reverence; so that the Goths and Vandals,
who had been in possession of the city for a century before,
were not really guilty of the ravages imputed to them, and
which have rendered their names a by-word, synonymous
with all we can conceive of ignorant barbarism. In the
history of mankind there has been no barbarism, no bar-
barity, equal to that of the religious bigot of the old and
the new world.
* Vide Transactions of the Dillettante Society,
333
tiques, till towards the end of the last century, when the
first Marquess of Lansdowne; Mr. Coke, of Hoikham,
since Lord Leicester; Mr. Thomas Hope, the Earls of
Carlisle and Egremont, Mr. Charles Townley, and others,
obtained and placed in their mansions, numerous and valu-
able fragments of antique sculpture.
The collection of the Marquess of Lansdowne dates
from about 1778. Gavin Hamilton, an English painter
and antiquary, who resided at Rome, before the papal go-
vernment had adopted those severe restrictions on the
exportation of antiques, which have since been thought ex-
pedient, found it a profitable speculation to commence exca-
vations on his own account, in the neighbourhood. He was
the first who, about 1769, opened up the site of Adrian’s
villa, at Tivoli, which has since proved an almost inex-
haustible mine of treasures. In a muddy pool, or swamp,
which had probably been a reservoir, or piscina, belonging
to the villa, were found many cart-loads of marble fragments
of heads, legs, arms, and bodies, which appeared to have
been purposely broken to pieces and thrown in; a proof that
the destruction here, as in other places, was not by the
sudden impulse of barbarian fury, but by the deliberate
operation of religious bigotry.* It appears certain that in
the time of Belisarius, all the ancient monuments of Rome
still remained entire, and were regarded by the inhabitants
with pride and reverence; so that the Goths and Vandals,
who had been in possession of the city for a century before,
were not really guilty of the ravages imputed to them, and
which have rendered their names a by-word, synonymous
with all we can conceive of ignorant barbarism. In the
history of mankind there has been no barbarism, no bar-
barity, equal to that of the religious bigot of the old and
the new world.
* Vide Transactions of the Dillettante Society,