classical age as the highest point of civilization, followed
by a thousand-year downward spiral until the beginnings
of a revival in his own day. In the 15th century GHIBERTI
adapted this model to accord with the emerging ideology
of humanism, in which man is the measure of all things.
VASARIlikewise drew close parallels between the flowering
of antiquity and his own day. His The Lives of the Artists
(1550, 1568) also called for careful judgments to be made
in the attribution of works to individuals.
A concern for historical accuracy was one factor that
marked Renaissance antiquarianism as different from ear-
lier approaches. However, this was complicated by the fact
that, during the Latin Middle Ages, once a manuscript had
been copied, it was then used for some other purpose;
thus the texts that formed the basis of any later study were
tantalizingly one step removed from the originals. By the
end of the 14th century manuscripts were being more
carefully preserved, catalogued, and classified. As knowl-
edge of classical art and literature became more accurate
and more widespread, some legendary or bogus works
were debunked. But such knowledge could be put to other
uses: the Dominican scholar Giovanni Nanni (Annius) of
Viterbo (1432–1502) skillfully forged histories by ancient
authors, which drove real histories from the marketplace
for almost a century. A return to historical accuracy came
with the work of Joseph SCALIGER, editor of a long series
of Greek and Latin texts in the later 16th century. Using
philological and astronomical techniques, Scaliger recon-
structed the whole framework of dates that underpinned
ancient and medieval, Near Eastern and Western history.
In the Mediterranean area, remains from the classical
world were abundant and trade in antiquities was brisk.
CYRIAC OF ANCONAis an early example of an antiquarian
in the field. From the 1410s Francesco SQUARCIONEcol-
lected antiquities that would subsequently feature in his
paintings. The often chance unearthing of classical arte-
facts, such as the discovery of the Laocoön statue group in
Rome in 1506, encouraged antiquarian speculation. Be-
yond the boundaries of the Mediterranean world, emerg-
ing nation states sought to validate their identities by
looking to the remains of their own past and linking them
to the chronologies of classical antiquity. Without a time-
frame in which to accommodate prehistoric artefacts,
scholars believed that the megalithic monuments of
northern Europe, such as Stonehenge in England, were
the work of the Druids mentioned in Latin texts. Pierre
BELONand later Pietro DELLA VALLEcarried their antiquar-
ianizing interests to Egypt and beyond.
In England, beginning in 1536, Henry VIII dissolved
the monasteries and the Crown took possession of their li-
braries and treasuries (see DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTER-
IES). The preservation of the historically valuable contents
fell to private individuals since nothing came of the plan
to create a national library. The largest collection of Anglo-
Saxon manuscripts, for example, was that of Matthew
PARKER, archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I. He
contended that these documents would prove that the
early English Church was not under Rome’s authority. In-
deed, antiquities rarely were studied for their own
sake but put in the service of validating or refuting
claims about origins—whether local, dynastic, national,
or cultural.
Another side of antiquarianism, the sincere desire to
further knowledge no matter where it led, is exemplified
by Sir Robert Bruce COTTON, who made his collection
available to a range of people that included Francis BACON,
William CAMDEN, John Selden (1584–1654), and Bishop
James Ussher (1581–1656). Bacon wrote voluminously
about history’s scope and purpose; he was careful not to
equate philological scholarship or antiquarianism with
history. Camden, writing in Latin, won international re-
pute for his Britannia (1586), a survey of the antiquities of
England and Wales, especially the Roman remains. Selden
was employed by Cotton to copy records, and went on to
write England’s Epinomis and Janus Anglorum (1610),
which subsequently led to his being accounted the father
of legal antiquarianism. His De diis Syriis (1617) was sim-
ilarly pioneering in the method it brought to bear on an-
cient Near Eastern mythology. Ussher, an Irish theologian,
at one time possessed what was probably the largest col-
lection of books in western Europe, but is best known
today for pinpointing the moment when the universe was
created (October 23, 4004 BCE).
In summary, Renaissance antiquarianism took many
forms and served a host of objectives; by studying these,
we can recover some of the ways in which people of the
time sought to understand themselves and their world
using the past as a mirror.
See also: CABINETS; CRITICISM, TEXTUAL; EGYPTIAN
STUDIES
Further reading: Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Crit-
ics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Prince-
ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990); Graham Parry,
The Trophies of Time: English Antiquarians of the Seventeenth
Century (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1995).Antiquaries, Society of A British society dedicated to
the preservation of the national historic heritage. In its
original form it was founded in 1572 by Archbishop
Matthew PARKERwith the collaboration of William CAM-
DENand other scholars. Its early proceedings were pre-
served among Sir Robert COTTON’s papers and were
published in 1720 as A Collection of Curious Discourses.
James I suppressed the society in 1604, on suspicion of
political intrigue, but it was formally revived in 1717.antisemitism Contempt and hatred for JEWShas been ex-
pressed by many religious and other groups worldwide,
but the focus here is on early modern Christian anti-
semitism. Gavin I. Langmuir’s definition of the term isaannttiisseemmiittiissmm 2211