THE OCCUPATIONS OF ANTIQUARIANS
THE AESTHETIC EDUCATION OF EUROPE
Portait of Joseph Scaliger, from Illustris academia Lugd-Batava
While fantasy played an important role in classical studies, the most vital element of antiquarian practice was scholarly diligence. Every antiquarian worthy of the name had a mastery of classical Latin and, after an uneasy start, Greek, and had read widely in the history, rhetoric, philosophy, and poetry of both languages. These textual sources provided a framework within which the other, material, remnants of antiquity could be integrated. Coins and inscriptions proved congenial to the textual approach. Sculpture and architecture were regarded with more suspicion by antiquarians, but were studied avidly by contemporary artists. Antiquarianism was not, however, a simple matter of consuming and repeating information. Extensive reflection on the material and literary remains of the long-dead gave rise to an ethical outlook that we today call "humanism." This was defined by the 20th-century art historian Erwin Panofsky as "the conviction of the dignity of man, based on both the insistence on human values (rationality and freedom) and the acceptance of human limitations (fallibility and frailty); from this, two postulates result - responsibility and tolerance."