The Roman military dress is so well known from the bas-reliefs of the times of Trajan, Hadrian, and Vespasian, that I need not go into any details respecting it. The only remark I would make is, that the linen drawers we see indicated in the sculptures, were not worn in the army before the wars of Gaul and Germany.
The dresses of the time of Constantine and his successors are very little known.
To some artists this is rather an attraction, as affording an opportunity of invention in costume, which is denied to them in a better known period; and it must be admitted that, provided they keep to what was likely to have been worn, no one can prove them to be wrong.
There are a few coins and medals in existence which give some idea of the appearance of an emperor or great personage, but of the dress of the common people we know nothing for certain.
In conclusion, I would remark that correctness in the matter of costume is far more necessary to an artist now than it was formerly. In this age of archæology and research we find, even on the stage, the most scrupulous fidelity observed, and it behooves us, as artists, not to lag behind.
You will find, both in the Academy library and at South Kensington, many excellent works on costume, and with such a mass of information within your reach it will be unpardonable if you fall into the anachronisms and absurdities of our ancestors.
LECTURE II.
BYZANTINE AND ROMANESQUE ART.
In the lectures I am about to deliver on Early Italian Art, I shall not enter into minute detail, nor shall I attempt a history of all the painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries who deserve mention. All I can hope to give you is a sort of bird’s-eye view of the various phases through which the Art of Painting passed from its lowest ebb to its highest development.
I feel as if you were a party of excursionists about to be personally conducted across a great art continent, and as if it behooved me, as your conductor, to perform my duty with judgment and discretion.
We shall have a vast desert to cross, where nothing is found to break the dull and ugly monotony of the scene. We cannot do better than take the express train for this part of our journey, and get over the ground as quickly as possible.