Woman in Science / With an Introductory Chapter on Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind

by J. A. Zahm

CHAPTER IX

WOMEN IN ARCHÆOLOGY

Archæology, in its broadest sense, is one of the most recent of the sciences, and may be said to be a creation of the nineteenth century. In its restricted sense, however, it dates back to the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. For it was at this period that the collector's zeal began to manifest itself, and that were brought together those priceless treasures of ancient art which are to-day the pride of the museums of Rome and Florence. It was then that Pope Sixtus IV and Julius II, his nephew, laid the foundations of the great museums of the Capitol and the Vatican, and enriched them with such famous masterpieces as the Ariadne, the Nile, the Tiber, the Laocoön and the Apollo Belvidere. Their example was quickly followed by such cardinals as Ippolito d'Este, Fernando de' Medici, and by representatives of the leading princely houses of the Italian peninsula. In rapid succession the palaces of the Borghese, Chigi, Pamphili, Ludovisi, Barbarini and Aldobrandini became filled with the choicest Greek and Roman antiques. In the course of time many of these treasures found their way to the museums of Venice, Madrid, Paris, Munich and Dresden, while still others were purchased by wealthy art connoisseurs in various parts of Europe and Great Britain.

In the beginning these antiques in marble and bronze were used chiefly for decorative purposes. "Courts, stairs, fountains, galleries and palaces were adorned with statues, busts, reliefs and sarcophagi applied in such a manner as to become incorporated in contemporary art and thereby to gain fresh life."[215]

These treasures of antiquity, statues, bas-reliefs, mosaics, coins, medals, busts, sarcophagi, and productions of ceramic art, although at first used almost exclusively for decorating palaces and villas and enriching museums, were eventually to become of inestimable value in the study of the history of art and the civilization of Greece and Rome, as well as of the various nations of antiquity with which they had come into contact. Besides this, they supplied the necessary raw material not only for classical archæology, but also for that more comprehensive science of archæology which deals with the art, the architecture, the language, the literature, the inscriptions, the manners, customs and development of our race from prehistoric times until the present day.

Among the women who took a prominent part in collecting material toward the advancement of archæologic science were those illustrious ladies—as celebrated for their knowledge and culture as for their noble lineage and their patronage of men of letters—who presided over the brilliant courts of Urbino, Mantua, Milan and Ferrara.

Preëminent among these were Elizabetta Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, and Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua. The palace of the former—"that peerless lady who excelled all others in excellence"—was famous for its precious antiques in bronze and marble, but above all for its superb collection of rare old books and manuscripts in Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

Isabella d'Este, who was through life the most intimate friend of Elizabetta Gonzaga, was acclaimed by her contemporaries as "the first lady in the world." She was a true daughter of the Renaissance, in the heart of which she was brought up; and "the small, passing incidents of her everyday life are to us memorials of the classic age when the gods of Parnassus walked with men."[216] She was an even more enthusiastic collector than the Duchess of Urbino, and her magnificent palace in Mantua was filled with the choicest works of Greek and Roman art that were then procurable.

She has been described as one who secured everything to which she took a fancy. She had but to hear of the discovery of a beautiful antique, a rare work in bronze or marble uncovered by the spade of the excavator, when she forthwith made an effort to procure it for her priceless collection. If that was not possible, she would not rest until she could secure something else even more precious. She aimed at supremacy in everything artistic and intellectual, and would be content with nothing short of perfection. Hence it is that her collection of antiques, like those of her friend, the Duchess of Urbino, is rightly regarded as having been of singular value in preparing the way for the foundation of scientific archæology—a foundation that was laid by the eminent German scholar, Winckelmann, in the eighteenth century by the publication of his masterly work—History of the Art of Antiquity.

The first woman of eminence to take an active part in archæologic excavation was the youngest sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, "the beautiful, clever and ambitious Caroline." When Joachim Murat became king of Naples, after his brother-in-law, Joseph Bonaparte, had in 1808 been transferred to the throne of Spain, his wife, Queen Caroline, gave at once a new impetus to the work of the excavation of Pompeii along the lines planned a few years before by the eminent Neapolitan scholar, Michele Arditi. She exhibited the keenest interest in the work, and the notable discoveries which were made under her inspiring supervision of this important undertaking show how much classical archæology owes to her intelligent and munificent patronage.