Legend though it may be, yet the story is none the
less valuable as showing us the attitude of the Renaissance towards the
antique world. Archaeology to them was not a mere science for the
antiquarian; it was a means by which they could touch the dry dust of
antiquity into the very breath and beauty of life, and fill with the new
wine of romanticism forms that else had been old and outworn. From the
pulpit of Niccola Pisano down to Mantegna's 'Triumph of Caesar,' and the
service Cellini designed for King Francis, the influence of this spirit
can be traced; nor was it confined merely to the immobile arts--the arts
of arrested movement--but its influence was to be seen also in the great
Graeco-Roman masques which were the constant amusement of the gay courts
of the time, and in the public pomps and processions with which the
citizens of big commercial towns were wont to greet the princes that
chanced to visit them; pageants, by the way, which were considered so
important that large prints were made of them and published--a fact which
is a proof of the general interest at the time in matters of such
kind.
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