XXX. On Antiquarian Excavations and Researches in the Middle Ages. By Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., Hon. M.R.S.L., Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, &c., in a Letter to Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S., Secretary

Abstract

Among the ornaments of the splendid votive altar exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries last year by M. le colonel Theubet were three antique engraved gems, one of which, I believe, represented a head of Socrates, another a scarabæus, and the third a figure offering sacrifice at an altar. We have many proofs of the care with which ancient gems and cameos were sought and preserved in the middle ages, and it is probable that some of the most beautiful specimens known in modern times have been derived from the monastic treasuries. The superstition of a barbarous age regarded these relics as things endowed with magic qualities, which possessed healing and protective virtues that rendered them precious to the possessor. It appears that they were sometimes even regarded as natural productions, not formed by the hand of man. As early as the twelfth century (at least) we meet with regular inventories of such gems, with an enumeration of their virtues according to the figures they bore; and I now beg to lay before the society an inventory of this kind in Latin, which is the one of most common occurrence in manuscripts. It appears to me that it possesses considerable interest, and that it may be appropriately introduced by a few anecdotes from old writers illustrative of the excavations and researches amid the ruins of antiquity made by monks and others in the middle ages.

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