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The British museum. The Townley gallery [by sir.H. Ellis].
The British museum The Townley gallery - by sir.H. Ellis Author:Henry Ellis Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III. REVIVAL OF THE TASTE FOR ANCIENT SCULPTURE, WITH ITS PROGRESS IN EUROPE. The establishment of another capital of the Roman empire at Byzantium... more », the removal thither of the imperial court, the subsequent division of the empire into eastern and western, and the removal of the most valuable statuary from the old metropolis, by Constantine's order, gave a fatal blow to the grandeur of Rome. This was towards the middle of the fourth century. Italy, in the fifth and sixth centuries after Christ, was subjected to the inroads of the northern hordes. The rage of superstition, too, followed the ferocity of barbarian conquerors, and the desolation finally became so general, that of the innumerable specimens of art which decorated the palaces and villas of the Roman nobility till the times of the later emperors, scarcely a specimen or a vestige could be discovered in the beginning of the fifteenth century. Poggio Bracciolini, the Florentine, who lived at that time, in his treatise on the " Vicissitudes of Fortune," says that even the city of Rome could only display six statues, five of marble and one of brass, the remains of its former splendour1. Four of these were extant in the Baths of 1 " Hoc videbitur levius fortasse, sed me máxime movet, quod his suhjiciam ; ex innumeris fermé colossis, statuisquetum ???- moréis turn señéis (nam argénteas atque áureas minime miror fuisse eonflatas) viris illustribus ob virtutempositis. ut omittam varia signa, voluptatis atque artis causa publiée ad spectaculum cullocata, marmóreas quinqué tantùm, quatuor in Constantin! thermie ; duas atante pone equos, Phidiae et Praxitelis opus ;Constantine, the others were that on Monte Cavallo, and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, at that time called Septimius Severus. Petrarch's complai...« less