Explore "The Poetry of Archaeology" by Oscar Wilde on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Infessura tells us that in 1485 some workmen digging on the Appian Way / came across an old Roman sarcophagus inscribed with the name 'Julia, / daughter of Claudius. ' On opening the coffer they found within its / marble womb the body of a beautiful girl of about fifteen years of age, / preserved by the embalmer's skill from corruption and the decay of time. / Her eyes were half open, her hair rippled round her in crisp curling / gold, and from her lips and cheek the bloom of maidenhood had not yet / departed. Borne back to the Capitol, she became at once the centre of a / new cult, and from all parts of the city crowded pilgrims to worship at / the wonderful shrine, till the Pope, fearing lest those who had found the / secret of beauty in a Pagan tomb might forget what secrets Judaea's rough / and rock-hewn sepulchre contained, had the body conveyed away by night, / and in secret buried. 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. -- _The Truth of Masks_.