ABSTRACT
COLLECTORS AND ANTIQUARIANS It is often held that the ‘rediscovery’ of Greece came in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Indeed, it is true that until the late eighteenth century most educated west Europeans probably regarded their cultural origins as Roman and Christian. Language (Latin) was an important factor in this. An earlier rediscovery of Roman roots had occurred with Renaissance Italian artists drawing inspiration from Roman art. Yet, as studies like Richard Stoneman’s show (and in a different way that of Alain Schnapp: see Bibliography), there is a continuity in the reception of the remains of the past and those of Greece in particular. One manifestation of this is Classicism.
