John Dee as an Antiquarian

Antiquarianism, like so many other movements of the Renaissance, began in Italy. Flavio Biondo made his antiquarian journeys in the middle of the fifteenth century, but it was not until the next century that the movement spread throughout Europe. ⁵⁷⁴ The leaders in this new pursuit were Guillaume BudÉ in France, Conrad Celtis and Beatus Rhenanus in Germany, and John Leland, John Bale and John Dee in England. There were two different, though entirely complementary, emphases of early antiquarian research. On the one hand, antiquarians often accepted historical legends without verification; on the other hand, some men were using antiquities to determine the true facts about history.