ABSTRACT
This chapter critically examines the material of the Recueil Milliet, i.e., the commentaries and the book structure. Broadly speaking, the Recueil Milliet provides an overview of the state of knowledge concerning the history of Greco-Roman painting in the early twentieth century, and the discussions and questions that arose in the scientific community at that time are reflected. The turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, often referred to as the “Belle Epoque,” is generally perceived as a time of intense intellectual, scientific, artistic, and literary activity. It was also a time marked by major social, political, and technological changes. It is important to acknowledge that access to higher education was a privilege of the bourgeois elite at the beginning of the twentieth century. The same holds true for the study of Latin and Greek, which was the prerogative of a small portion of this elite class.
