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French Archaeology in the Classical World

France was not in the forefront as a founder of archaeological science. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was the Italians, such as cyriac of ancona and Pirro Ligorio, who were the pioneers in the field, which was only to be expected given the abundance of antiquities on Italian soil. Meanwhile in France, as elsewhere in the western world, the climate of the Renaissance and the spread of humanism sparked an interest in antiquity. The humanists were concerned primarily with the writings of earlier authors and the discovery of new manuscripts; archaeology took second place to philology. Mention should be made of the collections of King Francis I (1494–1547) of France and the casts he commissioned of Roman remains.

In the seventeenth century, however, the presence of the French was very significant in the field of classical archaeology. Nicolas-Claude de Fabri, seigneur of Peiresc, was typical of the new breed of French antiquarian. He was a councilor at the parliament of Aix-en-Provence and was interested in law and sciences as well as archaeology. His cabinet of curios, one of the most famous in Europe, testified to his eclectic tastes: antiques were displayed alongside works of art and natural curiosities. For him, an artifact was not merely a sign of prestige but also an object of study that led to knowledge of antiquity. Although he never published any of his research, he had a considerable influence on scholars through the network of connections he established in Europe. Yet his influence had its limitations; even though he had done the grand tour of Italy, he remained more interested in collectable objects than in historical monuments, more interested in written works than in sites to be explored.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, a new spirit of inquiry appeared as the result of voyages by both scholars and ambassadors accompanied by artists and men of letters. In 1674, the marquis of Nointel, the French ambassador at the Turkish court, visited Athens and had drawings made of the sculpted marble of the Parthenon—pediments, frieze, and metopes—thus preserving a record of the state of the temple before it was badly damaged by the Venetians in 1687. One sign of the new way of thinking was that antiquarians began to concede a greater importance to material sources, which they saw as being more reliable records than the printed word. They were particularly interested in inscriptions and coins found at the sites where they had been made.

Jacques Spon may be seen as the best example of this new type of antiquarian. He was a doctor