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Egypt and Egyptian Antiquities in the Renaissance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

Karl H. Dannenfeldt
Karl H. Dannenfeldt*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University, Tempe
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Extract

The true beginnings of Egyptology and the scientific collecting of Egyptian antiquities in the museums of Europe are properly assigned to the nineteenth century. However, the first signs of interest in the ancient land of the Pharaohs and its fabulous monuments were evident in the time of the Renaissance, for the humanistic regard for the material vestiges of the classical civilizations and the literature of Greece and Rome quite naturally led to an interest in the preclassical civilizations of the near east.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 6 , 1959 , pp. 7 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1959

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References

1 Cf. Wiedemann, Alfred, Aegyptische Ceschichte (Gotha, 1884), p. 103 Google Scholar. A. von Gutschmid lists the works of seventy-nine Greek authors from Hecataeus Milesius, who visited Egypt between 513 and 501 B.C., to Georgius Cerenus of Byzantium, who wrote about 1058 A.D. (‘De rerum Aegyptiacarum scriptoribus Graecis’, Philologus x, 1855, 522-542, 635-700, 712-723). Cf. also Ibrahim-Hilmy, , The Literature of Egypt and the Soudan from the Earliest Times to the Year 1885 Inclusive, 2 vols. (London, 1886-1887)Google Scholar.

2 The Five Books of Gargantua and Pantagruel, Bk. v, xxxi.

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5 Cf. the 1515 edition (Paris), fols. xxvii-xxviii. In 1518, Johann Stabius, court historian and genealogist, prepared for Emperor Maximilian a ‘Stammbaum’ which traced his lineage through Noah, Cham, Osiris of Egypt and his son, the Egyptian Hercules. Maximilian found this genealogy ‘ziemlich abenteuerlich', though not so much because of the Egyptian ancestors as because of the possible reaction of the theologians to the alleged connection of his family with the Biblical patriarchs (Simon Laschitzer, ‘Die Genealogie des Kaisers Maximilian I.’, Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses VII, 1888, 39).

6 Fueter, Eduard, Geschichte der neueren Historiographie (Munich, 1911), pp. 183 Google Scholar, 191, 195, 214, 222-225.

7 Ficino, Opera (Basel, 1561), II, 1836. Cf. also, e.g., Steuchus, Augustinus, De perenni philosophia libri X (Lyons, 1540), p. 7 Google Scholar.

8 The subject is much too vast to be dealt with here. See especially Giehlow, Karl, ‘Die Hieroglyphenkunde des Humanismus in der Allegorie der Renaissance, besonders der Ehrenpforte Kaisers Maximilian I.’, Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen XXXII (1915), 1–218 Google Scholar, and Volkmann, Ludwig, Bilderschriften der Renaissance (Leipzig, 1923)Google Scholar.

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22 Samuel Kiechel, who was in Egypt in 1588, repeats the same story of the drowned and unburied Pharaoh. Kiechel started to go into the great pyramid, but became frightened and fled without seeing the empty sarcophagus; cf. Die Reisen des Samuel Kiechel, ed. Haszler, K. D., Bibliothek des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart LXXXVI (1866), 375–380 Google Scholar.

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26 Belon, Les Observations, fol. 114a; Affagart, G., Relation de Terre Sainte (1533-1534), ed. Chavanon, J. (Paris, 1902), p. 166 Google Scholar. Belon was especially struck by the appearance of the pyramids, for he adds the un-humanistic remark: ‘With all of our regard for the Roman antiquities and works of art, we must yet admit, that nothing can be found among them to equal the splendor and grandeur of the pyramids’, and ‘When one closely observes the ruins and antiquities of Rome, it is evident that the greatest part are of such pieces as were brought there from Egypt, and were finished already in unimaginable time’ (Les Observations, fols. 113a and 116b).

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31 Hakluyt Society ed., XCIV, 898-899.

32 Ibid., pp. 900, 902-904, 911.

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37 Dawson, Warren R., ‘References to Mummification by Greek and Latin Authors’, Aegyptus IX (1928), 106–112 Google Scholar; idem, A Bibliography of Works Relating to Mummification in Egypt (Cairo, 1929, Mémoires de l'Institut d'Egypte XIII).

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41 Cf. the French translation of his Liber de simplici medicina aictus Circa instans, ed. Paul Dorveaux (Paris, 1913), pp. 120-121 (Nos. 700-704).

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49 In his ‘Discours de la Mumie’ (op. cit., III, 481-482).

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51 Ibid., pp. 145-146.

52 Paré, , Oeuvres, III, 478.Google Scholar

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54 Statuti inediti della citta di Pisa dal XII al XIV secolo, ed. Francesco Bonaini, III (Florence, 1857), 438: Et de soldatis XX mummie, ab unaquaque parte.. .dr. 1.

55 Pegolotti, F. B., Lapractica della mercatura, ed. Evans, Alan (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), pp. 70, 124, 179, 295Google Scholar. The list is reproduced in Lopez, R. S. and Raymond, I. W., Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World (New York, 1955), pp. 108–114 Google Scholar.

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58 Sylva sylvarum, cent, x, 980.

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61 Madden, R. R., Travels in Turkey, Egypt, Nubia, and Palestine, II (London, 1829), 90 Google Scholar.

62 On the special character of the mummies of young Egyptian girls, see Bodin, , Heptaplomeres. Book IV; de Roquefort, M., Des Sepultures nationales (Paris, 1824), p. 141 Google Scholar.

63 Vetustissimae tabulae Aeneae hieroglyphicis… Aegyptiorum literis cœlatce typus… denuo … opera… Iacobi Franci prodit (Venice, 1600).

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69 Ibid., p. 123.

70 Cf. Pliny, Natural History, XXXVI. 14 and 15; XVI. 76; Ammianus Marcellinus, History, XVII. 4; Gorringe, H. H., Egyptian Obelisks (London, 1885), pp. 126–133 Google Scholar; Erman, Adolf, Römische Obelisken (Berlin, 1917)Google Scholar.

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74 Nibby, Antonio, Roma nell' anno MDCCCXXXVIII, II (Rome, 1839), 289–290 Google Scholar; Gatteschi, Giuseppe, The Grandeur that was Rome (New York, 1954), pp. 96–97 Google Scholar. Early in the sixteenth century, in the area of the Iseum, were found the statues of the Nile and the Tiber, showing the connection between the Egyptian religion and Rome ( Nibby, , op. cit., pp. 673–674 Google Scholar).

75 Nibby, , op. cit., pp. 265–270 Google Scholar. The obelisk was reërected in 1792.

76 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice, 1499), fig. 3. The architect who constructed the pyramid and the obelisk is recorded as ‘Lichas the Libian’ (Egyptian). In 1667, Pope Alexander VII erected one of the Roman obelisks in the Piazza della Minerva, placing it upon the back of a marble elephant.

77 Book IV, XXX.

78 Oeuvres, ed. Ch. Marty-Laveaux, in (Paris, 1873), 201.

79 Agrippa, , Trattato di scientia d'arme (Rome, 1553)Google Scholar, fol. LXIII. The picture is attributed to Michelangelo; cf. Olschki, L. S., Le Livre en Italie à trovers les siècles (Florence, 1914), pl. III, fig. IGoogle Scholar.

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81 Jordan, op. cit., refers to the Bull of Leo IX, 1053: agulia, quae vocatur sepulcrum Iulii Caesaris. The globe is now in the Conservatori Museum, its surface punctured by bullet holes made in the sack of Rome in 1527.

82 Mercati, Michele, De gli obelischi di Roma (Rome, 1589), pp. 340–342 Google Scholar; Müntz, Eugene, Les arts à la cour des papes pendant le XVe et le XVIe siecle, I (Paris, 1878), 83 Google Scholar.

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85 Fontana explained, by text and numerous illustrations, the engineering problems which the moving of the obelisk presented in his Della trasportatione dell’ obelisco Vaticano et delle fabriche di nostro signore Papa Sisto V.fatte dal cavallier Domenico Fontana (Rome, 1590). Part of this work has been paraphrased by Lebas, M. A. in his L'Obelisque de Luxor (Paris, 1839), pp. 169–186 Google Scholar. Cf. also the sixteen plates (XXXVII-LII) in Castelli, e ponti di maestro Niccola Zabaglia con alcune ingegnose pratiche, e con la descrizione del trasporto dell’ obelisco vaticano e di altri del cavaliere Domenico Fontana (Rome, 1743). Earlier Camillo Agrippa of Milan had discussed the problem in his Trattato … di trasportar laguglia in su la Piazza di San Pietro (Rome, 1583). Cf. also Dibner, Bern, Moving the Obelisks (New York, 1950)Google Scholar, and Parsons, W. B., Engineers and Engineering in the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1939)Google Scholar, chap. IX.

86 Pastor, , op. cit., pp. 256–259 Google Scholar. The traveler Kiechel, Samuel, op. cit., pp. 167–168 Google Scholar, described this and the other obelisks which he saw in Rome. Cf. also Shakespeare, Sonnet No. 123; Nibby, , op. cit., pp. 283–289 Google Scholar.

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88 Nibby, , op. cit., pp. 261–262 Google Scholar. This was one of the two obelisks discovered near S. Rocco shortly before 1527.

89 Mercati, , op. cit., pp. 372–392 Google Scholar. Cf. also Obelisci Augusti inscriptio ab Josepho Castalione jurisconsulto explicata (Rome, 1589) in Graevius, op. cit., cols. 1857-1866; Nibby, , op. cit., 276–280 Google Scholar.

90 Pastor, , op. cit., pp. 258–259 Google Scholar, 267; Nibby, , op. cit., p. 288 Google Scholar.

91 Mercati, , op. cit., pp. 393–397 Google Scholar. In chap, XI, ‘Delle lettere Hieroglifiche', he introduces for comparison the picture writing of the Aztecs of Mexico (pp. 96-97).

92 Scott, Walter, Hermetica, 1 (Oxford, 1924), 343 Google Scholar: Asclepius III, 25.