mportance of archaeology as a reviver of artistic and industrial
culture will be realised at once if the essential part it played in the
great Italian Renaissance is called to mind. Previous to the age of
Cimabue and Giotto in Florence, Italian refinement had passed steadily
down the path of deterioration. Graeco-Roman art, which still at a high
level in the early centuries of the Christian era, entirely lost its
originality during Byzantine times, and the dark ages settled down upon
Italy in almost every walk of life. The Venetians, for example, were
satisfied with comparatively the poorest works of art imported from
Constantinople or Mount Athos: and in Florence so great was the poverty
of genius that when Cimabue in the thirteenth century painted that
famous Madonna which to our eyes appears to be of the crudest
workmanship, the little advance made by it in the direction of
naturalness was received by the city with acclamations, the very street
down which it was carried being called the "Happy Street" in honour of
the event. Giotto carried on his master's teachings, and a few years
later the Florentines had advanced to the standard of Fra Angelico, who
was immediately followed by the two Lippis and Botticelli. Leonardo da
Vinci, artist, architect, and engineer, was almost contemporaneous with
Botticelli, being born not much more than a hundred years after the
death of Giotto. With him art reached a level which it has never
surpassed, old traditions and old canons were revived, and in every
direction culture proceeded again to those heights from which it had
fallen.

The reader will not need to be reminded that this great renaissance was
the direct result of the study of the remains of the ancient arts of
Greece and Rome. Botticelli and his contemporaries were, in a sense,
archaeologists, for their work was inspired by the relics of ancient
days.

Now, though at first sight it seems incredible that such an age of
barbarism as that of the later Byzantine period should return, it is
indeed quite possible that a relatively uncultured age should come upon
us in the future; and there is every likelihood of certain communities
passing over to the ranks of the absolute Philistines. Socialism run
mad would have no more time to give to the intellect than it had during
the French Revolution. Any form of violent social upheaval means
catalepsy of the arts and crafts, and a trampling under foot of old
traditions. The invasions