eed he sought after, honorary degrees of
academies and learned societies.

But he achieved greatest prominence by that great document of his
merits, over which he silently labored with great diligence--I refer to
his _History of Ancient Art_. It was immediately translated into the
French language, and made him known far and wide.

The real value of such a work is perhaps best appreciated immediately
after its publication: its efficiency is recognized, the new matter is
quickly adopted. The contemporaries are astonished at the sudden
assistance they obtained, while a colder posterity nibbles disgustedly
at the works of its masters and teachers, and makes demands which would
never have occurred to it, if the very men criticised had not
accomplished so much.

And so Winckelmann was recognized by the cultured nations of Europe at a
time when he was sufficiently established at Rome to be honored with the
important position of Director of Antiquities.

RESTLESSNESS

Notwithstanding his recognized and often vaunted happiness, Winckelmann
was always tortured by a restlessness which, as its foundations lay deep
in his nature, assumed various forms.

During the times of his early poverty and his later dependence upon the
bounty of a court and the favor of many a wellwisher, he always limited
himself to the smallest needs, that he might not become dependent or at
least not more dependent than absolutely necessary. In the meantime he
was always strenuously occupied in gaining by his own exertions a
livelihood for the present and for the future, for which at length the
successful illustrated edition of his Monumenti Inediti offered the
fairest hope.

But these uncertain conditions accustomed him to look for his
subsistence now here, then there; now to accept a position with small
advantage to himself--in the house of a cardinal, in the Vatican or
elsewhere; then, when he saw some other prospect, magnanimously to give
up his place, while looking about for something else and lending an ear
to many a proposition.

Further, one who lives in Rome is constantly exposed to the passion for
traveling to all parts of the world. He finds himself in the centre of
the ancient world, and the lands most interesting to the investigator of
antiquity lie close about him. Magna Graecia, Sicily, Dalmatia, the
Peloponnesus, Ionia, and Egypt--all of them are, so to say, offered to
the inhabitants of Rome, and awaken an inexpressible longing in