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62 AMERICAN CATHOLIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
chiefit is particularly recorded that he applied hl"f5e1“f’fh‘-‘ elugi:
dation of Roman antiquities, ?which were then being disinterre ,
should have been familiar with these earliest monuments ot
the heroic age of Christianity, and yet never have felt sufficient
interest to excite them to investigate their history or to publish
anything at all about them. Whatever the)’ ma)’ fef‘11Y have
believed, we cannot wonder at the charge brought against them
by their contemporaries, and which wefind addressed to one of
them by a Bishop even after their acquittal-that they were more
pagans than Christians.” (Northcote and Brownlow, Roma Sob-
Ierazzea.) . ,
The Academy, purged or evil members and corrected in its
chief, rose up again during the pontificate of Paul's successor,
Sixtus IV. The Emperor Frederick III., visiting Rpme, granted
many privileges to the Academy by a diploma which was read
amidst great enthusiasm on occasion of the first celebration of the
foundation of Rome (B. C. 753), which took place on the Capitol
on April 21, 1483, and ended with an imperial banquet. This
historic fwesstill sometimes called, with a lingering trace of
pagan thought, the birthday of Romeehas continued to be kept
ever since ; and I would refer anyoiie asking for the raz‘z'mzale ot
such a celebration to the eloquent discourse, entitled Roma xlflermz,
pronounced on one of these occasions by Cardinal Manning, and
published in a volume of his Zllzkcellanies.
Outside’ of Italy, and particularly in France and Germany, the
study of antiquities was eagerly pursued; but the earliest society
for historical studies-and the preservation of ancient monuments,
founded north of the Alps, was the Society of Antiquaries in.
England. It was begun in the year 1572 by a few eminent
scholars, and ‘continues to be one of the very best societies of its-
kind in Europe, for the rank and erudition of its members, for
the number and costliness of its publications, and for the zeal
with which it has suggested and furthered the study of native
history and the preservation of antiquities in all countries through-
out the world to which the power of Great Britain has extended.
In France the oldest society for the study of history and antiqui-
ties is the Academie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, es-
tablished in 1663, in the reign of Louis XIV. In I7OI this Acade-
my was placed upon anew and more extended foundation and
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