Company of Dilettanti

The Société of Dilettanti (in English Dilettanti Society or Dilettanti ) is a Learned society British created during the year 1733 - 1734.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the Great Britain made important cultural great strides. The learned societies multiplied: an association of founded antique dealers with London in 1707, followed by Society off Antiquaries off London in 1718. At the time, in Europe, was born, within the community of the scholars, a new category of people seeking to establish an explanatory science of antiquities starting from an archaeological research and either only starting from philology. These people developing the objects more than the texts were, and can always be called, antique dealers, or English antiquaries.

It was in this atmosphere of development of the learned societies, clubs, academies, allowing the transmission of the ideas, as well as patronage or scientific or intellectual patronage of the aristocracy and upper middle class that the “Society Dilettanti” during the year 1733 created for itself off - 1734, creating a new form of patronage, collective, halfway between that of Royal Society and the individual patronage. The goal of this Company of Dilettanti was very clearly defined by Richard Chandler in the introduction of its work, financed by Dilettanti, Antiquities off Ionia :

“In 1734, of the gentlemen which had travelled in Italy, eager to encourage in Great Britain the Taste for these objects which had contributed so much to their entertainment abroad, founded a Company, bearing the name of Dilettanti. They reflect in place the rules which they considered necessary to preserve intact the spirit of their project. ”

The principal goal of this company was to discuss art and literature, but, as for much of other companies or academies of the time, the aspect socialization was not absent. Chandler continued besides, thus raising any illusion: “It would be naive to think that the promotion of arts was the only reason to found this Company. The social relations and friendly were undoubtedly the main objectives. ” That made say to Horace Walpole, which refused to be presented to it: “To become member about it, the first condition was saying to be to go to Italy, the true condition was: to be drunk. ”

The founding members, all young men, belonged to the British Establishment, noble big families going back sometimes to the conquest Norman, or commercial elite. They had done everything to them Grand Turn, even had been “merchant Turkey”, member thus of Raising Company. Their culture and their social position made them referees of the taste. Their links with the large intellectual companies of the time were close, that it with Royal Society founded at the 17th century, with Society off Antiquaries, Royal Society off Arts which had obtained its charter of the king Georges II in 1754, or with Royal Academy was founded in 1768. François-Charles Mougel, in the thesis which it devoted to Dilettanti, counted, between 1734 and 1800, 62 Dilettanti among the members of Royal Society, and 24 Dilettanti among those of Society off Antiquaries, and the first three Presidents of Royal Academy were of Dilettanti. These bonds show the progressive evolution of the Company during the 18th century, particularly under the influence of Richard Payne-Knight, one of his members more the scholars, and most influential. Lit amateurs, Dilettanti gave up little by little them through which Horace Walpole could reproach them, although the meetings continued to proceed monthly during a dinner. The generation which dominated after 1770 was made up scholars than of goods - alive, and the activities of Society became increasingly serious. That enabled him to play a determining role in the development of scientific archeology.

In addition, the conditions of recruitment evolved/moved. It was necessary for the beginning to have made the voyage of Italy to be allowed, the cost limiting the number of candidates socially. After 1764, it was enough to have travelled in a traditional country (Italy, Greece or Raising), and if one were of modest fortune, to be a professional of the culture, artist or man of letters. There one reads the widening of the Grand Turn, and the development of the role of the Company in the scientific and archaeological work. Like Winckelmann, Dilettanti supported fascination for ideal Greece, by a double role: by the voyages, those of the members, or those which they financed; and by the publication of reference books, generally resulting from these sponsored voyages.

The count of Sandwich, one of first Dilettanti, travelled to the Raising in 1738 - 1739, but its newspaper was published only in 1799. Its voyage was the prototype of what the posterior travellers did. He visited as well continental Greece as the islands. Using its traditional culture to interpret the ruins which it tried to locate thanks to its Pausanias, it sought to reach traditional civilization through Christianity and the Othoman influence. However, beyond its ancient interests, he did not forget contemporary reality: language, government or manners. It was also seen, like some then, to describe places where it could not go, like Rhodos, where the plague reigned. In 1749, Lord Charlemont visited the Égée accompanied by a painter, Richard Dalton. Many its fortunate successors followed his example while being made accompany by an artist able to illustrate the account of the tour or immortaliser the typical stages, landscapes, monuments or scenes. Lord Charlemont made publish in 1751 the engravings made starting from work of Dalton on the monuments and the sites, with some errors of detail which the following hastened to correct. It was the first work specialized there to appear, more or less thanks to Dilettanti, on the ancient Greece. The last of the voyages of Dilettanti themselves, mixing approval and science, was that of Wood and Dawkins in Syria in 1750-1751, whose return passed by the islands of the Égée and Athens where they met Stuart and Revett. They had left, like their following with a library including/understanding of the historians and the Greek poets, the books on antiquity, and the accounts of voyage.

James Stuart and Nicholas Revett carried out off the first of scientific truths voyages financed by Society Dilettanti. In the years 1740, they were with Rome, where they made function of cicerone for the milordi, which enabled them to bind close links with their future owners. In 1748, they reflect on foot project of a scientific and artistic voyage to Athens. Revett thought that it would take four years to carry out this project of which it estimated the cost at 10.000 books, spends which, according to him could be covered by the profit carried out during the publication of the results of work. None them had the means of financing such a forwarding, from where need for finding patrons. With Venice, Stuart and Revett met Sir James Gray, noble Scottish, reside British at Sérénissime. Impassioned ancient culture and of architecture, he was member of Society off Dilettanti. Gray got busy to find a financing for Stuart and Revett near this one. It launched a subscription, made them elect at the Company, obtained diplomatic recommendations to them, which was all the more easy as the Ambassador with Constantinople was him also member of Dilettanti. He also asked Stuart and Revett to write, for the Company what they proposed to carry out in Greece. That gave this opuscule of 1748: Proposals for Publishing year Accurate Description off the Antiquities off Athens , in which one sees the changes of prospect well, and real scientific progress:

“Among the travellers who visited these regions, several pointed out themselves by major literary knowledge, but all were informed too little in arts of painting, the sculpture and architecture to be able to give us a right idea of what they had seen. ”

The scientific voyage was financed, as well as the posterior publications of the results. Stuart and Revett could thus go to Athens and in the Cyclades, to the expenses of the Company between March 1751 and the autumn 1753. Between 1762 and 1820 appeared off the 4 volumes of The Antiquities Athens measured and delineated . In front of the scientific and literary success of the company, Dilettanti renewed the experiment. They financed the following decade the voyage of Richard Chandler, Nicholas Revett and William Pars which visited Ionie between 1764 and 1766, as well as the publication the results which was spread out 1769 with 1797.

In parallel, the members more the scholars of the Company published reference books on the Antique art. Richard Payne-Knight was then the referee of the taste, the prototype even of what the British called the connoisor , haloed virtù that it had acquired in Italy. Thus, when he affirmed that the marbles of the Parthenon, brought back to Great Britain by Thomas Bruce (Lord Elgin) were Roman, of the period of Hadrian, the Company as a whole known as like, and many were to him the British to accept his judgment. In 1805, it published off An Analytic Inquiry into the Principles Taste , where it affirmed that the Ideal Beautiful did not exist but that the Greek statues proposed models of beauty, grace and elegance. Well there one sees his importance in the formation of fascination for ancient Greece. In 1809, Society off Dilettani published off Specimens Antient Sculpture , under the direction of Richard Payne-Knight. This work, of great importance in the development of the knowledge of the Antique art, was carried out starting from the collections of Dilettanti. Sixty-three works of art there being presented, of which twenty-three pertaining to R. Payne-Knight. The second volume of the Specimens off Ancient Sculpture , going back to 1835, was prefaced by John Sawrey Morritt off Rokeby, member of Dilettanti, and which had travelled in Égée in the years 1790.

In 1812, launching by Dilettanti of the second forwarding of Ionie however marked the song of the swan of the Company, little by little being erased Dilettantism, because perhaps of their stubbornness, R. Payne-Knight the first, to refuse to allot the marbles of the Parthenon to Phidias. It is true that such an attribution could have devalued their own collections, often made up of Roman copies glanées in Italy. The fact that Ennio Quirino Visconti, disciple of Winckelmann declared that work was of Phidias then did much wrong to Dilettanti. Their scientific and intellectual influence was perhaps also erased in front of the arrival of more powerful institutions, like the British Museum. In 1785 already, the Company had given to the museum an inscription coming from the Érechthéion, and brought back to Great Britain by Chandler forwarding.

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