For a more elaborate work on women in medicine, the reader may consult with profit, _Histoire des Femmes Medecins_, by Mlle. Melanie Lepinska, Paris, 1900. CHAPTER IX WOMEN IN ARCHAEOLOGY Archaeology, in its broadest sense, is one of the most recent of the sciences, and may be said to be a creation of the nineteenth century. In its restricted sense, however, it dates back to the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. For it was at this period that the collector's zeal began to manifest itself, and that were brought together those priceless treasures of ancient art which are to-day the pride of the museums of Rome and Florence. It was then that Pope Sixtus IV and Julius II, his nephew, laid the foundations of the great museums of the Capitol and the Vatican, and enriched them with such famous masterpieces as the Ariadne, the Nile, the Tiber, the Laocoon and the Apollo Belvidere. Their example was quickly followed by such cardinals as Ippolito d'Este, Fernando de' Medici, and by representatives of the leading princely houses of the Italian peninsula. In rapid succession the palaces of the Borghese, Chigi, Pamphili, Ludovisi, Barbarini and Aldobrandini became filled with the choicest Greek and Roman antiques. In the course of time many of these treasures found their way to the museums of Venice, Madrid, Paris, Munich and Dresden, while still others were purchased by wealthy art connoisseurs in various parts of Europe and Great Britain. In the beginning these antiques in marble and bronze were used chiefly for decorative purposes. "Courts, stairs, fountains, galleries and palaces were adorned with statues, busts, reliefs and sarcophagi applied in such a manner as to become incorporated in contemporary art and thereby to gain fresh life."[215] These treasures of antiquity, statues, bas-reliefs, mosaics, coins, medals, busts, sarcophagi, and productions of ceramic art, although at first used almost exclusively for decorating palaces and villas and enriching museums, were eventually to become of inestimable value in the study of the history of art and the civilization of Greece and Rome, as well as of the various nations of antiquity with which they had come into contact. Besides this, they supplied the necessary raw material not only for classical archaeology, but also for that more comprehensive science of archaeology which deals with the art, the architecture, the language, the literature, the inscriptions, the manners, customs and development of our race from prehistoric times until the present day. Among the women who took a prominent part in collecting material toward the advancement of archaeologic science were those illustrious ladies--as celebrated for their knowledge and culture as for their noble lineage and their patronage of men of letters--who presided over the brilliant courts of Urbino, Mantua, Milan and Ferrara.