Musēum
（
Μουσεῖον). Originally a temple of the Muses, then a place
dedicated to the works of the Muses. In this sense the most remarkable and most important
museum of antiquity was that established at Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus in the first
half of the third century B.C., or perhaps by his father, Ptolemy Soter. This institution
contributed very largely towards the preservation and extension of Greek literature and
learning. It was a spacious and magnificent edifice, supplied with everything requisite for
its purpose, such as an observatory, a library, a portico (
περίπατος), a public lecture-room (
ἐξέδρα), and
a large hall or common-room where the professors dined together. There were also botanical and
zoölogical gardens. It lay near the royal palace and communicated immediately with
the temple of the Muses. Noted men of erudition were there supported at the cost of the State,
to enable them to devote themselves to their learned studies without interruption. They were
under the supervision of principals chosen from their own body, while the priest of the Muses
was at their head. The Museum was practically, therefore, a great university. Its scholars
formed four faculties—letters, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine; and there are
said to have been at one time as many as 14,000 students in attendance. Under the Roman
emperors, when Egypt had become a province of the Empire, it was still continued as an
imperial institute and the centre of all learning, especially in mathematics and astronomy
(Strabo, p. 794). Caracalla confiscated the pensions of the learned men attached to it, and
the institution itself was completely destroyed during the Civil Wars under Aurelian in the
third century.
The Alexandrian Museum was probably suggested by the Museum at Athens founded in accordance
with the will of Theophrastus, the pupil of Aristotle (
Diog. Laert. v.
5). This may have taken its name from the earlier
Μουσεῖον at Stagira, Aristotle's birthplace. The Athenian Museum was like that of
Alexandria in its general purpose, though on a much smaller scale. See
Education, p. 572; and for the Alexandrian Library attached to the
Museum, the article
Bibliotheca. On the
influence of the two, see
Alexandrian
School;
Canon Alexandrinus. The
following works may also be consulted: Parthey,
Das alexandrinische
Museum (Berlin, 1838); Ritschl,
Opuscula, i. pp. 1- 70,
123-172, 197-237; Susemihl,
Gesch. der alexandrin. Literatur, i. pp. 327 foll.
Modern Museums.—The modern museums that are of the greatest interest to the classical student because of the value of their
archaeological collections, are the following:
1.
the various collections of the
Vatican at Rome, comprising the Museo
Chiaramonte, the Museo Pio-Clementino (in which are the Apollo Belvidere, the
Laocoön group, the so-called statue of Antinoüs, the most beautiful statue
in the world, and the tomb of Scipio Barbatus), the Braccio Nuovo, opened in 1820; the Museo
Gregoriano, with a superb collection of Etruscan antiquities, and the Egyptian Museum;
2.
the
Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitol, containing the famous
Capitoline Wolf, with Romulus and Remus, and many Etruscan terra-cottas;
3.
the
Capitoline Museum, founded by Innocent X., and containing the so-called
Dying Gladiator, the Satyr of Praxiteles (a copy), a fine collection of busts of celebrated
characters of antiquity, a collection of the busts of the Roman emperors, the mosaic called
the Capitoline Doves, and the Capitoline Venus;
4.
the
Kircherian Museum, founded by the Jesuit, Kircher, about 1680,
containing the
Cista Ficoroniana (q.v.)
and the famous caricature of the crucifixion (see
Graffiti);
5.
the
Museum of the Lateran (Museum Gregorianum Lateranense), established in
1843 by Pope Gregory XVI., and containing a famous statue of Sophocles;
6.
the
Museo Nazionale at Naples, formerly the
Museo Reale
Borbonico, famous for its immense collection of objects found at Herculaneum and
Pompeii, for its collection of inscriptions, and for the statues of the Farnese Hercules, the
Farnese Bull, Venus Callipygé, etc.;
7.
the collections of the
Galleria degli Uffizi at Florence, containing the
Venus de' Medici, the Wrestlers (see p. 758), and numerous inscriptions, bronzes, and
gems;
8.
the
Louvre in Paris, with a splendid collection of inscriptions, the Venus
de Milo, the Borghese Athlete, the Victory of Samothrace, the Melpomené, the
Polymnia, and remarkable terra-cottas, fragments of sculptures from the Parthenon, Olympia,
and Assos, with many painted vases;
9.
the
British Museum in London, opened in 1759, and containing the Elgin
Marbles, the Phigalion Marbles, the Xanthian (Lycian) Marbles, the Halicarnassian Marbles,
besides immense treasures of art in the shape of statuary, with inscriptions, etc., making it
perhaps the finest collection in the world;
10.
the
Glyptothek at Munich, with a remarkable collection of some 1300 ancient
vases;
11.
the
Royal Museum at Berlin, with objects found at Troy and Pergamus;
12.
the
Imperial Museum at Vienna, with an especially fine collection of
bronzes;
13.
the
Museum of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, rich in vases and jewels;
14.
the
Museum at Athens, with marbles from the Theseum, objects from Mycenae,
and funerary remains. The most noted museum in America is the
Metropolitan
Museum in New York, containing a fine collection of objects from Cyprus, collected by
Gen. di Cesnola. See
Cyprus.
