Irritamenta
Numismatic Treasures of a Renaissance Collector
By (author) John Cunnally
Hardback (Published)
(August 2016)
ISBN: 9780897223423
8.46 x 10.94 inches
Price: $200.00
In stock
Winner of the 2017 Numismatic Literary Guild: Best Book About World Coins Award Handsomely bound in red leather, MS Typ 411 is one of thousands of rare editions, manuscripts, and documents in the Houghton Library’s Printing and Graphic Arts section at Harvard University. Resembling an old fashioned family Bible at 10 x 8 inches and some 300 pages, when opened this book reveals no text but a series of fine pen-and-ink drawings, 1,220 illustrations of ancient coins. These are the records of a coin collection owned by Andrea Loredan, a Venetian patrician well known in the 1550s and ’60s as a passionate connoisseur of antiquities. Silver tetradrachms of Athens and Alexander the Great, aurei of Philip and Augustus, denarii of Caesar and his assassins, large Imperial sestertii of Nero and Hadrian, the numismatic images were intended to delight the eye, stir the curiosity, and enflame the acquisitive instincts of prospective buyers, at a time when the cash-strapped patrician was seeking to liquidate the ancient treasures of his private museum. The volume was, in essence, a sales catalogue, a species of book not often sought out and admired for artistic or literary merit. Yet Loredan and his unknown draftsman, unaware of how they were benefiting future scholars, produced a graphic masterpiece of elegance and charm, a document of the highest importance for the study of Renaissance antiquarianism, humanism, and archaeology.
- By (author) John Cunnally
Other Titles in this Series
Coins of the Ptolemaic Empire, Part II
Ptolemy V through Cleopatra VII: Volume 1: Historical Introduction. Volume 2: Precious Metal Catalogue and Plates. Volume 3: Bronze Catalogue and Plates
Volume 46
Hidden Power
Late Cistophoric Production and the Organization of Provincia Asia (128-89 BC)
Volume 42
Roman Coins, Money, and Society in Elizabethan England
Sir Thomas Smith's 'On the Wages of the Roman Footsoldier'
Volume 36
Scythians and Greeks on the Western Black Sea
The Coinage of the Kings of Scythia Minor in Dobruja, 218/212-110 BCE
Volume 47
From Crime to Punishment
Counterfeit and Debased Currencies in Colonial and Pre-Federal America
Volume 27
Concordia Disciplinarum
Essays on Ancient Coinage, History, and Archaeology in Honor of William E. Metcalf
Volume 38
Coins of the Ptolemaic Empire, Part I (Volumes 1 and 2)
Vol 1: Precious Metal, Vol 2: Bronze
Volume 35
Connections, Communities, and Coinage
The System of Coin Production in Southern Asia Minor, AD 218-276
Volume 39
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