Empire without end: antiquities collections in Renaissance Rome, c.1350-1527

Uittreksel

In the early fifteenth century, when Romans discovered ancient marble sculptures and inscriptions in the ruins, they often melted them into mortar. A hundred years later, however, antique marbles had assumed their familiar role as works of art displayed in private collections. Many of these collections, especially the Vatican Belvedere, are well known to art historians and archaeologists. Yet discussions of antiquities collecting in Rome too often begin with the Belvedere, that is, only after it was a widespread practice. In this important book, the author steps back to examine the "long" fifteenth century, a critical period in the history of antiquities collecting that has received scant attention. Kathleen Wren Christian examines shifts in the response of artists and writers to spectacular archaeological discoveries and the new role of collecting antiquities in the public life of Roman elites.

Inhoud

I. Introduction -- II. Antiquity as Example: Rome in the Time of Petrarch and Cola di Rienzo -- III. The Poetics of the Collection: Cardinal Prospero Colonna's "Gardens of Maecenas" -- IV. Fictive Genealogies and Ancestral Collections in Fifteenth-Century Rome -- V. The Virtues of the Papal Collector: Paul II and Sixtus IV -- VI. Pomponio Leto and the Academic Garden -- VII. The Era of Collecting, 1480-1527.