Last updated 10th July 2024: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2010
During the sixteenth century, antiquarians increasingly developed a self-conscious identity as a professional group with specific social, intellectual and artisan skills. Their activity was not linked to a particular place though: antiquities surfaced from the earth both inside and outside the city walls and were traded in streets, squares, private houses and gardens. Using the Stampa brothers as a case-study, this article investigates the role and commercial strategies of antiquarians and their ability to cross the boundaries of social groups, since they had to deal with artisans, peasants and artists on one side, and cardinals and gentlemen on the other.
1 McCrory, M., ‘An antique cameo of Francesco I de’ Medici: an episode from the story of the grand-ducal cabinet of anticaglie’, in Le arti del principato mediceo (Florence, 1980), 315, doc. 6Google Scholar. On Stefano Degli Alli as a Medicean agent see ibid., 308–11. A complete version of this letter is in Barocchi, P. and Bertelà, G. Gaeta (eds.), Collezionismo mediceo. Cosimo I, Francesco I e il cardinale Ferdinando (Modena, 1993), 210–12, doc. 232Google Scholar.
2 Among the exceptions, see Goldberg, E., Patterns in the Late Medici Art Patronage (Princeton, 1983)Google Scholar, who first attempted to define the profile of the early modern art agent. A few years later, in 1987, André Chastel and Krzysztof Pomian pointed out the centrality of the role of art intermediaries, both in the past and present, in a monographic issue of Revue de l'art, 77 (1987), and in particular in their contribution entitled ‘Les intermédiaires’, 5–9.
3 For this point see Howarth, D., ‘A question of attribution. Art agents and the shaping of the Arundel collection’, in Cools, H., Keblusek, M. and Noldus, B. (eds.), ‘Your Humble Servant’. Agents in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800 (Hilversum, 2006), 17–28Google Scholar. Various examples of the role played by agents in assembling their masters’ collection can be found in the volumes of the correspondence between the Gonzaga dukes of Mantua and their agents based in Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, Prague, Bologna, Parma and Piacenza, published by different authors under the title Le collezioni Gonzaga, 7 vols. (Milan, 2000–03).
4 For a survey of the bibliography on agents in early modern Europe, see Keblusek et al., ‘Your Humble Servant’. Colloquia on agents were held, for example, in Rome (‘Agency in early modern Europe’, Royal Netherlands Institute, Feb. 2004; ‘Rome and the constitution of a European cultural heritage in the early modern period: the impact of agents and correspondents on art and architecture’, Hertziana Library, Oct. 2005), while a four-session panel entitled ‘Agents, brokers, and intermediaries: the circulation of art works in the early modern period (1500–1650)’, organized by Elena Fumagalli and Cinzia Maria Sicca Bursill-Hall, was presented at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Venice in 2010. William Petty, agent of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, featured as the main character in a novel by Lapierre, A., Le voleur d'éternité: la vie aventureuse de William Petty, érudit, esthète et brigand (Paris, 2004)Google Scholar.
5 Records of trials and investigations drawn up by the officials of the Criminal Tribunal of the governor of Rome, in the Archivio di Stato di Roma, Tribunale criminale del Governatore (hereafter ASRm, TCG), have been essential for this research. On the usefulness of trials as sources for historical research, see Cohen, T.V. and Cohen, E., Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates (Toronto, Buffalo and London, 1993), 3–33Google Scholar.
6 de Nolhac, P., ‘Les collections d'antiquités de Fulvio Orsini’, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, 4 (1884), 153–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Fulvio Orsini, see Cellini, G.A., Il contributo di Fulvio Orsini alla ricerca antiquaria (Rome, 2004)Google Scholar, with previous bibliography; in particular, on his art collection see Hochmann, M., ‘Les dessins et les peintures de Fulvio Orsini et la collection Farnèse’, Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome / Italie et Méditerranée, 105 (1993), 49–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 On Alessandro Grandi and his involvement in the trade in antiquities, see Corradini, E., ‘Le raccolte estensi di antichità. Primi contributi documentari’, in Bentini, J. and Spezzaferro, L. (eds.), L'impresa di Alfonso II. Saggi e documenti sulla produzione artistica a Ferrara nel secondo Cinquecento (Bologna, 1987), 163–92Google Scholar.
8 ASRm, TCG, Investigazioni, vol. 99, fol. 56v.
9 On the relationship between market places and the urban fabric, see Calabi, D., Il mercato e la città. Piazze, strade, architetture d'Europa in età moderna (Venice, 1993)Google Scholar. On the Roman market places, see Modigliani, A., Mercati, botteghe e spazi di commercio a Roma tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna (Rome, 1998)Google Scholar, in particular for Campo de’ Fiori see 147–258.
10 ASRm, TCG, Investigazioni, vol. 99, fol. 56v.
11 ASRm, TCG, Investigazioni, vol. 119, fol. 63r–v, and Costituti, vol. 200, fols. 97r–103r.
12 ASRm, TCG, Costituti, vol. 200, fol. 97r.
13 Boissard, J.-J., Romanae urbis topographia et antiquitates, 3 vols. (Frankfurt, 1597), vol. I, 58Google Scholar.
14 On Cesare Targone as dealer in coins, gems and small antiquities for the Medici court, see McCrory, M., ‘The dukes and their dealers: the formation of the Medici grand-ducal collections of the sixteenth century’, in Fantoni, M., Matthew, L.C. and Matthews-Grieco, S.F. (eds.), The Art Market in Italy, 15th–17th Centuries (Florence, 2003), 359Google Scholar. For his activity as a goldsmith, see Venturelli, P., ‘Annibale Fontana e la Madonna dei Miracoli di San Celso, tra Carlo e Federico Borromeo’, in Biscottini, P. (ed.), Carlo e Federico Borromeo. La luce dei Borromeo nella Milano spagnola (Milan, 2005), 152Google Scholar, with previous bibliography.
15 Cesare Targone, and Domenico and Cesare dei Cammei were well acquainted with Fulvio Orsini. They are mentioned as providers of antique gems in his inventory (Nolhac, ‘Les collections d'antiquités’, 153–72) and as agents in the acquisition of part of Lunardo Mocenigo's collection, completed by Orsini in 1578 on behalf of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (Brown, C.M., ‘The “studio del clarissimo cavalier Mozzanico in Venezia”. Documents for the antiquarian ambitions of Francesco I de’ Medici, Mario Bevilacqua, Alessandro Farnese and Fulvio Orsini’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 41 (1999), 55–76)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Bertolotti, A., Artisti lombardi a Roma (Milan, 1881), 150–68Google Scholar.
17 ASRm, TCG, Investigazioni, vol. 99, fols. 56v–57r.
18 McCrory, ‘The dukes and their dealers’, 356.
19 Orologi, G., L'inganno dialogo di m. Gioseppe Horologgi (Venice, Giuseppe Giolito De Ferrari, 1562), 124–5Google Scholar.
20 Herz, A., ‘Lelio Pasqualini, a late sixteenth-century antiquarian’, in Lavin, M. Aronberg (ed.), Il 60. Essays Honoring Irving Lavin on his Sixtieth Birthday (New York, 1990), 202Google Scholar.
21 At the end of the two-years-long bargaining with Lunardo Mocenigo's heirs, for example, Fulvio Orsini invited his Venetian counterpart, Vincenzo Pinelli, to give him a gem as compensation for his intervention (Brown, ‘The “studio del clarissimo cavalier Mozzanico in Venezia”’, 72, doc. 41).
22 Jansen, D.J., ‘Jacopo Strada (1515–1588): antiquario della sacra cesarea maestà’, Leids kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 1 (1982), 57–69Google Scholar; idem, ‘Jacopo Strada et le commerce d'art’, Revue de l'art, 77 (1987), 11–21.
23 For a theoretical analysis of brokerage practice, see Boissevain, J., Friends of Friends: Network, Manipulators and Coalitions (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar. From this point of view, the role played by antiquarians is similar to that performed by members of the royal households, who, travelling miles away from the royal residence on the king's orders or simply living outside the court, connected the spaces inhabited by the king to the surrounding city, to distant locales and institutions dispersed all over the country; see Gorse, G. and Smuts, M., ‘Introduction’, in Fantoni, M., Gorse, G. and Smuts, M. (eds.), The Politics of Space: European Courts ca. 1500–1750 (Rome, 2009), 24Google Scholar.
24 Stenhouse, W., ‘Visitors, display and reception in the antiquity collections of late Renaissance Rome’, Renaissance Quarterly, 58, (2005), 426CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 I am currently preparing a separate publication about the Stampa brothers and the market for antiquities in Rome in the second half of the sixteenth century. I have reconstructed the relationship between the Stampa and Paolo Giordano I Orsini, duke of Bracciano, in Furlotti, B., A Renaissance Baron and his Possessions. Paolo Giordano I Orsini, Duke of Bracciano (1541–85) (Turnhout, forthcoming)Google Scholar.
26 Ulisse Aldrovandi described the Stampa's collection as made up of around 47 busts; see Aldrovandi, U., ‘Di tutte le statue antiche che per tutta Roma in diversi luoghi e case particolari si veggono, raccolte e descritte per messer Ulisse Aldrovandi, opera non fatta più mai da scrittor alcuno’, in L. Mauro, Le antichità della città di Roma (Venice, Giordano Ziletti, 1556), 176–9Google Scholar.
27 ASRm, TCG, Processi, vol. 19, fasc. 39, no foliation, interrogation of Pietro Stampa (‘con mio figliolo [Giovanni Antonio Stampa] io mi son scorrucciato più volte perché haverei voluto che havesse atteso a lavorare de l'arte mia’).
28 ASRm, TCG, Processi, vol. 19, fasc. 39, no foliation, interrogation of Pietro Stampa (‘me incresceva che [Giovanni Antonio] andasse vestito così sontuosamente come faceva et me l'ho cacciato di casa’).
29 ASRm, TCG, Processi, vol. 19, fasc. 39, no foliation, interrogation of Domenico Scaiola da Reggio (‘vedendo io che donava tutto el giorno qualche antiquità a questo et a quello et havendolo io per homo da bene et ben nato, gli facevo accoglienze et alle volte veniva a desinar meco’). Documents about this trial were partially published by Bertolotti, A., Bartolomeo Baronino da Casalmonferrato architetto in Roma nel secolo XVI (Casale Monferrato, 1875)Google Scholar.
30 Conte, E., Accademie studentesche a Roma nel Cinquecento (Rome, 1985), 165Google Scholar.
31 The bibliography on Pirro Ligorio is vast. See, amongst the others, Gaston, R.W., Pirro Ligorio, Artist and Antiquarian (Florence, 1988)Google Scholar; Coffin, D.R., Pirro Ligorio: The Renaissance Artist, Architect and Antiquarian (University Park, PA, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Occhipinti, C., Pirro Ligorio e la storia cristiana di Roma: da Costantino all'Umanesimo (Pisa, 2007)Google Scholar.
32 Stampa, V., De aquaeductu Felici (Rome, Bartolomeo Bonfadini, 1589)Google Scholar.
33 A copy of the Alexandrinae mensae descriptio by Vincenzo Stampa is preserved in London, British Museum, Add. MS 8297, fols. 207–13. For this table commissioned in Rome by Cardinal Michele Bonelli around 1587 and now in Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, see González-Palacios, A., Las colecciones reales españolas de mosaicos y piedras duras (Madrid, 2001), 59–64Google Scholar.
34 Statius, A., Inlustrium virorum ut exstant in urbe expressi vultus (Rome, Formis Antonii Lafreri, 1569), pls. 23, 26, 30, 45, 46, 50Google Scholar.
35 A. Chacòn, ‘Collezioni di antichità che erano del cardinale Gasparo Carpegna’, Pesaro, Biblioteca Oliveriana, MS 59, fols. 24r, 28r, 55r, 57r, 65r, 93r, 121r, 145r, 182r, 184r, 204r, 214r, 220r, 224r. On this manuscript, see Gasparri, C. and Ubaldelli, M.L., ‘Le Antichità Romane di Alonso Chacón. Prolegomena’, Studia Oliveriana, 11 (1991), 57–93Google Scholar.
36 ASRm, TCG, Processi, vol. 19, fasc. 39, no foliation, interrogation of Valente da Oggiono.
37 ASRm, TCG, Investigazioni, vol. 99, fol. 55r.
38 On the relationship between the Stampa and Gonzaga, Cesare, Brown, C.M., Our Accustomed Discourse on the Antique. Cesare Gonzaga and Gerolamo Garimberto, Two Renaissance Collectors of Greco-Roman Art (New York and London, 1993)Google Scholar, ad indicem; on that between the Stampa and Ippolito d'Este, Documenti inediti per servire alla storia dei musei d'Italia, 4 vols. (Florence and Rome, 1879), vol. II, 157–62, in particular 162, and Venturi, A., ‘Ricerche di antichità per Monte Giordano, Monte Cavallo e Tivoli nel secolo XVI’, Archivio Storico dell'Arte, 3 (1890), 196–206Google Scholar.
39 Conte, Accademie studentesche, 165.
40 Weber, C. (ed.), Legati e governatori dello Stato Pontificio (1550–1809) (Rome, 1994), 332 and 932Google Scholar.
41 In addition to the collectors already mentioned, the Stampa brothers had also relationships for instance with Cardinals Jean du Bellay (Salvetti, C. Bernardi, ‘Il naufragio presso Piombino di un navile carico di “anticaglie” romane nel 1550’, L'Urbe, 6 (1975), 15–25Google Scholar) and Alessandro Farnese (Brown, ‘The “studio del clarissimo cavalier Mozzanico in Venezia”’, 55–76 and in particular docs. 21, 26, 28, 30, 41), with Dukes Alfonso II d'Este (Bentini and Spezzaferro (eds.), L'impresa di Alfonso II, ad indicem) and Guglielmo Gonzaga (Brown, C.M., ‘Bishop Gerolamo Garimberto, archaeological adviser to Guglielmo Gonzaga duke of Mantua (1570–1574)’, in Arte Lombarda, 83 (1987), 41–4Google Scholar, and Sogliani, D., Le collezioni Gonzaga. Il carteggio tra Venezia e Mantova (1563–1587) (Milan, 2002)Google Scholar, ad indicem).
42 Lefebvre, H., The Production of Space (Malden, 1991), in particular 73Google Scholar.
