Fulvio Orsini in Rome
‘For the Roman Families he should get Fulvius Ʋrsinus, enlarged by M. Patin: For sure nothing is better performed upon this Subject’.
Louis Jobert, The knowledge of medals, or, Instructions for those who apply themselves to the study of medals both ancient and modern from the French (London, 1697), p. 208.
Fulvio Orsini (1529–1600), a scion of a Roman patrician family, was well-placed to comment on and collect sixteenth-century numismatic collections at Rome. Promoted by the powerful Farnese family, and acting as librarian to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520–89), a grandson of Pope Paul III (1468–1549), Orsini had access to a wealth of collections. The cardinal’s collection alone was enormous and Orsini, as librarian, was given the job of cataloguing it and adding to it.
Fulvio Orsini, Familiae Romanae quae reperiuntur in antiquis numismatibus ab urbe condita ad tempora divi Augusti ex bibliotheca Fulvi Vrsini Adiunctis familiis XXX ex libro Antoni Augustini (Rome, 1577), p. 72, detail: ‘Cornelia’.
While Hubert Goltzius (1526–83), had chosen to arrange his coins of republican Rome chronologically, Fulvio Orsini (conscious no doubt of his own family’s history which claimed descent from the Julia-Claudian dynasty), decided instead to arrange his collection of ancient Roman coins of the republican period by their gens – and, as Cunnally notes, this arrangement, by family, proved to be very influential, lasting for hundreds of years.[1] In the above example we see coins depicting the famous gens Cornelia. The gens Cornelia has been one of the most important in republican Rome, dominating the political scene for hundreds of years. Divided into branches such as the Cornelii Scipiones, Cornelii Lentulii, Cornelii Rufini et Sullae (to name but the most famous), their members played a vital role in sustaining the Republic. Orsini believed the above denarii depicted Publius Cornelius Sulla (d. 45 B.C.), a nephew of the far more famous Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (138-78 B.C.), who had sought, as Dictator, to reform, rather than destroy the Republic.
Fulvio Orsini, Familiae Romanae in antiquis numismatibus, ab urbe condita, ad tempora divi Augusti. Ex bibliotheca Fulvii Ursini, cum adjunctis Antonij Augustini … Carolus Patin … restituit, recognovit, auxit (Paris, 1663), p. 90, detail: ‘Cornelia’.
Worth owned both the original 1577 edition and also a seventeenth-century edition undertaken by the renowned French numismatist Charles Patin (1633–93). Both are heavily illustrated with coins in both obverse and reverse for Orsini’s 1577 edition had included 223 plates and to this Patin added yet more.[2] In the above plate we see another depiction of gens Cornelia, with denarii which Orsini believed was issued in honour of his father Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix by Faustus Cornelius Sulla (88–46 B.C.). However, in the upper left corner we see a depiction of Hercules and four wreaths. The image of Hercules with a lion’s skin helmet represented victory but the four wreaths were associated with Faustus’ famous father-in-law Pompey, the Great (106–48 B.C.). Both editions included material from Orsini’s friend, the Spanish scholar Antonio Agustín (1517–86), who exchanged news of numismatic finds and research with Orsini. The latter would posthumously publish Agustín’s Antiquitatum Romanarum Hispanarumque in nummis veterum dialogi XI. Latinè redditi ab Andrea Schotto … : cuius accessit duodecimus, de prisca religione, diisque gentium. Seorsim editae nomismatum icones a Iacobo Biaeo aeri graphicè incisae (Antwerp, 1617), which Worth likewise collected.
Johannes Faber, Ioannis Fabri … In imagines illustrium ex Fulvii Ursini bibliotheca, Antuerpiae à Theodoro Gallaeo expressas, commentaries … (Antwerp, 1606), title page.
Orsini is perhaps best known for his book of portraits, drawn from many different sources, including coins and medals, which was entitled Imagines et elogia virorum illustrium et eruditor ex antiquis lapidibus et nomismatib. expressa cum annotationib. Ex bibliotheca Fulvio Ursini … (Rome, 1570). The 1606 text edited by Joannes Faber (1570–1640), with engravings by Theodore Galle (1571–1633), which Worth owned, was not a later edition but one in which Faber and Galle focused on items from Orsini’s own collection.[3] As Dwyer argues, Orsini initially followed in the methodological footsteps of Paulo Giovio (1483–1552), combining portraits with brief biographical sketches, but Orsini was intent on providing the most authentic image and biography possible and used his undoubted epigraphical skills, plus his access to large ancient collections to hunt out forgeries – so much so that he was given the epithet ‘father of ancient iconography’.[4] Dwyer emphasises that Orsini was able to do so because he had first-hand evidence before him – not only from Alessandro Farnese’s fabled collections but also from his own.[5] Holt notes that Orsini’s own collection included c. 2,500 specimens.[6] It was a major success and influenced other texts in the genre, most notably Les Vrais Pourtraits et view des hommes illustres Grecz, Latins, et payens recueilliz de leur tableaux, livres, medalles antiques & modernes … (Paris, 1584), by André Thevet (1516–92).
Text: Dr Elizabethanne Boran, Librarian of the Edward Worth Library, Dublin.
Sources
Cunnally, John, Images of the Illustrious: The Numismatic Presence in the Renaissance (Princeton, 1999).
Dwyer, Eugene, ‘André Thevet and Fulvio Orsini: The Beginnings of the Modern Tradition of Classical Portrait Iconography in France’, The Art Bulletin, 75, no. 3 (1993), 467–80.
Holt, Frank K., When Money Talks: A History of Coins and Numismatics (Oxford, 2021).
Wickersham Crawford, J. P., ‘Inedited letters of Fulvio Orsini to Antonio Agustín’, PMLA, 28, no. 4 (1913), 577–93.
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[1] Cunnally, John, Images of the Illustrious: The Numismatic Presence in the Renaissance (Princeton, 1999), p. 128.
[2] Ibid., p. 204.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Dwyer, Eugene, ‘André Thevet and Fulvio Orsini: The Beginnings of the Modern Tradition of Classical Portrait Iconography in France’, The Art Bulletin, 75, no. 3 (1993), 469.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Holt, Frank K., When Money Talks: A History of Coins and Numismatics (Oxford, 2021), p. 82.