Paolo Pedrusi and the Farnese collections in Parma
Worth bought nine volumes of Paolo Pedrusi’s massive work on the collections of the Farnese dukes of Parma and Piacenza – a tenth volume was published in 1727 but perhaps Worth’s curiosity about the Parmese collections had been sufficiently slaked by Pedrusi’s previous nine volumes, as he did not purchase this last volume in the set.
Image 1: Paolo Pedrusi, I Cesari in oro raccolti nel Farnese Museo, e pubblicati colle loro congrue interpretazioni, 9 vols (Parma, 1694), i, frontispiece portrait of Rannucio II Farnese (1630–94), Duke of Parma and Piacenza.
Pedrusi (1644–1720), dedicated the first volume to his patron, Rannucio II Farnese (1630–94), Duke of Parma and Piacenza, who is depicted vanquishing death, whose sickle lies under his foot. The implication is that Pedrusi’s magnum opus, which spanned the last decade of the seventeenth century and the first two of the eighteenth, would ensure the duke’s everlasting fame. This was certainly to be hoped since Rannucio II died in the same year of publication! Whether the impetus came from the duke (as is likely), it is clear that the Farnese of Parma and Piacenza had a collection worth publicizing for its genesis lay with Alessandro Farnese (1468–1549), later Pope Paul III, who had gifted the collection to his son, Pier Luigi Farnese (1503–47), who in 1546 became Duke of Parma and Piacenza. Rannucio II, a distant descendant, could look back on the glory days of the dynasty, not only Paul III but also Rannucio II’s great-grandfather, Alexander Farnese (1545–92), of Lepanto fame, but he would have been very much aware that the dynasty had done little since then to bring it glory. He himself had lost the duchy of Castro to the papacy and the last days of his life were marked by yet more failure when the Parmese forces suffered a defeat by the imperial army. Perhaps Rannucio II hoped, like Louis XIV (1638–1715), that his coin and medal collection would ensure him immortality.
Paolo Pedrusi, I Cesari in oro raccolti nel Farnese Museo, e pubblicati colle loro congrue interpretazioni, 9 vols (Parma, 1721), viii, portrait of Paolo Pedrusi (1644–1720).
Little is known about Paolo Pedrusi but we do have some clues. This portrait states that he came from Mantua and tells us that he was a Jesuit. The Jesuit order had a long history of interest in numismatic collecting: as early as 1595 their college at Leuwen had amassed a large coin collection, consisting of between 1,500 and 1,700 Roman coins and around 150 Greek coins, and by the seventeenth century other colleges followed suit.[1] Awianowicz notes that Jesuit colleges at Rome, Paris, Douai, Brussels, Lyon and Dijon had built up numismatic collections and individual Jesuits also amassed their own collections – possibly as aids to teaching history.[2] Throughout the seventeenth century Jesuits had commented on numismatics: Edward Worth (1676–1733) had copies of a number of works by one of the most famous Jesuit scholars, Athanasius Kircher (1602–80), and one of these, his Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Hoc est uniuersalis hieroglyphicae veterum doctrinae temporum iniuria abolitae instauration (Rome, 1652–5), had included a discussion of Hebrew coins. Other Jesuits went further and one, Louis Jobert (1637–1719), was responsible for an important textbook on numismatics: La science des medailles, which was originally published in 1692 and which Worth had in both a French copy of 1715 and the English translation of 1697: 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). This was, in effect, a beginner’s guide, and a very useful one at that because it also provided the reader with a bibliography of important sources. Pedrusi thus fits neatly into a Jesuit tradition of interest in numismatics. We know that he was Rector of the Jesuit College for Nobles at Parma for 40 years and Guillemain suggests that, while the impetus for the work came from Rannucio II, Pedrusi viewed it in paedagogical terms.[3] Beyond the scope of the work and its function Pedrusi also appears to have introduced folding plates, which displayed coins to greater effect – an idea that would be used in the 1715 edition of Jobert’s Science des medailles.[4]
Paolo Pedrusi, I Cesari in oro raccolti nel Farnese Museo, e pubblicati colle loro congrue interpretazioni, 9 vols (Parma, 1721), viii, frontispiece portrait of Francesco Farnese (1678–1728), Duke of Parma and Piacenza.
The duchy really was on its last legs: Rannucio II’s eldest son Odoardo (1666–93) had died a year before his father and though he and his wife had produced the formidable Elisabeth Farnese (1692–1766), who became queen of Spain, he had no son to succeed him and so his half-brother Francesco Farnese (1678–1728), became duke. The Farnese certainly believed in keeping things in the family – Rannucio had married two D’Este sisters (Isabella and Maria), and Francesco married his half-brother Odoardo’s widow, Dorothea Sophia (1670–1748), primarily, it appears, to keep her dowry in Parma. Francesco likewise did not produce an heir and his younger half-brother Antonio (1679–1731), became the last Farnese duke of Parma. On the death of Antonio, Elisabeth Farnese’s son, Charles III (1685–1740), King of Spain, inherited the dukedoms – and moved the treasure of the Farnese to Naples, where it remains in the Museo Archaeologico Nationale di Napoli.[5]
Paolo Pedrusi, I Cesari in oro raccolti nel Farnese Museo, e pubblicati colle loro congrue interpretazioni, 9 vols (Parma, 1694), i, Tavola Prima, opposite p. 1: coins of Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius (approximately 67 B.C.–35 B.C.).
Franceso Farnese might project a martial image, holding the laurel of victory, and alluding to his more famous Roman ancestors by including Romulus and Remus, but he must have known that the duchy was, during his reign, like its coin and medal collection, a collection which looked to a glorious past, rather than a successful future. In some ways, there were parallels between the last of the Farnese and Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius (approximately 67 B.C.–35 B.C.), for he too never emulated the historic deeds of his more famous father Pompey the Great (106–48.B.C.).
Text: Dr Elizabethanne Boran, Librarian of the Edward Worth Library, Dublin.
Sources
Awianowicz, Bartosz B., ‘Contribution of the Jesuits to the Development of Numismatics before the Suppression of the Society in 1773’, Journal of Jesuit Studies, 12 (2025), 1–11.
Awianowicz, Bartosz B., ‘Jesuit Connoisseurs and Collectors of Ancient Coins before Joseph Eckhel’, Journal of Jesuit Studies, 12 (2025), 13–38.
Guillemain, Jean, ‘Eckhel et la tradition jésuite. Les activités numismatiques dans la Compagnie de Jésus, du laboratoire lyonnais à la Doctrina numorum veterum. Avec un catalogue des collections, enseignements et ouvrages numismatiques des jésuites de l’ancienne Compagnie (1579–1816)’, in Woytek, Bernhard and Daniela Williams (eds), Ars Critica Numaria : Joseph Eckhel (1737–1798) and the Transformation of Ancient Numismatics (Vienna, 2022), pp 69–136.
Kampmann, Ursula, ‘Power, Impotence, and a Coin Collection’, Bookophile [accessed 28 July 2026].
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[1] Awianowicz, Bartosz B., ‘Contribution of the Jesuits to the Development of Numismatics before the Suppression of the Society in 1773’, Journal of Jesuit Studies, 12 (2025), 3.
[2] Ibid., 4 and 10.
[3] Guillemain, Jean, ‘Eckhel et la tradition jésuite. Les activités numismatiques dans la Compagnie de Jésus, du laboratoire lyonnais à la Doctrina numorum veterum. Avec un catalogue des collections, enseignements et ouvrages numismatiques des jésuites de l’ancienne Compagnie (1579–1816)’, in Woytek, Bernhard and Daniela Williams (eds), Ars Critica Numaria : Joseph Eckhel (1737–1798) and the Transformation of Ancient Numismatics (VIenna, 2022), p. 103.
[4] Ibid., pp 490–1.
[5] Kampmann, Ursula, ‘Power, Impotence, and a Coin Collection’, Bookophile [accessed 28 July 2026].