[Die Combinations of] Unrelated Obverses and Reverses of Ancient Coins in Jacopo Strada’s Numismatic Works

Abstract

In his surviving numismatic manuscripts (i.e. Magnum ac Novum Opus, Diaskeué, Series Imperatorum Romanorum) Jacopo Strada describes coin obverses and reverses as belonging together, when in reality they had originally been part of coins displaying other obverses and reverses. In some volumes of the MaNO and Diaskeué, the occurence of such coins is very high (e.g. coins of Augustus, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius). By naming their sixteenth-century owners in the Diaskeué, Strada gave them a supposedly secure authenticity.

My contribution presents some of these ›combinations‹ and examines what may have prompted Strada to create them. Did he really see these coins, i.e. did they exist in his time but have not been preserved, or did he completely ›invent‹ them? This investigation will also involve the works of his contemporaries (Pirro Ligorio, Sebastiano Erizzo, Antonio Agustín) to check whether such potentially invented ›combinations‹ can also be found in the works of other antiquarians. This investigation will also provide new insights into the work and approach of renaissance antiquarians.