La collezione monetale di Alessandro Farnese nei disegni di Pirro Ligorio: medaglie greche e latine

The famous coin collection of Alessandro Farnese (1520–1589) cannot currently be identified in its entirety within the holdings that have come down to us through a complex antiquarian history. However, the coin drawings contained in Pirro Ligorio’s Antichità di Roma (c. 1513–1583) are of extraordinary importance for reconstructing its original composition. Indeed, a specific catalogue of the sixteenth-century collection is lacking, and from the two inventories drawn up at the deaths of Ranuccio (1565) and Alessandro (1589), preserved in the Farnese archive of the State Archives of Naples, only a fragmentary and general list of the coins kept in the Farnese palaces of Caprarola and Rome has so far been obtained. For the purposes of this research, attention has therefore focused on the testimony of Pirro Ligorio, which provides information relating to a crucial thirty-year period, roughly between 1550/1567 and 1568/1583. This investigation has been complemented by a new examination of the lists of “medals” contained in the two sixteenth-century inventories of the assets of Ranuccio and Alessandro Farnese. It has thus been possible to reconstruct certain patrimonial aspects that supplement the information derived from Ligorio’s drawings. A group of 129 coins from the Farnese collection has been identified through this specialized study of the drawings in Pirro Ligorio’s Antichità. The images are included in the volumes devoted to “Greek” and “Latin medals,” largely compiled between 1550 and 1567–1568, with a second redaction of the text in 1568–1583. The illustrations are attributed to coins owned by the Gran Cardinale through handwritten notes by Ligorio himself. Further attributions can be proposed on the basis of cross-referencing a range of previously unpublished data.