Porcelio de' Pandoni, 'De sestertio et talento'. Edizione critica e traduzione italiana a cura di N. Rozza. Introduzione, traduzione inglese e commento a cura di A. Burnett (pp. 85-155, 185-202)

Porcelio de' Pandoni's De sestertio et talento is a work of extraordinary interest for the history of Humanistic and Renaissance antiquarianism. This short work was written in the middle of the fifteenth century, and it throws new light on a little-known aspect of the vast and varied humanist learning. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, it is the first treatise ever written about numismatics. Although its origins are not entirely clear, it was completed in Milan. In a prefatory letter, in fact, Pandoni offers the work to the powerful secretary of Francesco Sforza, Cicco Simonetta. In fact, as Andrew Burnett speculates, it is possible that the letter of dedication contains statements that are only partially accurate and that the treatise was originally written in Rome, the city in which Pandoni was trained and in whose cultural milieu he had had close ties to the Colonna family, and in particular to Cardinal Prospero Colonna, a well-known patron with strong interests in antiquities. If so, it was re-purposed, a typical practice of Pandoni, and, in his dedication, he placed the interest, the fascination and the antiquarian and numismatic curiosity that had brought about the writing of the short treatise, in a Milan context. A critical edition is offered here for the first time (by Nicoletta Rozza), accompanied by a full commentary (by Andrew Burnett), and with a double translation, into both Italian and English.