Jacopo Stradas Magnum ac Novum Opus: A 16th-Century Numismatic Corpus. Phase 2b

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Martin Mulsow
• Subject Area: Early Modern History ; Classical, Roman, Christian and Islamic Archaeology ; Art History ; History of Science
• Term: from 2015 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 283692130

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

Jacopo Strada's Magnum ac Novum Opus is originally a 30-volume corpus of coins of the Roman Empire from Gaius Julius Caesar up to Charles V with over 8,500 illustrations, which was begun around 1550 for Strada's patron Johann Jakob Fugger and, after his bankruptcy in 1566, acquired by Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria for the Kunstkammer. There it was looted during the Thirty Years' War and is now in the Gotha Research Library. Strada also created a coin catalogue, A. A. A. NVMISMATΩN ANTIQVOR: ΔΙАΣKEYH (Διασκευή) which was written between 1555 and 1566 and preserved in two complete editions in Vienna and Prague. It consists of eleven volumes, eight of which contain descriptions of coins (a total of 2690 pages with 7075 descriptions) and three with indices. He describes coins from the entire ancient world, which he claims to have seen in the hand of antiquarians and noble men: first he describes the obverse of a coin, namely representation and legend, then in the same way the reverse. Afterthat he names the collection or the owner where he claims to have seen the coin. According to Strada's own statement, the Διασκευή is intended to contain the complementary coin descriptions to the drawings of coins of the Roman imperial period, which he depicts in the Magnum ac Novum Opus. This claim by Strada was the starting point of the project funded by the German Research Foundation from 2015 to 2022 at the Research Centre Gotha under the title "Jacopo Strada's Magnum ac Novum Opus. A numismatic corpus of the 16th century". The aime of the project was to unite and annotate images and texts, to present them in a digital online edition and examine the material in its historical and artistic context. The results were entered into the databases of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture etc. (HU Berlin, IKB) and Translatio Nummorum (KHI in Florence). Strada's claim has been refuted: The Διασκευή is an independent work containing the first structured, detailed coin descriptions of modern times and, as the full title states, contains coin descriptions of the Roman Republic, Greek coins of the Roman provinces and other ancient peoples. There was no equivalent work at the time. The Διασκευή has never been adequately appreciated because it did not appear in print and was thus little known. The material was also compared in the project with other numismatic works from Strada's workshop. This made it possible to draw conclusions about Strada's method and to assess the reception of his work, especially in the context of antiquarianism in the mid-16th century.

Publications

• Jacopo Strada, in: INC Compte Rendu 66, 2019, S. 17-34. ISSN: 1562-6377
  Volker Heenes
  
• Copies of Ancient Coins and Inventions all’antica in the Work of Jacopo Strada, in: Online Zeitschrift zur Antiken Numismatik 2, 2020, S. 53-83
  Heenes, Volker
  
• [Die Combinations of] Unrelated Obverses and Reverses of Ancient Coins in Jacopo Strada's Numismatic Works, in: Online Zeitschrift zur Antiken Numismatik 3, 2021, S. 55-76. (Open Access)
  Heenes, Volker
  
• Jacopo Strada’s Magnum ac Novum Opus. A Sixteen Century Corpus of ancient Numismatics, Petersberg 2022 (Cyriacus 16). ISBN: 978-3-7319-0995-8
  Volker Heenes & Dirk Jacob Jansen