STRADA, Jacopo de.

by Jacopo de Strada

£1,650 · Offered by Sokol Books

.A good copy of the first edition, second issue, of this attractively illustrated work on numismatics. It .features more than 450 woodcuts of coins and medals in clear impression, all with portraits of Roman .emperors beautifully designed in white on a black background. .Jacopo de Strada (1507-1588) was an Italian polymath and courtier. He started his career as a .goldsmith in Mantua, becoming a renowned architect, artist, antiquarian collector, art dealer and .advisor. He worked in the service of pope Paul III in Rome, and at the court of the Holy Roman .Emperors Ferdinand I, Maximillian II and Rudolf II. At Augsburg, he entered the circle of the rich art .patron Hans Jakob Fugger, to whom this work is dedicated. For Fugger, Strada also realised an .impressive suite of 2,000 drawings in pen and ink of Greek and Roman coins. His position at the .Emperors court was high: there is a famous portrait of Strada by Titian (Kunsthistorisches Museum, .Vienna), in which he is depicted surrounded with coins and books, and another one by Tintoretto .(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). . Epitome thesauri antiquitatum is a synthesis of Strada s life-long work on coins, and it originated .in his own collection of coins and medals. It was printed as part of a projected work which was to .have been the culmination of his extensive research in European collections as well as his own. .Strada particularly notes in his preface to this Epitome the assistance he received from Guillaume Du .Choul and Jean G

• Binding: Hardcover

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