Academy research project

Antiquitatum Thesaurus: Antiquities in European Visual Sources from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Module 1 - Egypt

On the Search for Origins

Module 1 directs the view to Egypt, which was regarded in many discourses of the early modern period as a decisive ‘origin’ and/or mediator of a prisca sapientia in visual form. Here, the focus is on the genesis of Athanasius Kircher’s texts dealing with Egyptian monuments as well as on Filippo Buonanni’s catalogue of Kircher’s personal ‘museum’, which is one of Montfaucon’s most important sources. What can be gained from a precise reconstruction of the routes of origin of objects and visual material, what can be deduced from personal networks with respect to the knowledge of Egypt in the Rome of the seventeenth century, and how much unsorted material is offered by the Vatican Archives alone can be shown anew and confirmed based specifically on the example of the traveller Pietro della Valle (Burioni 2017). This first module is thus dedicated to a comparative consideration of Egyptian and ‘Egyptianized’ antiquities that comes to light in selected collections of drawings and graphic reproductions.

As part of Module 1, sixteen source works were catalogued for the Antiquitatum Thesaurus: 13 printed works (= 18 volumes) with publication dates between 1605 and 1724 as well as 3 albums with drawings or pre-print material. This includes a total of 4,915 prints and 975 drawings (as of 11 July 2025).

In addition, numerous other prints were recorded that were recognised as direct or indirect models for the illustrations in the catalogued source works or as parallel illustrations of the same artefacts.

The number of ancient or non-ancient artefacts depicted in the source works of Module 1 is 1,784 (as of 11 July 2025).

Catalogued Source Works

Lorenzo Pignoria: Vetustissimae tabulae aeneae sacris Aegyptiorum simulachris coelatae accurata explicatio, Venice 1605 (copy held at UB Heidelberg)

Lorenzo Pignoria: Characteres Aegyptii, hoc est Sacrorum, quibus Aegyptii utuntur, simulachrorum accurata delineatio et explicatio, Frankfurt am Main 1608 (copy held at UB Heidelberg)

Hans Georg Herwart von Hohenburg: Thesaurus hieroglyphicorum è museo Ioannis Georgij Hervvart ab Hohenburg, s. l. [ca. 1610] (copy held at SUB Göttingen)

Giovanni Battista Casali: De profanis et sacris veretibus ritibus, Rome 1644 (copy held at UB Heidelberg)

Giovanni Battista Casali: De veteribus christianorum ritibus, Rome 1645 (copy held at Getty Research Institute)

Giovanni Battista Casali: De veteribus sacris christianorum ritibus, Rome 1647 (copy held at UB Heidelberg)

Giovanni Battista Casali: De profanis et sacris veteribus ritibus opus tripartitum, Frankfurt am Main/Hannover 1681 (copy held at UB Heidelberg)

Athanasius Kircher: Obeliscus Pamphilius, Rome 1650 (copy held at UB Heidelberg)

Athanasius Kircher: Oedipus aegyptiacus, Rome 1652-54 (copies held at UB Heidelberg and at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte Munich)

Athanasius Kircher: Obelisci aegyptiaci nuper inter Isaei Romani rudera effossi interpretatio hieroglyphica, Rome 1666 (copy held at UB Heidelberg)

Filippo Buonanni: Musaeum Kircherianum sive Musaeum s P. Athanasio Kircheri in Collegio Romano Societatis Jesu iam pridem incoeptum, Rome 1709 (copy held at UB Heidelberg)

Bernard de Montfaucon: L'Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures, Paris 1719, vols. 2,1 and 2,2 (copies held in a private collection)

Bernard de Montfaucon: Supplement au livre de l'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures, Paris 1724, vol. 2 (copy held at UB Heidelberg)

Bernard de Montfaucon: Papiers de Montfaucon, Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, Ms Latin 11916

Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc: Cabinet de Peiresc I, Paris, BnF, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie, RESERVE AA-53-FOL

Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc: Cabinet de Peiresc II, Paris, BnF, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie, RESERVE AA-54-FOL