Module 6 - Overall View

From a Look at Details to an Overall View of Montfaucon’s "L’antiquité expliquée et representée"

Module 6 finally supplements not only the statues and reliefs from the core Greco-Roman region that have been examined in the greatest depth in the research thus far with images on gems and coins as source genres. The inclusion of the publications by Paolo Alessandro Maffei, Antonio Capello, and Jean Chifflet also provides a transition to Montfaucon’s L'Antiquité expliquée. Based on the materials preserved in Paris, the preparation of the illustrations for his publication by Montfaucon himself is well documented and the genesis of his thesaurus of images can be rendered comprehensible as a whole for the first time.

J. l'Heureux, J. Chifflet, Abraxas seu Apistopistus, 1657

L. Beger, Thesaurus Brandenburgicus Selectus, 1701

B. de Montfaucon, L'Antiquité expliquée, 1722


Select Sources

Paolo Alessandro Maffei, Gemme antiche figurate date in luce da Domenico De' Rossi colle sposizioni di Paolo Alessandro Maffei patrizio Volterrano, 4 vols., Rome 1707–1709

Antonio Capello, Prodromus iconicus sculptilium gemmarum basilidiani, amulectici, atque talismani generis, de musaeo Antonij Capello senatoris Veneti, Venice 1702

♦ Jean l'Heureux (Macarius), Jean Chifflet, Ioannis Macarii canonici ariensis Abraxas, seu Apistopistus : quae est antiquaria de gemmis basilidianis disquistio. Accedit Abraxas Proteus, seu multiformis gemmae basilidianae portentosa varietas / exhibita & commentario illustrata à Ioanne Chifletio, Antwerp 1657

Lorenz Beger, Thesaurus Brandenburgicus Selectus, Berlin 1696–1701, vol. 1 and vol. 2

♦ Charles Errard, Recueil de desseins de statues, bas-reliefs et autres ornemens de sculpture antiques ..., Paris, Bibliothèque de l‘Institut de France, Ms. 1029

♦ Charles Errard, Recueil de desseins de divers monumens de sculpture antiques ..., Paris, Bibliothèque de l‘Institut de France, Ms. 1030

♦ Charles Errard, Album de proportions de statues antique, Paris, Écoles nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, PC 6415