Images of the Illustrious:
The Numismatic Presence in the Renaissance
John Cunnally

Cloth | 1999 | This book is out of print | ISBN13: 978-0-691-01668-9
216 pp. | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 68 halftones

Images of the Illustrious is an introduction and a guide to the numismatic scholarship of the Renaissance--the coin collections and illustrated coin-books produced by humanists and artists of the sixteenth century. Ancient Greek and Roman coins were the most abundant and portable remains of antiquity throughout Renaissance Europe, and were avidly collected as treasures, studied as documents, exchanged as gifts, admired as art, venerated as relics, and cherished as talismans of antique virtue.

The ubiquitous presence of these coins, the author argues, made the lost world of the ancients accessible, comprehensible, and concrete to all literate Europeans, and encouraged an attitude toward history as a series of discontinuous scenes and events, driven by the ambitious and self-seeking individuals whose striking faces appear on the coins. Illustrated with many examples of the elegant art of the Renaissance coin-books, Images of the Illustrious ends with a comprehensive descriptive bibliography of the sixteenth-century numismatists and their books.

Endorsements:

"Images of the Illustrious brings together a wide range of material and will break new ground in the catalog of numismatic literature. Its synthesis will interest classical scholars and collectors as well as Renaissance specialists."--Jane Derose Evans, Temple University

"John Cunnally's book splendidly fills the need for an introduction to Renaissance numismatics. The analysis of visual materials--such as portraits of collectors--are brief but elegant. Many of the larger arguments add important new insights to the historical literature, as does, for example, the convincing argument for the relation between numismatic publication and the emblem books that became vogue after Alciato invented the genre in 1531. Historians, art historians, students of Renaissance literature, and many others will find Images of the Illustrious a godsend."--Anthony Grafton, Princeton University

Table of Contents

Subject Areas:

• Art and Architecture
• Classics
• European History

Prices subject to change without notice

File created: 11/10/2008

Questions and comments to: webmaster@press.princeton.edu
Princeton University Press