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The Double Life of Aufret – Revealed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2012

Anna Gannon
Anna Gannon*
Affiliation:
Anna Gannon, FSA, St Edmund's College, Cambridge CB3 0BN, UK. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The Aufret ring, acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1871, has long been considered an Anglo-Saxon artefact, its inscription counted as part of the Anglo-Saxon heritage. Because of the similarity between the names Aufret and Alfred, it became associated with this king and with a ‘lost’ ninth-century coin hoard allegedly found with the ring. On the continent, however, the ring sits comfortably in a well-attested corpus of Lombard seal rings of the seventh century. Thanks to some archive archaeology and the identification of a drawing of the ring in a publication of Ludovico Muratori, an eighteenth-century antiquary, the story of the ring can be traced from its retrieval amongst the ruins of a tomb in Bagnoregio in 1726, to its acquisition by an Italian collector, the Marquis Capponi, until his death in 1746. In 1857 the ring was presented to Edmund Waterton, FSA, who eventually sold it to the Victoria and Albert Museum. By tracing the historical background, and demolishing a few misattributions, this paper restores the Aufret ring to its Lombard context.

Résumé

La bague d'Aufret, acquise par le Victoria and Albert Museum en 1871, est depuis longtemps considérée comme un objet anglo-saxon. Sa description faisait partie du patrimoine anglo-saxon. En raison de la similarité entre les noms Aufret et Alfred, elle est devenue associée à ce roi et à un trésor «perdu» composé de pièces du IXe siècle, qui aurait été trouvé avec la bague. Cependant, en Europe, cette bague se trouve confortablement dans un corpus bien attesté de sceaux lombards du VIIe siècle. Grâce à des recherches dans des archives et à l'identification d'un dessin de la bague dans une publication de Ludovico Muratori, antiquaire du XVIIIe siècle, l'histoire de la bague peut être retracée depuis sa récupération dans les ruines d'une tombe de Bagnoregio, en 1726, jusqu’à son acquisition par un collectionneur italien, le Marquis Capponi, jusqu’à sa mort en 1746. En 1857, cette bague fut présentée à Edmund Waterton, FSA, qui finit par la vendre au Victoria and Albert Museum. En reconstituant son historique et en démolissant quelques attributions erronées, ce document remet la bague d'Aufret dans son contexte lombard.

Zusammenfassung

Der Aufret-Ring, der 1871 vom Victoria and Albert Museum erworben wurde, galt seit Langem als ein angelsächsisches Artefakt und seine Inschrift wurde der angelsächsischen Überlieferung zugeschrieben. Aufgrund der Ähnlichkeit zwischen den Namen Aufret und Alfred wurde der Ring zu diesem König in Bezug gebracht, wie auch mit einem „verschwundenen“ Münzschatz aus dem neunten Jahrhundert, der angeblich zusammen mit dem Ring gefunden wurde. Auf dem europäischen Festland passt der Ring allerdings gut in einen einwandfrei belegten Korpus lombardischer Siegelringe aus dem siebten Jahrhundert. Anhand archivalischer Nachforschungen und der Identifizierung einer Zeichnung des Rings in einem Werk des Antiquars Ludovico Muratori aus dem 18. Jahrhundert lässt sich die Geschichte des Rings nun von seinem Fund im Jahre 1726 in den Ruinen eines Grabmals in Bagnoregio bis zu seinem Erwerb durch den italienischen Sammler, den Marquis Capponi, und bis zu dessen Tod im Jahre 1746 verfolgen.1857 wurde der Ring Edmund Waterton, FSA, übergeben, der ihn schließlich an das Victoria and Albert Museum verkaufte. Mit dem Nachverfolgen der historischen Hintergründe und der Widerlegung einiger Fehlattributionen hat dieses Referat den Aufret-Ring wieder in seinen lombardischen Kontext eingeordnet.

Type
Research papers
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 92 , September 2012 , pp. 115 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2012

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