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A Bronze Plaque in the Rosenheim Collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

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Extract

The bronze plaque with bust portrait of Aristotle reproduced on Plate XXV. by kind permission of its present owner, Mr. Maurice Rosenheim, was once the property of the English College in Rome—the venerable institution whose history has recently been made the subject of an important and exhaustive monograph by His Eminence Cardinal Gasquet. An illustration of the plaque taken from the same photograph as the present plate, together with brief notes contributed by Dr. Ashby and myself, has already been given in His Eminence's book. Dr. Ashby's note appears in the earlier part of the book, which was already printed off when my own note, written after the re-discovery of the plaque, was sent in. The later account, therefore, could only be hurriedly inserted on the eve of publication, without time for a proof, and I gladly take this opportunity of amplifying and correcting it.

Type
Faculty of Archaeology, History and Letters
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1920

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References

page 214 note 1 A History of the Venerable English College, Rome. By Gasquet, Cardinal. London, 1920Google Scholar.

page 214 note 2 By permission of the Faculty of Archaeology of the British School at Rome.

page 214 note 3 The substance of the present note appeared in the Cardinal's book, where, however, Dr. Ashby's account and mine should have been unified, had there been time in which to see the proofs.

page 215 note 1 Courajod, , Gazette des Beaux Arts, xxxiv. 1886, pp. 191 ff.Google Scholar Courajod and Molinier both believe that the ‘Aristotle’ had a ‘Plato’ as counterpart.

page 215 note 2 Vol. ii. p. 88.

page 215 note 3 Cod. Vat. Lat. 9846 f., 98 (kindly verified for me by Monsignor H. Mann).

page 215 note 4 Roem. Mittheilungen, xvi. 1901, p. 178Google Scholar, 28*.

page 215 note 5 T. Ashby: Forty Drawings of Roman Scenes by British Artists (1715–1850) from originals in the British Museum (1911), p. 7; the drawing (Plate I.) is of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and is dated 1715.

page 217 note 1 Mr. C. F. Bell, of the Ashmolean, Oxford, and Mr. Henry Oppenheimer (who, moreover, obtained the cast for me) were also good enough to give information as to this and other replicas.

page 217 note 2 On Aristotle with a cap see Bernoulli, loc. cit. In the fresco of ‘St. Thomas in Glory’ in Sta. Caterina at Pisa, attributed to F. Traini, Aristotle also wears a cap—though of round rather than pointed shape—in contrast to Plato, who is characterized as an Oriental by the embroidered shawl round his head.

page 217 note 3 Venturi, Galleria Estense in Modena, p. 82. The illustration in my text is after a photograph kindly procured by Cardinal Gasquet.

page 217 note 4 By the courtesy of the Director of the Bargello, Dott. G. de Nicola, I have received a photograph of the Bargello replica with details as to its dimensions, etc. It measures 325 cm. × 183 cm., and seems in every respect a replica of the Rosenheim example.

page 218 note 1 Mr. Hill adds: “In the L. Welzl v. Wellenheim Cat. (Vienna, 1845) ii. No. 13121 is described a one-sided medal, of bronze, with evidently the same type and the inscription ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΟΥΣ The size appears to be about 35 mm.”

page 219 note 1 Fig. 4 is after the example in the Print Room of the British Museum (by kindness of Mr. A. M. Hind).

page 219 note 2 Fig. 5 is from the example in Dr. Ashby's collection.

page 219 note 3 No. 185 of the copy described in Bernard Quaritch's Rough List, No. 135, pp. 119 ff., No. 1530.

page 219 note 4 The Elogia was published by Lafréry. The text on p. 56 describes a marble relief (tabella quaedam e marmore, cf. above), but the illustration on the page facing is, to judge from its shape, after a gem (see Bernoulli, p. 88) which distorts the features of the head on the plaque to the verge of caricature.

page 219 note 5 A relief, Visconti Iconogr. Grecque, i., p. 92, and pl. 20, 1; Bernoulli, loc. cit. and note 5.

page 219 note 6 Huelsen, op. cit. p. 177, Nos. 26*, 27*. Apparently one of the herms was a genuine antique, the other a forgery; cf. Bernoulli, loc. cit.

page 219 note 7 Bernoulli, p. 94 ff.; Studniczka, Das Bildnis des Aristoteles, p. 24. A. Hekler, Greek and Roman Portraits, pl 87.

page 219 note 8 Mr. Hill tells me that the reading is chiefly due to Mr. C. R. Peers.

page 220 note 1 During his stay in Rome in 1715, Alexander, like other distinguished Englishmen, was doubtless entertained at the English College, and would then see the plaque.

page 220 note 2 [am]oris had been suggested by Mr. J. A. Herbert for Mr. Peers' [hon]oris.

page 220 note 3 Here, if I interpret rightly a rough sketch before me, Aristotle wore a Greek hat similar to that of Palaeologus in Filarete's bust.

page 221 note 1 See Micklethwaite, J. T., ‘Notes on the Imagery of Henry VII.'s Chapel’; Archeologia 47, 2 (1883), p. 368CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 221 note 2 I am deeply obliged to Mrs. R. L. Poole, of Oxford, for her kindness in hunting for some mention of the plaque through the Inventories of Jewelry in the ‘Calendars of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII.’ (Brown and Gairdner). The following are interesting items in the present connection: 1523 (year), No. 5114, ‘a tablet of St. John Baptist.—1530, No. 6789, under “Images,” Our Lady of Boleyn with a subject; a gentleman of the Almain fashion, etc. … also Twenty-five tablets and plates, among which St. Margaret and St. Anne, Our Lady, St. George, St. Sebastian, St. Barbara, St. Peter, St. Christopher, etc’ But Mrs. Poole adds ‘no Aristotle.’

page 222 note 1 A gift from Pole to Allen is out of the question, as Allen was only one year old when Pole left England in 1533, and did not go to Rome till nine years after Pole's death.

page 223 note 1 Sandys, J. E., History of Classical Scholarship, ii. pp. 59 f.Google Scholar

page 223 note 2 I am not referring here to the ‘portrait’ of Theodorus in the MS. of his Grammar at the Laurentian Library. By the courtesy of Mr. W. Ashburner, of Florence, and of Prof. Guido Biagi, a photograph of this lies before me; it is obviously a quite conventional type.

page 224 note 1 In the medals from the British Museum, likewise, the hood which appears in the silver medalet (above, Fig. 2 b) is reduced in the bronze medal (Fig. 2 a) to a border (that of the hood), treated so as to resemble a straight collar.