Fulvio: the First Numismatic Picture Book

In reply to some earlier comments of mine, Dave Welsh reckons that a 1524 antiquarian book was the epitome of the independent methodology of heap of coins on a table coineyism as the "first illustrated numismatic book". Well, he gets the date wrong, it was in fact first published in 1517 in Rome by Jacopo Mazzocchi. Welsh is referring to Antoine Blanchard's Lyon edition of 1524, maybe that is the copy he has in his own library.


Andrea Fulvio (fl. 1510-1543) was quite a prolific Italian writer on a number of themes connected with antiquity. He was working in the pontificate of Leo X who took an especial interest in antiquities (and appointed Raphael as custodian of Roman antiquities).  The book Welsh finds so fascinating is his "Illustrium Imagines" ("Images of the Illustrious") "Imperatorum et illustrium viroum ac mulierum vultus ex antiquis nomismatibus (sic) expressi: emendatu correptumq[ue] (sic) opus per Andream Fuluium diligentissimum antiquarium". The portraits show famous men and women, mostly Roman, Byzantine emperors and their wives, and individuals from German medieval history and some of them come from coins and medals in Mazzocchi's own collection. You can read it online here (try here). I think from this you can see that the contribution it makes to numismatic scholarship is negligible, the portraits are used to illustrate information gained from other sources rather than provide any information. This is what I think coineyism mainly - in fact, and despite what collectors and dealers assert - consists of. The lack of any kind of chronological framework is notable.

Another point is that looking at these sixteenth century representations of Roman iconography makes us aware of what the Proculus coin which was in the news recently would have looked like if it was a "fifteenth century forgery" as Roger Bland famously stated. The Early Medieval coins are simply pathetic drawings.

Andrea Fulvio's other works are listed here while there is an interesting essay online about some aspects of the numismatic collection which it depicts (Stephan Orgel "The Art of the Lacuna", Shakespeare Studies; 2000, Vol. 28, p175).

IS this a good example of the independent methodology of modern numismatics? Hardly. There is no numismatic methodology there at all. It's just a picture book, and not a very accurate one at that. When are coineys going to stop their incessant crowing about the glorious past of coin collecting and give a bit more attention to the needs of a modern humanistic discipline?

Let us see a booklist of modern works presenting in detail the methodology of kitchen table-top numismatics.