de Antichita Diverse Album

Cassiano's Antichita Diverse album, here published for the first time in its entirety, is essentially the Paper Museum in embryo. The modest title ('Various Antiquities') hardly does justice to the range of material represented, for almost every category of portable antiquity to be found in the cabinets of Rome is illustrated: gems, coins, gaming pieces, vessels and tableware of all kinds, oil lamps, weights and measures, keys, weapons, military equipment, rings, musical instruments, burial urns, altars and tripods, figurines, statues and reliefs, in every possible material from terracotta and bone to tin, lead, bronze, silver, gold, marble and semi-precious stones. The 500 or so studies, on 108 sheets, date mainly from the early 1620s, and were produced probably with the (unrealised) intention that they would be reproduced as a series of prints to serve the antiquarian interests of the pan-European 'Republic of Letters'.