Museum Archetypes and Collecting in the Ancient World offers a broad, yet detailed analysis of the phenomenon of collecting in the ancient world through a museological lens. In the last two decades this has provided a basis for exciting interdisciplinary explorations by archaeologists, art historians, and historians of the history of collecting. This compendium of essays by different specialists is the first general overview of the reasons why ancient civilizations from Archaic Greece to the Late Classical/Early Christian period amassed objects and displayed them together in public, private and imaginary contexts. It addresses the ranges of significance these proto-museological conditions gave to the objects both in sacred and secular settings.
Maia Wellington Gahtan, Ph.D. (Yale University, 1995) is Program Director, MA Museum Studies at the Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici. She has published articles and books on museology and the interplay between intellectual history and the representational arts.
Donatella Pegazzano, Ph.D. (Università degli Studi di Roma e Firenze, 2000), professor at the Università degli Studi di Firenze, has published articles and books in the fields of the history of art and the history of collecting.
Contributors are: Sarah Bassett, Alexandra Bounia, Jas’ Elsner, Massimiliano Franci, Francesca Ghedini, Nathaniel Jones, Ann Kuttner, Alessandra Lazzeretti, Paolo Liverani, Ida Gilda Mastrorosa, Margaret M. Miles, Richard Neudecker, Evelyne Prioux, Giulia Salvo, Josephine Shaya and Lea Stirling.
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Maia Wellington Gahtan & Donatella Pegazzano Abbreviations
List of Illustrations and Photo Credits
Notes on Contributors
Museum Archetypes and Collecting: An Overview of the Public, Private, and Virtual Collections of the Ancient World
Maia Wellington Gahtan and Donatella Pegazzano 1 Towards the Museum: Perceiving the Art of “Others” in the Ancient Near East
Massimiliano Franci 2 Greek Temple Treasures and the Invention of Collecting
Josephine Shaya 3 Collecting the Past, Creating the Future: Art Displays in the Hellenistic Mediterranean
Margaret M. Miles 4 Hellenistic Court Collecting from Alexandros to the Attalids
Ann Kuttner 5 Poetic Depictions of Ancient dactyliothecae Évelyne Prioux 6 The Culture of Collecting in Roma: Between Politics and Administration Paolo Liverani 7 Archetypes of Collecting in the Roman World: Antiquarianism, Gift Exchange, Identity and Time-Space as Parameters of Value Alexandra Bounia 8 Verres, Cicero and Other Collectors in Late Republican Roma Alessandra Lazzeretti 9 Collectables, Antiques and Sumptuary Trends in Ancient Roma: A Look around the Dining Halls of the Late Republic and Early Empire Ida Gilda Mastrorosa 10 Private Art Galleries in Roma: Literary and Archaeological Evidence Francesca Ghedini and Giulia Salvo 11 Temple Inventory and Fictive Picture Gallery: Ancient Painting between Votive Offering and Artwork Nathaniel Jones 12 Collecting Culture: Statues and Fragments in Roman Gardens Richard Neudecker 13 The Opportunistic Collector: Sources of Statuary Décor and the Nature of Late Antique Collecting Lea Stirling 14 Collecting and the Creation of History Sarah Bassett Afterword. Framing Knowledge: Collecting Objects, Collecting Texts Jas’ Elsner
Bibliographies Indices
Museum Archetypes and Collecting it the Ancient World is aimed at classical archaeologists and textual historians as well as scholars of the history of collecting and museums.