The diverse curiosità of Giacomo Francesco Arpino (1607–1684): An introduction to an early collector of Italian Renaissance plaquettes

leino, marika;

Giacomo Francesco Arpino (1607–1684), physician to the community of Poirino (near Turin) and to members of the House of Savoy, assembled a widely admired and uniquely documented collection of fine and decorative arts. Arpino’s manuscript catalogues were never published in his own lifetime and are now held in Turin’s Biblioteca Reale. The self-conscious labelling of his collection as a gabinetto or museo followed the contemporary fashion for cabinets of curiosities and included objects as diverse as ancient and modern sculptures, maiolica, plaquettes and medals, paintings, drawings and prints,
scientific instruments and natural history specimens. This article will provide an introduction to Arpino and his collection, focusing in particular on his Italian Renaissance bronze plaquettes, which are listed in great detail in the gabinetto. His manuscript catalogues provide evidence of one of the earliest systematic collections of plaquettes anywhere: they demonstrate that these small reliefs were already divorced from their functional origins by the mid-seventeenth century, having become instead objects sought after by collectors. Issues of display and acquisition will also be considered within the wider ambit of Arpino’s collection and interests. An online appendix provides a transcription and translation of the manuscript list of Arpino’s plaquettes, together with an identification of the reliefs, along with a transcription of the manuscript lists of his scientific instruments and clocks.