A Marble and Paper Heritage. The Galleria Giustiniana and the Birth of the Illustrated Catalogue

The Galleria Giustiniana is a collection of engravings reproducing from statues, busts, and ancient reliefs in Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani’s possession and was published around 1636-1637 in two folio volumes. The enterprise, which occupied the last years of the Marquis’ life, employed around thirty artists, including Italian, French, and Flemish draughtsmen and engravers and constituted a copious private academy in the years to come. While the editorial idea drew on the tradition of antiquarian studies already present in Rome in the 16th century, the high stylistic quality, the critical and aesthetic principles that inspired it, and the fundamental characteristic of illustrating selected works of a collection alone made it an innovative work, which inspired many subsequent publications throughout the 17th century and beyond. This contribution retraces the genesis, motivations, protagonists, and fortune of the Galleria Giustiniana, by placing it in the broader context of the proposals of the main European collectors and identifying its ultimate outcome in the birth of the illustrated catalogue.