On Renaissance medals, see Perspectives on the Renaissance Medal, ed. Stephen K. Scher (New York: Garland, 2000)
Philip Attwood, Italian Medals c. 1530-1600 in British Public Collections (London: The British Museum, 2003)
John Graham Pollard, Renaissance Medals, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2007)
The standard reference remains G. F. Hill, A Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance Before Cellini, 2 vols. (London, 1930)
Attwood (A Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance Before Cellini, ibid.), p. 59ff
Georg Satzinger, "Baumedaillen. Formen und Funktionen. Von den Anfängen bis zum 16. Jahrhundert," in Die Renaissance-Medaille in Italien und Deutschland, ed. G. Satzinger (Münster: Rhema, 2004), pp. 97-133. Examples range from the foundation of new St. Peter's in Rome (1506), the Uffizi in Florence (1561), and the city of Valletta on Malta (1565), to the inauguration of the statues on the Ponte S. Angelo (1669), to name but a few examples
Joanna Woods-Marsden, "How Quattrocento Princes Used Art: Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini and 'Cose Militari,'" Renaissance Studies 3 (1989):387-413
See also Helen S. Ettlinger, "The Image of a Renaissance Prince: Sigismondo Malatesta and the Arts of Power" (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1989)
See letter from Flavio Biondo to Lionello D'Este from February 1, 1446, in B. Nogara, Scritti inediti e rari di Flavio Biondo (Rome: Tipografia poliglotta vaticana, 1927), p. 159
Emperor Augustus was hailed as founder of the city in a marble portrait medallion (diam. 38 cm), made by the sculptor Agostino di Duccio for the Chapel of the Liberal Arts in the Tempio Malatestiano. It is now in the Museo Civico in Rimini. The inscription read "DIVUS AUG PATER"; see Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta e il suo tempo, exh. cat. Palazzo dell'Arengo in Rimini (Vicenza: Neri Pozza editore, 1970), p. 95
Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, "Notes on the Iconography of Piero della Francesca's Fresco of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta Before St. Sigismund. Theoi Athanatoi Kai Tei Polei," Art Bulletin 56 (1974): 345-374
P. J. Jones, The Malatesta of Rimini and the Papal State. A Political History (London, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 231-233
The Image of the Individual. Portraits in the Renaissance, ed. Luke Syson and Nicholas Mann (London: The British Museum, 1998)
Basinio da Parma, courtier at the Malatesta court, praised Pisanello's portrait of his teacher Vittorino da Feltre in the following way: "Father Vittorino, glory of the Roman language, you too will live by the skill of Pisano; the same expression, the same face as on the man; and he has also portrayed with skill the gravitas of a Caesar and his white hair. . . . The portrait struck terror even in me, who was his pupil, . . . and I was overjoyed to realize that you too, great Vittorino, were alive"; as cited in G. F. Hill, Pisanello (London: Duckworth, 1905), p. 186. Pisanello would also make a portrait medal of Vittorino da Feltre, see Hill (note 1), n. 38
Pisanello. Painter to the Renaissance Court, ed. Luke Syson and Dillian Gordon (London: The National Gallery, 2000), especially the section on portrait medals, pp. 109-130
John Cunnally, "Ancient Coins as Gifts and Tokens of Friendship During the Renaissance," Journal of the History of Collections 6 (1994):129-143; Syson and Gordon (note 10), p. 109
Luke S. Syson, "Holes and Loops. The Display and Collection of Medals in Renaissance Italy," Journal of Design History 15 (2003):229-244
A. F. Flaten, "Identity and the Display of 'Medaglie' in Renaissance and Baroque Europe," Word & Image 19 (2003):59-72
Stephen K. Scher, "An Introduction to the Renaissance Portrait Medal," in Scher (see note 1), pp. 1-26
The 1445 medal is believed to commemorate Sigismondo's appointment as Captain General of the papal troops that year, an absolute high point in his military career. See Bruna Restani, "Le medaglie di Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta," Studi Romagnoli 48 (1997):331-364. Compare Syson and Gordon (note 10), pp. 36 and 113 for a different dating
Hill (see note 1), n. 184, diam. 80 mm (there are nine variants of this medal alone in Hill). Given that De'Pasti's presence in Rimini is documented only from 1449 onward, there has always been some confusion about the dating of this and other medals carrying the date 1446. Pier Giorgio Pasini, therefore, proposed a dating of 1449; see his "Matteo dei Pasti. Problems of Style and Chronology," in Italian Medals. Center for the Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts. Symposium Papers. 8 (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1987), pp. 143-159. Syson and Gordon (see note 10) agree with him; Woods-Marsden (see note 3)
and Restani (Italian Medals. ibid.) do not
Bauten Roms auf Münzen und Medaillen, ed. Harald Küthmann (Munich: Beckenbauer, 1973). Matteo De'Pasti would design one more portrait medal for Sigismondo with a building on its reverse, namely theTempio Malatestiano (see note 25 to follow)
Cesare Clementini, Raccolto istorico della fondatione di Riminio e dell'origine e vite dei Malatesti (Rimini 1627; reprint Bologna: Forni, 1969), p. 309
There was often a desire to align the birth horoscope of the patron with that of his city or building. See Mary Quinlan-McGrath, "The Foundation Horoscope(s) for St Peter's Basilica, Rome, 1506. Choosing a Time, Changing the Storia," Isis 92 (2001):716-741
Joanna Woods-Marsden, "Images of Castles in the Renaissance. Symbols of Signoria, Symbols of Tyranny," Art Journal 48 (1989):130-137; see also her article in note 3, pp. 394-396
Just as he had done in an earlier poem on a fortress in Gradara, Vegio introduced Castel Sismondo as speaking in the first person: "Aspice quam mole ingenti cultuque superbo | Quae sim, quam miris machina structa modis | Sismondo nomen mihi, Sigismundus et auctor | Quantus ab exemplo disce sit ipse meo. | Quem Malatestorum magno de sanguine natum | mirare, et laudes effer ad astras suas." See also Piergiorgio Parroni, "I castelli nella letteratura umanistica e cortigiana," in Castel Sismondo. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta e l'arte militare del primo rinascimento, ed. Angelo Turchini (Cesena: Ponte Vecchio, 2003), pp. 325-336
"Al piano dell'acqua buona, [furono trovate] quantità di medaglie di bronzo grandi, con ritratto di Sigismondo da una parte, e dell'altra il dissegno del Castello istesso, con la quale v'erano anco delle picciole [medaglie]," Clementini (see note 17), vol. II, pp. 723-724
Angelo Turchini, "Medaglie malatestiane rinvenute in Castel Sismondo, con una relazione sul ritrovamento di Giovanni Giuccioli Menghi," in Castel Sismondo e Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, ed. C. Tomasini Pietramellara and A. Turchini (Rimini: Ghigi, 1985), pp. 129-148, esp. 133
Charles Hope, "The Early History of the Tempio Malatestiano," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 55 (1992):51-154
Corrado Ricci, Il Tempio Malatestiano (Milan: Bestetti & Tuminelli, 1924)
Hill (see note 1), n. 183. Sigismondo's portrait is crowned with a laurel. The legend on the reverse of the medal reads: PRAECL. ARIMINI. TEMPLUM AN. GRATIAE V[OTUM].F[ECIT]. M.CCCCL. See also Leon Battista Alberti, ed. Joseph Rykwert and Anne Engel (Milan: Electa, 1994), pp. 484-485. At the opening of [X] Sigismondo's grave in August 1756, six specimens of this medal were found underneath his body, displayed in the form of a cross. Ricci (see note 24), p. 350
"Adì 15 del ditto [ottobre 1450], fonno posti dui alifanti in la capella del S. a Santo Francesco; l'abade de San Gaudenzo glie benedisse. . . . A dì 23 del ditto fonno missi dui altri alifante in la ditta capella e fonno benedidi per lo dicto abate"; Cronaca Riminese, as cited by Corrado Ricci (see note 24), p. 218. The deposit consisted of nine large bronze medals with "Fortitude" on its reverse (Hill n. 178), along with thirteen smaller ones, with Fortitude enthroned (Hill n. 181)
Pier Giorgio Pasini, "Note su Matteo dei Pasti e la Medaglistica Malatestiana," in La medaglia d'arte. Atti del primo convegno internazionale di studio (Udine: C.I.A.C. Libri, 1973), pp. 41-75
Pier Giorgio Pasini, "La medaglia d'arte. Ibid., pp. 61-71
At the time, De'Pasti was supervising the construction of fortifications in Senigallia; Marinella Bonvini Mazzanti, "La riedificazione di Senigallia," in Turchini (see note 19), pp. 173-192
Alfred Gell, Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p. 21
J. Graham Pollard, "The Italian Renaissance Medal. Collecting and Connaisseurship," in Italian Medals (see note 15), pp. 161-169
C. L. Frommel, "Francesco del Borgo. Architekt Pius' II. und Pauls II. Palazzo Venezia, Palazzetto Venezia und San Marco," Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 21 (1984):71-164
A. Modigliani, "Paolo II e il sogno abbandonato di una piazza imperiale," in Antiquaria a Roma. Intorno a Pomponio Leto e Paolo II, ed. M. Miglio (Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento, 2003), pp. 125-161
Hill (see note 1), n. 783; S. De Caro Balbi, "Di alcune medaglie rinvenute nelle mura del Palazzo di Venezia in Roma," Medaglia 5 (1973):23-34
His biographer Gaspare da Verona called him "numismatum tarn veterum quam recentium cognoscitor egregius investigatorque assiduus"; see Le vite di Paolo II di Gaspare da Verona e di Michele Canensi, ed. G. Zippel (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1904), p. 4
Roberto Weiss, Papa Paolo II. Un umanista veneziano (Rome, Venice: Istituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1958); De Caro Balbi (see note 36), p. 29
There are also portrait medals of the above-mentioned type (Hill n. 783) with HANC ARCEM (Arx, meaning "fortress") instead of HAS AEDES ("building"). Weiss (see Roberto Weiss, Papa Paolo II. Un umanista veneziano (ibid., p. 51) linked this variation with the fortresses built by Paul II in Rome and in the Papal States, at Todi, Cascia, and Terracina during the period of 1465-1466
Weiss (see note 38), p. 77 cites from Giacomo Grimaldi's Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano. Codice Barberini latino 2733, ed. R. Niggl (Vatican City: Vatican Library, 1972), fol. 155: "pars palatii apostolici frontem faciens ad via Alexandrinam a Paulo secundo excitata, ut marmorea notabant insignia, et complures nummi aenei cuius imagine ad vivum expressa cum literis 'Paulus Venetus Papa Secundus'; in altera parte 'has aedes aedificavit' (Hill n. 783); in aliquibus vero numismatibus magnis aeneis erat ipse Paulus in throno Maiestatis cum cardinalibus (Hill n. 775); quae reperta fuerunt in fundamentis atque parietibus dictatum aedium."
Fabrizio Mancinelli, "Il cubicolo di Giulio II," Bollettino Monumenti, Musei e Gallerie pontificie 3 (1982):63-103; esp. p. 66
Klaus Klusemann, Das Bauopfer. Eine etnographisch-, prähistorisch- linguistische Studie (Graz/Hamburg, Selbstverlag, 1919)
More recently, Vesa-Pekka Herva, "The Life of Buildings. Minoan Building Deposits in an Ecological Perspective," Oxford Journal of Archaeology 24 (2005):215-227
Peter Woodward and Ann Woodward, "Dedicating the Town. Urban Foundation Deposits in Roman Britain," World Archaeology 36 (2004):68-86
D. Freidel and L. Schele, "Dead Kings and Living Temples. Dedication and Termination Rituals Among the Ancient Maya," in Word and Image in Maya Culture, Explorations in Language, Writing, and Representation, ed. W. F. Hanks and D. S. Rice (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1989), pp. 233-243
See also I riti del costruire nelle acque violate, ed. Mirella Serlorenzi and Helga di Giuseppe (Rome, forthcoming)
M. Donderer, "Münzen als Bauopfer in römischen Privathäusern," Bonner Jahrbücher des Rheinischen Landesmuseums 184 (1984):177-187
Rita Müller-Zeis, "Griechische Bauopfer und Gründungsdepots" (Ph.D. diss., Saarbrücken University, 1994), catalogue nr. 54
During the demolition of old St. Peter's, many medieval coins were found in the foundations of chapels or under columns; see Grimaldi (note 40), fols. 175-176. At another occasion, an old coin with the portrait of St. Nicholas was found in the foundations of old St Peter's; see Rita Müller-Zeis, "Griechische Bauopfer und Gründungsdepots" (ibid., fol. 274
Weiss (see note 38), pp. 70-71; A. Saccocci, "Teche e 'medaglie' murali carraresi (1355-1405)," in Le mura ritrovate: fortificazioni di Padova in età comunale e carrarese, ed. Adriano Verdi (Padua: Panda Edizioni, 1988)
Tacitus, Histories 4, 53
Andrea Da Schivenoglia (d. 1467), "Famiglie mantovane e Cronaca di Mantova," Biblioteca Comunale di Mantova, ms. 1019 (II, 2), as cited by Restani (see note 14), pp. 335-336
Platynae historici liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificium, ed. Giacinto Gaida (Citta di Castello: Lapi, 1913-1932), p. 388: "numismata prope infinita, ex auro, argento aereve sua imagine signata . . . in fundamentis aedificiorum suorum more veterum collocabat."
"Domum insuper iuxta ipsam ecclesiam magnis impensis testudineoque aedificio funditus construxit; cuius quidem fundamenta cerimoniali cum benedictione atque aliquanta auri argentique numismatici depositione, ut saepe in magnis dignisque aedificiis fieri assolet, optimis auspitiis iecit." Le vite di Paolo II (see note 37), p. 82
R. A. Goldthwaite, "The Building of the Strozzi Palace. The Construction Industry in Renaissance Florence," Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 10 (1973):97-194
Tribaldo De Rossi, "Ricordanze," in Delizie degli eruditi toscani (Florence: Cambiagi, 1770-1789), p. 249
as cited by Richard Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1980), p. 447. A year later, De'Rossi repeated this act of throwing coins at the foundation ceremonies of the Palazzo Gondi
On the foundation ritual, see Mircea Eliade, Le mythe de l'éternel retour. Archetypes et répétition (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), pp. 30-33
"Perchè io intendo et voglio che decta mia casa sia per ogni futuro tempo in perpetuo habitata da dicti Strozzi, et rimanga nella famiglia degli Strozzi" as cited in F. W. Kent, "Più superba de quella de Lorenzo; Courtly and Family Interest in the Building of Filippo Strozzi's Palace," Renaissance Quarterly 30 (1977): 311-323, note 47
"Ad quondam tui nominis immortalitatem, Matthaei Fasti Veronensis opera industriaque vidi aere auro et argento innumeras quasi coelatas imagines, quae vel in defossis locis dispersae, vel muris intus locatae, vel ad exteras nationes transmissae sunt"; letter written in 1453 from Timoteo Maffei to Sigismondo Malatesta, as cited by Weiss (see note 38), p. 71. There is also a portrait medal of Timoteo Maffei, signed by Matteo De'Pasti (Hill n. 159)
"Magna aeternitatis cupido . . . numismata eam ob causam tuae imaginis, non cudis modo, sed fundamentis aedificiorum parietibusque admisces, ut illis, vetustate ruentibus, exiliant post mille annos monimenta nominis Pauli,"
Ammanati Piccolomini, Lettere 1444-1479, ed. Paolo Cherubini (Rome, Istituto poligrafico e zecca dello Stato, 1997), p. 1203
Working from 1460 onward as an architect at the court of Francesco Sforza in Milan, Filarete designed among other buildings the façade of the Castello Sforzesco and the Ospedale Maggiore. See Filarete's Treatise on Architecture, Being the Treatise by Antonio di Piero Averlino known as Filarete, 2 vols., ed. John R. Spencer (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1965). Although never put in print, the book had a wide circulation. A copy in Florence with the date 1465 is dedicated to Piero De'Medici: Apparently, Filarete fell out of grace with Francesco Sforza soon after completing the work
Filarete's Treatise on Architecture, Being the Treatise by Antonio di Piero Averlino known as Filarete, Ibid., vol. I, p. 44
The foundation ceremonies of Filarete's Ospedale Maggiore in Milan on April 12, 1465, however, did include the deposition of portrait medals: "una casetta di pionbo dove era piu cose, intra l[']altre v[']era certe memorie di teste scolpite di alcuni huomini degni di fama" see Filarete's Treatise on Architecture (note 62), p. 320
Examples are the previously mentioned foundation ceremonies of the city walls of Rimini (1431), of Castel Sismondo (1437), but also those of Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and the Torre Bentivoglio in Bologna (both in 1489); see also Georgia Clarke, Roman House-Renaissance Palaces. Inventing Antiquity in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 25-29
Leonard Barkan, Unearthing the Past. Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1999)
