ORIENTAL COINS IN THE CAPITOLINE

MUSEUMS (ROME): FURTHER RESEARCHES ON

STANZANI COLLECTION HISTORY *

ARIANNA D’OTTONE

‘Poscia che per la iddio gratia siamo in Roma, regina delle città, epitome di tutte l’humane cose,
ove si veggian tante reliquie delle cose antiche in gemme, in medaglie, in camei, in marmi che
sono infinite et, mentre serà il mondo, da essa terra osceranno cose nuove sepolte in essa, sem-
pre seranno delle cose trovate et di quella che si troveranno per esser ricca come al mare et non
potranno dubbitare che per ogni huomo ingenoso serà materia da desbrigare.’

Torino, Archivio di Stato - Pirro Ligorio, Antichità romane, vol. XXI, f. 193v

Background
In 1888 the English Handbook of Rome and its Environs, describing Room 5 in the New Capito-
line Museums, reported: ‘On the right wall are part of the mediaeval coins bequeathed to Rome by
the Roman architect Stanzani, who passed many years in Russia, and collected upwards of 10,000
coins of that country and Poland, with Oriental and German series of great rarity, which will be
in time also arranged in this museum’.2 Apart from a very concise note which appeared in 1887 in
Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale,3 this is the first publication mentioning the
presence of the Stanzani Collection (SC) in Rome, at the Capitoline Museums.
Three years later, in 1891, in his report on numismatic material found in 18 years of excava-
tions in Rome, the new capital (1871) of the unified Italian State (1860), the archaeologist Camillo
Serafini wrote: ‘I add, finally, that the Municipality possesses also the collection of the Stanzani
bequest, consisting of 9,251 coins, mostly Oriental and Mediaeval coins. The classification, begun
by the Baron Pietro Ercole Visconti, was then interrupted, so the collection lays in disorder and the
pieces exhibited in the Coin Cabinet are arranged – he told us – without any practical or scientific
criteria, lacking names and dates that could inform the visitor at least about the series and age they
refer to’.4
After this note by Serafini on the size of the SC and its disorder, the following, scattered items
of information on the collection become more and more vague. In 1901, in one of his eye-witness
accounts on archaeological activity in Rome and its neighbourhood, written for the English journal
of fine arts The Athenaeum,5 Rodolfo Lanciani gave just a laconic hint on SC as did, in the same
year, The New York Times.6
∗
I would like to express all my thanks to: Stefan Heidemann – Jena; Lutz 6
See The New York Times, October 12, 1901: ‘Coin collectors may note
Ilisch – Tübingen; Vladimir Nastich – Moscow; Gert Rispling – Stockholm. that Rome has at present three great collections instead of the two famous
I am also very grateful to the Direction of the Capitoline Museums and their hoards of Pope Leo XIII and the King Victor Emmanuel. The municipality
staff. has arranged his own collection making use of the accomplished
2
A Handbook of Rome 1888, p. 331. numismatist Camillo Serafini who cares for the coins at the Vatican. The
3
‘Il Comune possiede a titolo di legato una seconda importante raccolta new collection shows the medals and coins found in public excavations
di monete formata dallo Stanzani’, Bullettino Comunale 1887, p. 294, since 1870; the Stanzani treasures brought together by that architect during
quoted by Panvini Rosati Cotellessa 1960, p. 6. his residence in Russia, the Bignami coins bought by the city in 1889, and
4
Serafini 1891, p. 12. the Roman gold coins found in the official pawnshop and ransomed’.
5
See Lanciani 1988, p. 345.
1808 ARIANNA D’OTTONE
In his Collezioni Capitoline (1930), Settimo Bocconi cites Ludovico Stanzani – together with
the well known antiquarians Augusto Castellani and Ortensio Vitalini – among the generous givers
who contributed, thanks to their deeds, to the constitution of the Capitoline Coin Cabinet. It seems
possible to link to SC the Bocconi reference to some 2,000 mediaeval and modern coins, especial-
ly from Germany, Poland and Russia. Bocconi, however, made no mention of the Oriental series.7
When, in 1970, the Istituto Italiano di Numismatica carried out a survey on the existence and
contents of Arabic coin collections in Italy, the Capitoline Coin Cabinet was declared to hold
‘some hundreds’ of coins without any mention about their provenance.8 It seems very likely, how-
ever, that these ‘hundreds of coins’ were the roughly 4,500 pieces of Oriental coinage belonging
to SC.
More than a century passed until SC was rediscovered - when the Capitoline Coin Cabinet
reopened to the public in 2003. Therefore, in agreement with the Direction of Museums, I started
to put in order, catalogue and study the collection. The question is: who was Ludovico Stanzani
and how did it happen that his collection ended up in the Capitoline Museums?

The Architect Ludovico Stanzani (LS): biographical sketch

The little which is known of Stanzani’s biography starts with his death in August 1872, in Kiev,
when he was 88.9 Born in Rome,10 he left Italy very young, with his father Vincenzo, to settle in
Russia. There Ludovico became a renowned architect;11 however there is no mention of his name
in studies devoted to Italian architects working in nineteenth-century Russia.12 Neverthless, it
seems he was so appreciated as to be appointed, in 1832, ‘Official Architect’ of Podolskaya Prov-
ince and then ‘General Architect of the town’ in Kiev.13 Married to the Polish Countess and painter
Michelina Dziekonska,14 at her death he was left a widower without descendants.15
During a stay in Saint Petersburg, LS and Michelina Dziekonska met Giuseppe De Fabris,
Regent of the Pontificia Insigne Accademia dei Virtuosi al Pantheon in Rome. Back in Italy, De
Fabris enthusiastically described Stanzani to other Virtuosi as: ‘Court Counsellor, Knight member
of various scientific institutions, talented person in various domains, a man with plenty of money
and benefactor for Russian Catholics’.16 Stanzani was also a coin collector, as the Tiesenhausen
reference to his collection suggests17 – even if, at that time, in Russia as well as in Italy, it was not
so difficult for anyone who was wealthy and educated to obtain archaeological finds – and in this
case, coins.18 Anyhow, the De Fabris proposal to appoint Mr. and Mrs. Stanzani as correspondant
members of the Accademia dei Virtuosi was accepted during an Academy meeting in December
1857. Less than 20 years later the very same Academy received the Stanzani inheritance together
with his collection of gems and coins destined for a certain ‘Archaeological Cabinet of Rome’.

7
See Bocconi 1930, p. 387. 14
In nineteenth-century Kiev, until 1917, there was a large and
8
See Oman 1971, vol. 2, p. 288. flourishing Polish intelligentsia; see Lukowski / Zawadzki 2009, p. 197.
9
Rome, ASASL, Stanzani Ludovico, legati, 1634. On M. Dziekonska, see Waga 1992, p. 251. Unfortunately the Polish
10
Researches through the 43 registers of the eighteenth-century churches biographical repertoire does not record any Dziekonska, see Polski Słownik
with baptismal font, in Rome, for the decade 1780-1790, are in progress. Biograficzny 1935-… , I-…., in particular, vol. VI (1948), pp. 130-37 .
11
Contrary to Giacomo Trombara (1742-1808), see Frank 2004, p. 79. 15
From here, probably, Stanzani’s will to create grants for poor student in
12
See Lo Gatto 1990-1994; Dal mito al progetto (2004); Architetti e the Gymnasium of Kiev and his wish to found a competition for architects,
ingegneri (2005). Neverthless my hypothesis – D’Ottone 2010 – about engineers and sculptors in Rome.
Vincenzo and Alessadro Beretti’s acquaintance with L. Stanzani is confirmed. 16
Waga 1992, p. 251.
13
I owe the items of information on Stanzani’s activity as an architect to 17
See Tiesenhausen 1875, p. 379.
V. Nastich. 18
For Russia, see Talvio 2005, p. 16; for Italy, see Travaini 20052, p. 114.
 ORIENTAL COINS IN THE CAPITOLINE MUSEUMS (ROME):
FURTHER RESEARCHES ON STANZANI COLLECTION HISTORY 1809
The testament: Archives Researches
In June 1872, some months before his death, Stanzani dictated his last will in Russian to the
clerk of the Kiev military Council.19 According to this testament, the collection of gems and coins
Stanzani put together with his own fortune was to end up, as stated above, in the ‘Archaeological
Cabinet of Rome’. At that time, however, an ‘Archeological Cabinet’ in Rome did not exist.
The collection was sent to Italy, in June 1873, by General Castiglia, Consul of the Italian Em-
bassy in Odessa. Assembled in a box, the coins and gems were addressed to the Accademia dei
Virtuosi – the Institution depositary of the collection until the resolution of the bequest. Having
arrived in Brindisi on a Lloyd steamer, the box – containing also a copy of the collection inventory
– remained for almost a month in port with no-one claiming it.20
Nevertheless, the arrival of the collection in Rome attracted the interest of institutions, schol-
ars and local press. On the Vox Populi page, the gazette La Libertà published a letter by Pietro
Veri, student of Archaeology, denouncing the fact that the collection – valued at more than 3,000
golden roubles – was kept in the private house of the Accademia dei Virtuosi Regent. Moreover,
it was suggested that, if the Municipality did not claim its rights on the collection, the latter could
end up in the Vatican Museum.21
Pietro Veri was not alone in fearing that. The Mayor of Rome was informed about the precious
Stanzani bequest in October 1872, when Rodolfo Lanciani wrote him a letter explaining the risk
that the uncertain destination of SC could encourage the ambitions of other institutions, such as
the Vatican Museum - already mentioned - the University of Rome and the Pontificial Academy
of Archaeology.
The Capitoline Museums, for their part, did not have a Coin Cabinet22 until that October, so the
Archaeological Commission hurried up to constitute this new section, eventually founded thanks
to a gift by Augusto Castellani. The creation of the Coin Cabinet was a fundamental step, indeed,
both for the Capitoline Museums – improving, in this manner, their collections – and for the Rome
Municipality, with a view to acquiring the Stanzani bequest.
The documents I had the chance to look through in the Accademia dei Virtuosi Archives, lo-
cated on the Pantheon top floor, shed some more light on the matter.
At least two Coin Cabinets open to public23 existed in Rome in the nineteenth century, and they
were the Vatican Coin Cabinet and the Coin Cabinet of the University of Rome.
Pope and State being the respective holders of these Coin Cabinets, it followed that the sole
Archaeological Museum provided with a Coin Cabinet held by the Municipality was the Capi-
toline one. From this point of view the ambiguous formula allocating SC to the ‘Archaeological
Cabinet of Rome’ would designate, it appeared, only the Capitoline Museums. Last but not least,
no other institution was claiming the bequest and, for its part, the Virtuosi Academy was ready
to entrust the collection to the first claiming it. The Capitoline Museums were the first and only
ones. Taken in custody by the Municipality in September 1877, SC is found, nowadays, in the new
permanent exhibition showcases just after the pieces from the Castellani gift.

19
A copy of the Russian testament as well as its Italian translation is found
in Rome, ASC, Uff. VI.b. 20, f. 1/2, Odessa, 23/24 settembre 1872. For a
first report on Stanzani Collection history, see D’Ottone 2005, pp. 253-54.
20
See D’Ottone 2010.
21
See La Libertà – Gazzetta del Popolo, 2 Agosto 1873.
22
See Medagliere Capitolino (2000), p. 127.
23
Kircherian Coin Cabinet became State property after 1870. On the
Kircherian Museum, see Enciclopedismo in Roma Barocca 1986.
1810 ARIANNA D’OTTONE
The Significance of SC
1. The acquisition of SC gave stimulus for the creation of the Capitoline Coin Cabinet, rep-
resenting a fundamental step in the history of this institution.
2. For its provenance and materials, SC could take its place in the history of numismatic col-
lecting in nineteenth-century Russia. For its size and for the quality of its specimens – some
of them still quite rare – it could also be numbered among the better-known nineteenth-
century European collections of Oriental coins.24 Moreover, in spite of the lengthy journey
that brought the box containing coins to Rome, SC is one of the few private collections
preserved as it was – without the dispersion which often occurs after the collector’s death.
3. On the other hand, SC now being in Italy, it constitutes part of the Italian cultural herit-
age. Then it deserves attention for turning out to be the largest collection of Arabic coins
in Italy25 – without considering that for the kind of coins forming it, not very common in
Italy, SC is distinguished as a very original collection.26 Finally Stanzani’s name has to be
added to the list of Italian people who contributed, in the nineteenth century, to the crea-
tion of some important public collections of Oriental finds.27

This presentation was intended to illustrate some new items of information on the history of
SC. Future goals are: drawing up a catalogue of the entire collection and further investigations
both on coin provenances and Stanzani’s biography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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For a touchstone it is significant to remember that Frédéric Soret’s Arabic coin collections in Italian public institutions and museums.
collection of oriental coins, the biggest collection of his time, amounted to 26
In Italy, just the Castello Sforzesco Collection (Milan) holds specimens
some 5,500 pieces when he died (1865), see Heidemann 2007, p. 109. comparable, to some extent, to part of the SC coins; see Castiglioni 1819.
25
On Arabic coins found in Italy, see the recent contribution by Sacocci 27
On Italian Near East collecting in the nineteenth century, see D’Amore
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 ORIENTAL COINS IN THE CAPITOLINE MUSEUMS (ROME):
FURTHER RESEARCHES ON STANZANI COLLECTION HISTORY 1811
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1812 ARIANNA D’OTTONE
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