La Galleria di ‘Uomini illustri’ di José Nicolás de Azara tra antiquaria e archeologia

The most significant aspect of the collection of José Nicolás de Azara, Spanish ambassador in Rome during the last quarter of the XVIIIth century, was the assemblage of Greek and Roman portraits. It counted around eighty portraits now preserved in the Museo del Prado in Madrid and in the Casa del Labrador in Aranjuez. The present paper analyses the important role José Nicolás de Azara’s collection played in the afterlife of ancient portraiture. Furthermore, it points out the relationship with E.Q. Visconti’s icononographical studies. Several portraits in the collection were anonymous and they were identified partly in comparison with kindred pieces and the most recent discoveries, partly on likeness with coins or gems, partly on descriptions of classical authors, partly on a long tradition of scholarship. The portraits also passed through restorers’ workshops. Some remarks reveal a close association with the practices employed by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi as well as by his pupil Carlo Albacini. In the second part we focus on the fifteen portrait heads found at Tivoli in the so-called villa of Pisoni. They belonged to a herm Gallery of illustrious men of the past (orators, poets, philosophers, Greek kings, statesmen, men of action, etc.). Despite only Alessandro Magno’s head retaining the inscribed herm, we can assert, thanks to the sixteenth century antiquarian sources, that the other heads were also inscribed. These portraits do not all date back to the same period (between the late first century AD and the mid second century AD) and do not conform to the chronology of the villa remains (between the second century BC and the mid first century AD). Therefore, the situation presents the following possibilities: a) the herm gallery was set up in different times or b) the herm gallery was assembled using portraits already carved and new pieces. The portraits’ setting evokes an ideal of paideia which was appreciated and practised by the Roman élite and our study argues for an Hadrianic- Antonine influence for their display.