Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.19593

    Portrait of Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini

    Date
    1715
    Sitter
    Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1380 - 1459, Italian) , Humanist
    Creator
    Antonio Luciani (1695 - 1742, Italian) , Engraver
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 220mm
    width (print): 135mm
    Subject
    Description
    Head and shoulders study of Poggio Bracciolini, the head inclined downward and to the right as viewed. Within an oval frame and with a heraldic shield.

    Plate from a grangerized copy of A history of the Royal Society, with memoirs of the Presidents…by Charles Richard Weld (London, John W. Parker, 1848). In this edition, the original two volumes were extended to eight volumes with the addition of extra-illustrations and documents, by Alexander Meyrick Broadley.

    The engraving appears at pp.4/5, as Weld’s text notes Poggio’s writing on the state of classical texts kept in monastic libraries, a ‘melancholy account of the barbarous ignorance of the monastic possessors of some of the ancient manuscripts.’

    The image has been cropped: the original oval framing inscription was: ’POGGIUS BRACCIOLINUS HISTORICUS FLORENTINUS’. Below, ‘Ant: Luciani Venet: Sculp: 1715’.

    Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) Italian humanist and scholar, known for his rediscovery of classical manuscripts, notably works by Cicero and De rarum natura, by Lucretius.
    Object history
    Print from Charles Richard Weld's A history of the Royal Society, vol. 1... (London, John W. Parker, 1848) grangerized by the writer and collector Alexander Meyrick Broadley (1847–1916) into 8 volumes, adding illustrative material and manuscript items to Weld's text. The books were initially owned by Ludwig Mond FRS (1839–1909), and according to an inscription by his son Robert Ludwig Mond FRS (1867–1938) they were intended for presentation to the Society. This eventually happened in late 1959, the donor being the politician Harry Nathan (1889–1963), Lord Nathan of Churt.
    Related fellows
    Charles Richard Weld (1813 - 1869, British) , Author
    Associated place
    <The World>
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          > Italy
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          > United Kingdom
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