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Document Details : Title: La Collezione di Alessandro Castellani al British Museum di Londra Subtitle: Novità su reperti dall'Etruria meridionale, Latium vetus e da Capua attraverso la corrispondenza epistolare Author(s): AMBROSINI, Laura Journal: BABESCH Volume: 96 Date: 2021 Pages: 209-231 DOI: 10.2143/BAB.96.0.3289467 Abstract : As is well known, the figure of Alessandro Castellani stands out in the panorama of the antiquarian trade of the second half of the 19th century. Son of Fortunato Pio Castellani and devoted Mazzinian, starting from the Parisian exile (1860-1862) he dealt with the sale of numerous finds from the excavations carried out in Etruria, both to Napoleon III who bought them for the Musée Napoléon III (later transferred to the Louvre) and to Charles Thomas Newton for the British Museum. The correspondence between Alessandro Castellani and the British Museum dated to those years, preserved in the Department of Greece and Rome of the British Museum, allows us to better focus on the Castellani’s activity as a skilled merchant of antiquity and to shed light on the contacts between the European scholars of antiquity. The study is focused on the main archaeological finds, sold by Castellani to the British Museum, coming from Cerveteri, Vulci, Palestrina and Capua and some special finds such as the fake Sarcophagus made by the Pennelli brothers and the Sarcophagus of the Spouses from Cerveteri preserved in Rome, in the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia. |
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