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Journal of Design History 2002 15(4):229-244; doi:10.1093/jdh/15.4.229
© 2002 by Design History Society
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Holes and Loops

The Display and Collection of Medals in Renaissance Italy

Luke Syson

Victoria and Albert Museum


  Abstract

The commemorative portrait medal, a new artistic and cultural phenomenon of the Italian Renaissance, has traditionally been treated as an object for handling. As such, medals have been viewed as the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century equivalents of the ancient Greek and Roman coins that became such an essential tool of antiquarian scholarship in this period. Many surviving examples are, however, pierced, suggesting that they were fixed in displays. This article examines the ways in which medals were employed, and explores their altered meanings when they were displayed, combining the physical evidence of the medals themselves with visual and documentary records of their use. It argues that there was a symbiotic relationship—but nevertheless palpable differences—between those medals treated as the tools of scholarship and the display of other specimens as the advertisements and symbols of their owners' vaunted scholarly activities.

Key Words: collecting • display • Italy • medals • metals • Renaissance


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