The silver Caesars: a Renaissance mystery

Abstract

The twelve silver-gilt cups known as the Aldobrandini Tazze - magnificent examples of 16th-century European goldsmithing in size, design, and quality of execution - feature figures and scenes from Roman historian Suetonius's classic work The Twelve Caesars, all rendered in minute, intricate relief. Dispersed in the 1860s, the tazze were reunited in 2014 for the first time since the 19th century, each piece newly photographed to highlight the dazzling detail and show the works as they were originally made. The accompanying essays, written by a team of scholars from around the world, explore the persistent questions that swirl around these unique silver dishes, including where, when, and for whom they were originally made, what they were used for, and why the set was separated and scattered.

Contents

Plates, with excerpts from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, by C. Suetonius Tranquillus / translated by Mary Beard -- Suetonius, the Silver Caesars, and mistaken identities / Mary Beard -- Renaissance intellectual culture, antiquarianism, and visual sources / Julia Siemon -- Tracing the origin of the Aldobrandini tazze / Julia Siemon -- Goldsmithing and commemorative gifts north of the Alps / Wolfram Koeppe -- Tazze: questions of their use and display / Michèle Bimbenet-Privat -- The Aldobrandini tazze in context: collecting silver in Rome around 1600 / Stefanie Walker -- The Dodici Tazzoni Grandi in the Aldobrandini collection / Xavier F. Salomon -- The nineteenth- and twentieth-century history of the Tazze / Ellenor Alcorn and Timothy Schroder -- Technical analysis of the Aldobrandini tasse / Linda Borsch, Federico Carò, and Mark T. Wypyski.