Paolo Alessandro Maffei

Paolo Alessandro Maffei (born January 11, 1653 in Volterra , Tuscany , † July 26, 1716 in Rome ) was an Italian writer and antiquarian ("antiquarian").

Paolo Alessandro Maffei

Life

He was the son of Paolo and Giovanna di Raffaele Maffei, a noble family from Volterra. One of his ancestors was the humanist Raffaele Maffei, called il Volterrano , who published an architectural treatise ( Commentariorum urbanorum Raphaelis Volterranni, octo et triginta libri. Rome 1506) in 1506, in which he showed that the study of Vitruvius and ancient architecture had the palace style of the Renaissance influenced who names ancient architects and lists some of their buildings.

Nothing is known about his training. His family sent him to Rome. There he became an honorary member of the Papal Guard; before that he had already been knighted as a Knight of the Order of St. Stephen , the highest Tuscan order. He dealt with antiquarian studies and corresponded with many scholars throughout Europe, including the mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz . At the age of 51 he published his first work, the commentary on the catalog of ancient and modern statues Raccolta di statue antiche e modern . As early as 1700, the engraver Domenico de Rossi (1659–1730) had published his notes and comments on Lodovico Sergardi's satires under the name “Paolo Antoniano”. Maffei used the pseudonym to remember his famous ancestor, the humanist Raffaele Maffei (1455–1522), who also called himself “Paolo Antoniano”. Maffei died in Rome on July 26, 1716.

Its importance for antiquarian-archaeological research lies in the fact that his work on the statuary sculpture Raccolta di statue antiche e modern was for a long time the only monograph on this topic. At that time, Maffei's gemwork enjoyed high recognition among scholars and interested laypeople, as the multiple quotations in the work of the most famous gem collector and researcher, Baron Philipp von Stosch (1691–1757) Gemme antiquae caelatae, scalptorum nominibus insignitae etc. (Amsterdam 1724) prove. However, it did not achieve the recognition of the statuary, because gem research had not yet achieved the recognition it achieved in the further course of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Works

• Satyrae Numero auctae, mendis, purgatae et singulae locupletiores , Rome 1700.
• Raccolta di statue antiche e modern data in luce ... da Domenico de Rossi, illustrata colle sposizioni a ciascheduna immagine di Paolo Alessandro Maffei , Rome 1704.
• Gemme antiche figurate date in luce da Domenico de Rossi colle sposizioni di Paolo Alessandro Maffei ... , 4 vols., Rome 1707–1709.

literature

• Volker Heenes: Paolo Alessandro Maffei. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 771-773.