Jacopo Stradas Magnum ac Novum Opus

Jacopo Strada (ca. 1515-1588), antiquarian, architect and antique dealer, created a corpus of 30 volumes, the Magnum ac Novum Opus, for his patron Johann Jakob Fugger in the mid-16^th century. This work is a unique illustrated corpus of coins of the Roman Republic and the Empire with coin depictions from Julius Caesar to Emperor Charles V (Karl V.). It contains a total of over 9000 drawings of the highest quality, which after Fugger's insolvency in 1566 came to Munich together with the rest of his library and his collection for Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria. Today the drawings are for the most part in the Gotha Research Library. Strada wrote commentaries (11 volumes) on the volumes of drawings with the title A<ureorum> A<rgenteorum> A<ereorum> NumismatΩn Antiquorum ΔΙΑΣΚΕΥΕ, which are kept in the University Library Vienna and the Czech National Library Prague.

The project is intended to bring together the entire corpus for the first time, analyse it in its historical and artistic context, research its sources and work out its significance for the history of numismatics and antiquarian research in the 16th century. To this end, the previously separate text and illustrated books will be made accessible to the public. In addition, Strada's drawings and descriptions will be assigned to each other, digitized and entered into a database in a structured way. Such an online edition is an indispensable prerequisite for this project.

Antiquarian research had experienced a significant boom in the middle of the 16^th century with the foundation of the Accademia della Virtú in Rome. Strada and his patron were very familiar with the ideas and intellectual currents of Rome at that time. It is therefore quite likely that this corpus of coins was an edition project of the Academy. The art historical issues of the project include the elaboration of the characteristics of Strada's drawings and the influence of his antiquarian research on his various activities.

The database of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance, an academy project of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities at the Institute of Art and Image History of the Humboldt University of Berlin, is ideally suited for the online edition. The freely accessible online database of the Census ensures continuous worldwide access to the digitized versions of Strada's coin corpus.

The processing of this corpus can only be carried out in a collaboration of scientists from different disciplines. The designated staff members have been selected in such a way that their competences complement each other ideally, since the project requires numismatic and antiquarian as well as art historical and biographical knowledge.