DRAWINGS AND PRINTS IN THE ROYAL LIBRARY AT WINDSOR CASTLE, THE BRITISH MUSEUM, THE INSTITUT DE FRANCE AND OTHER COLLECTIONS
DRAWINGS AND PRINTS IN THE ROYAL LIBRARY AT WINDSOR CASTLE, THE BRITISH MUSEUM, THE INSTITUT DE FRANCE AND OTHER COLLECTIONS
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CASSIANO DAL POZZO | THE
'MUSEO CARTACEO', or 'Paper Museum', is a collection of more than 7,000 watercolours,
drawings and prints, assembled during the first half of the seventeenth
century by the famous Roman patron and collector, Cassiano dal Pozzo.
It represents one of the most significant attempts ever made before the
age of photography to embrace all human knowledge in visual form.
Documenting ancient art, archaeology, botany, geology, ornithology and
zoology, the collection today constitutes a visual database that provides
us with a significant tool for understanding the culture and
intellectual concerns of a period during which the foundations of our own scientific methods of research
and classification were laid down. Moreover, the Paper Museum reflects
the taste and intellectual breadth of one of the most learned and enthusiastic
of all seventeenth-century Roman collectors. As secretary to Cardinal
Francesco Barberini, as well as patron of such artists as Poussin, and a friend
of Galileo, Cassiano dal Pozzo crossed the boundaries of artistic, scientific and political
disciplines, to create his unique visual encyclopedia.
The Paper Museum was sold by Cassiano's heirs to Pope Clement XI Albani in the early eighteenth century. It remained in the Albani collection until it was acquired in 1762 by George III - though not in its entirety - for his library at Buckingham House. In 1834, the collection was transferred to the Royal Library created by William IV at Windsor Castle |