Resumen de Giovan Pietro Bellori and the "Nota delli musei, librerie, galerie, et ornamenti di statue e pitture ne" palazzi, nelle case, e ne' giardini di Roma" (1664): Modern libraries and ancient painting in Seicento Rome.
A small 66-page guidebook to the city of Rome, Nota delli musei, librerie, galerie, et ornamenti di statue e pitture ne' palazzi, nelle case, e ne' giardini di Roma (1664), contains a second, unmentioned text describing the extant remains of ancient painting then found in Rome, Delli vestigi delle pitture antiche dal buon secolo de' Romani. The first text, which is unique for the extraordinary attention it pays to libraries, has for over five decades been attributed to the leading thinker and writer of the Roman Baroque, Giovan Pietro Bellori, but the prime candidate for authorship is Fioravante Martinelli, with whose works it shows numerous affinities. The brief second text is by Bellori and documents his aims and methods midpoint in his development. It reveals the close link between antiquarian and artistic concerns which is so characteristic of the universal stance of Bellori's maturity. This article shows how the contrast between the two texts, printed together in a single pamphlet, is paradigmatic of two distinct, in part, divergent tendencies in Seicento antiquarian-archaeological thought.
