Among Italian collectors Lorenzo 
di Medici stands out as leader. 
From a portrait by Giorgio Vasari 
with encomiums of the tyrant and his favorites. 
Petronius broke to bits a goblet of precious 
stones out of which he commonly drank, that 
Nero, who had coveted it, might not have the 
pleasure of using it. Incendiary, violinistic 
Nero, Nero who on shaving off his beard for 
the first time put it in a golden box studded 
with precious gems! What would not collec¬ 
tors of a lock of hair of this great one and of 
that give to discover the beard of Nero! 
I dare say, in no time was human nature 
more perfectly understood than 
in Roman days. Even Augus¬ 
tus Caesar was wont to amuse 
himself by a device explained 
in gossipy Suetonius as fol¬ 
lows: ‘'He used to sell by lot 
amongst his guests articles of 
very unequal value, and pic¬ 
tures with their fronts re¬ 
versed;' and so, by the un¬ 
known quality of the lot, dis¬ 
appoint or gratify the expecta¬ 
tion of the purchasers. This 
sort of traffic went round the 
whole company, every one be¬ 
ing obliged to buy something, 
and to run the chance of loss 
or gain with the rest.” How 
many of us who have fre¬ 
quented the art sales in Amer¬ 
ican cities, from the old Clin¬ 
ton Hall days to the present,’ 
would have imagined that 
Pliny took such things as seri¬ 
ously, Augustus Caesar such 
things in jest? How old the 
new world is, how new the old! 
Antiquarians Old and New 
From the time of the ancient 
Athenian vase shops, and even 
from long before that, to our 
own day, when we may browse 
in the realms of antiquarians 
at home, the bazaars of the Far 
East and the quaint ingle- 
nooks of Europe when we are 
travelling, collecting has been 
a passion with the many as 
well as a mania of the few. 
But we, ourselves, are more 
prone to collect the things of yesterday than 
were the collectors of yesterday to collect 
the things of the centuries before their 
time. 
Lorenzo di Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
found time when steering through the perilous 
channels of endless family feuds to immortalize 
himself as a collector. To the efforts of Cosimo, 
his grandfather, are due those priceless classi¬ 
cal and oriental manuscripts which formed the 
nucleus of the Laurentian Library in Florence. 
The grandson was worthy of his forebear. 
Through John Lascaris he procured from the 
monastery of Mount Athos two hundred manu¬ 
scripts of greatest importance for the Lauren- 
Examming Arms, by Jose Villegas, a noted Spanish painter (1848---•)• An 
interior showing three gentlemen in 17th Century costume examining pieces 
of ancient armor in the collection about them 
Horace Walpole, the English con¬ 
noisseur and great collector of his 
day, as pictured by Eckhardt 
tian. Alas, this incomparable collection to¬ 
gether with the treasure of antique sculpture, 
vases and other works of art was partly broken 
up and destroyed when Florence was sacked 
under the rule of Lorenzo’s wretchedly incom¬ 
petent son, Piero. Lorenzo, notwithstanding 
liis love for ancient works of art, was a ready 
patron of the art of his time. Lorenzo’s daugh¬ 
ter, Catherine di Medici, had all the Medici love 
for art, and she, too, patronized living artists 
lavishly, as her husband’s father, Francis I, 
had done in France before her. 
She it was who took such 
constructively active thought 
for the planning of the Tuille- 
ries, and her interest in books, 
manuscripts and other things 
led to enriching the collections 
of the Bibliotheque Nationale. 
The Golden Book of France 
What a remarkable list of 
collectors France can write in 
her Golden Book of Art-Lov¬ 
ers—Jean Grolier, De Thou, 
Pierre Jean Mariette, Cardinal 
Mazarin, Comte de Caylus— 
to name but a few of literally 
thousands! Nor must we for¬ 
get Madame de Pompadour, 
whose library and marvellous 
collection of works of art were 
sold after her death. There is 
no question but that Madame 
de Pompadour took a construc¬ 
tive interest in art and litera¬ 
ture, an interest which led Vol¬ 
taire to assert that, without her 
patronage, the culture of her 
time would have found itself 
in sorry plight under the rule 
of a king whose thoughts had 
little or nothing to do with the 
finer things of life, that king 
who stood at the palace win¬ 
dow looking forth as the cor¬ 
tege of the Pompadour passed 
by in a drizzling rain and re¬ 
marked: “It is a wet day for 
the Marquise!” 
Charles I of England was a 
king whose art-collecting pro- 
