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Die Galerie Erzherzog Leopold Wilhelms und die Schatzkammer Kaiser Leopolds I. im Jahre 1659
SuMMARY
The Gallery of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm and the Treasury of Emperor
Leopold I in 1659. The Descriptions of an Italian Envoy at the Imperial
Court in Vienna
The description of the gallery of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm and the
Treasury of Emperor Leopold I published here is taken from an Italian
manuscript Frvtti Avtvmnali overo Relatione d’Alemagna, all’occasione del
Ser. mo di Modana, which was written in the course of a diplomatic mission
in 1659 and is found today in the Archivio di Stato in Modena. Its author
was Guglielmo Codebö, the secretary of a delegation that was sent in the
summer of 1659 by Alfonso IV, the duke of Modena, to the imperial
court in Vienna. In the report he wrote to the duke, Codebö documented
his journey as well as the stay of the delegation in Vienna.
On 8 August 1659, the Modenese delegation visited the gallery of the
archduke, and this was one of the first times the art collection had been
viewed by Outsiders since its installation in the Vienna Stallburg. Two
days later, on 10 August, the delegation was given a tour of the emperor’s
Secular and Ecclesiastical Treasuries. Given the fact that the Treasury
inventory of that time has been lost and that the oldest extant description
of the Treasury previously known dates from 1660, Codebö’s description
is a highly valuable source, providing informative insights into the holdings
of the time and, in addition, information about the provenance of
individual objects.
The secretary’s description indicates the colourful variety of items that
characterised the Treasury in those days and illustrates the character of the
collection at that time as a Kunst- und Wunderkammer in which interesting
curiosities were collected along with precious items (from a purely
materiel point of view) and the works of noted artists.
