Italian collectors and antiquarians involved in Byzantine coins collections during the Nineteenth century

During the Nineteenth century, collectors, antiquarians and numismatists generally considered Byzantine coinage as a simple prosecution of the Roman one, so it was normally located at the end of the most important catalogues (Eckhel’s Doctrina) or sale-lists (Münz-und Medaillen-Sammlung des Leopold Welzl von Wellenheim). In Italy, an autonomous development of Byzantine coin collecting and studies was gradually carried out, but quite late in comparison with France, where this kind of interest spread well before. In fact, already in 1836, in Metz, De Saulcy edited the first modern catalogue of Byzantine coins, followed by Sabatier in 1862. However, the chronological definition of the Byzantine empire remained still questionable and this prevented the creation of an independent numismatic series, for both collectors and Museum keepers. In addition, at the beginning of the Nineteenth century, Neoclassicism and Romanticism boosted Italian collectors to arrange the numismatic series following only two main sectors: ancient Greek and Roman coins, on the one side, and Medieval Italian coins, on the other side, since Italy was not yet formed. Only sporadically their numismatic interest was directed towards coins struck by Byzantine mints working in the Italian peninsula: Ravenna, Rome, Naples and partly in Sicily too. One more point deserves attention: a numismatic handbook, edited by Milziade Santoni, published in 1886 does not provide anything significant for Byzantine coinage. However, despite this marginality, during the second half of the Nineteenth century many antiquarians started auctioning Byzantine coins. Among them, we should remember Alessandro Pozzi and Carlo Kunz, thanks to an extensive network of correspondents such as Rollen & Feuardent, Paul Lambros of Athens, Giuseppe Nichetti, Ortensio Vitalini, Giuseppe Morchio, Pietro Stettiner, Giulio Sambon and Rodolfo Ratto. Through the scrutiny of their auction catalogues, it is possible to reconstruct the growth of the attention for an unattractive monetary series, characterized by frequent repetitiveness and formalism of the images, even with modest commercial value, but very important for the economic history of the Byzantine Empire. By the way, it is necessary to wait until the 20th century to meet a new generation of competent collectors and numismatists, deeply interested in Byzantine coins.