Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern (The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts Book 74)

by Mary Beard

It is hardly surprising, then, that for centuries, from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, imperial coins were the most popular collectibles across Europe, and not just among the super-elite. The combination of their portability, their relative plenty and so their relative affordability put them within reach of men and women of far more modest means. (Despite some occasional posturing about ‘scarcity’, it is reckoned that in the mid-fifteenth century an emperor’s head on a silver coin probably sold for only about twice its metal value.14) The best evidence for the extent of this collecting is hidden away in the author’s ‘acknowledgements’ at the end of an account of the life of Julius Caesar, and of the main players in the civil wars after his death, published in 1563 by Hubert Goltzius, a writer, painter and printer from Bruges.