Cataloguing the gold and silver papal medals at the Bargello Museum (16th-18th centuries) : methods, perspectives, and acquisitions

The article presents the results of the art-historical investigations conducted on a group of 224 medals within the Scuola Normale Superiore’s MEB project, in collaboration with the Bargello Museum, Florence. The project was aimed at promoting a fruitful dialogue between the fields of Science and Humanities, exploiting distinct contributions and specificities to achieve common results. The work was thus directed to the study of the gold and silver papal medals kept in the collections of the Bargello, which would have allowed both to open new historical cross-sections on a theme as vast as still not much studied in its peculiar dynamics (in particular for what concerns the 16th century), and to analyze with the support of scientific instrumentations such precious metals, certainly more stable and less known than bronze. All the considered specimens, ranging between the pontificates of Paul III Farnese (1534-1549) and Clement XI Albani (1700-1721), were photographed, weighed, measured, and scanned with a portable microscope. In addition to supporting and directing the scientific analyses, which have led to some unexpected results (now published), a detailed cataloguing of 181 specimens was also performed. The essay therefore also focuses on some of the most interesting iconographic news emerged from the work, developing a broader reflection on this latter’s limits as well as on the opportunities offered by this shared experience.