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To view any of our past lectures please visit our YouTube channel.
To view any of our past lectures please visit our YouTube channel.
Lunchtime Lecture
Art Collecting and Espionage: Philipp von Stosch in Rome and Florence in the early 18th Century by Riccardo Neri
During the eighteenth century, the fall of the old dynasties and the European conflicts caused deep political changes in Italy. British diplomacy aimed at increasing networks of agents to maintain the balance of power between the Habsburgs and the Bourbons, to control the trades on the Mediterranean Sea, and to spy on the exiled Stuart court in Rome.
The British government often involved scholars and antiquarians in espionage missions because of their international networks of contacts: that was the case of Baron Philipp von Stosch. His success as connoisseur was ascribed to Gemmae antiquae caelatae (1724), a publication considered as a milestone in the discipline of glyptic (the art of engraving gems). His fame as collector was owing to Museo Stoschiano, a collection of thousands of coins, medals, engraved gems, arms and armours, prints, drawings, rare books and manuscripts, that was broken up after his death and today is held by multiple public institutions and private collections.
Stosch becomes a British spy in Rome in 1721 after being asked to spy on James III Stuart; from then on, he sent regular secret dispatches to Whitehall. In 1731, he moved to Florence where he founded the first Italian Masonic lodge, which was later closed by the Inquisition. He cooperated with several academies and funded newspapers dealing with Enlightenment topics, whilst his collection became a must-visit stop for scholars passing through the city. After his death, a catalogue of his library was published and Johann Joachim Winckelmann worked on his collection of engraved gems.
Riccardo Neri is an Italian DPhil student in British and European History at the University of Oxford. His thesis project focuses on Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757): British spy, freemason and antiquarian in Rome and Florence in the early eighteenth century. Previously, Neri worked as archivist and librarian for multiple Italian institutions, namely the Diocese of Arezzo-Cortona-Sansepolcro (2020-2024), the General House of the Congregation of the Camaldolese Hermits in Tuscany (2021-2024), the Etruscan Academy of Cortona (2022-2024), and the Petrarch Academy of Arts, Sciences and Letters of Arezzo (2022-2023). He is also the author of many publications in the leading Italian journals of History, and Archival and Library Science.
This event will be both in person at Burlington House and online. Please select the appropriate ticket below.
Attendance at Burlington House:
Open to anyone to attend.
The event begins at 1pm in the Meeting Room, please arrive with enough time beforehand.
Attendance online:
The event will be live-streamed on Zoom (if you register) and recorded on our YouTube channel.
The event will begin at 1pm.
You will receive an email reminder with the link to join the day of the lecture.
If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected].
