The Magnum ac Novum Opus
Jacopo Strada’s Magnum ac Novum Opus as preserved in Gotha consists of 30 volumes (of which vol. 15 has been missing since the early 18th century) of about 8000 huge drawings in pen, ink and wash documenting obverses and reverses of about 4000 Roman Imperial coins, from Julius Caesar onward up to and including the ruling Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.
MAGNVM AC NOVVM OPUS
Continens descriptionem Vitae, imaginum, numismatum omnium, tam Orientalium quam Occidentalium Imperatorum ac Tyrannorum, cum collegis, coniugibus, liberisque suis, usque ad Carolum V. Imperatorem.
A Iacobo de Strada Mantuano elaboratum.
That is:
A Great and New Work
Containing Descriptions of the Lives, and Images of the Coins of all Emperors as well as Tyrants, from both the Eastern and the Western Empire, with their Co-rulers and their Wives and Children, up to the Emperor Charles V.
Edited by Jacobus de Strada from Mantua.
The ornamental title page of the first volume is signed by Strada himself and dated 1550.
Each drawing is centred on the recto side of a huge, “folio reale” sheet of very fine Italian or French paper. The drawings blow up the original coins to five to ten times the original size, and do not show the rims. In the drawings the images are always restored to an “ideal” design, demonstrating that a precise documentation of the actual objects – which were often worn down or damaged – was not the aim of Strada’s project.
Commissioned by Hans Jakob Fugger, the volumes were acquired in 1566 by Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria, who provided them in 1571 with sumptuous bindings showing his portrait, coat of arms and device. In 1632 they were looted from the Munich Kunstkammer, and ended up in the newly established court library of Duke Ernst the Pious of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, where they have since remained.
In the course of our project, the volumes have been integrally digitized, and are now available through the Digitale Historische Bibliothek Erfurt-Gotha , hosted by the Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek.
The tiles below present the links to each individual volume in their correct order.
A detailed survey of the contents of the volumes can be found here.
