Indice degli autori

Abstract: “SPECIMEN DOMESTICAE INSTITUTIONS”. GIOVANNI BATTISTA VISCONTI ‘S LIBRARY BETWEEN TRADITION AND MODERNITY Studies on the Ligurian-Roman Visconti family have naturally privileged Ennio Quirino, one of the major Italian “antiquarians” who lived between the XVIII and XIX centuries. This has obscured other interesting characters such as his father, Giovanni Batista, who founded the Pio-Clementino Museum; his brothers, Filippo Aurelio and Alessandro; his nephew, Pietro Ercole and his great nephew Carlo Ludovico, the last representative of the family tradition. This article reconstructs the cultural environment in which the sons of Giovanni Battista grew up, through the study of an inventory compiled after Battista’s death (September 1784). The profile of a vast and all encompassing culture which unites tradition with the most recent transalpine criticism emerges from the study of Battista’s library. The publication of an unpublished work (found in the Miscellanea Visconti of the Autografi Ferrajoli of the Vatican Library) sheds light on the way in which Battista educated his son, Ennio Quirino. This, in fact, was the main purpose of the library.