“Antiquarum Statuarum Urbis Romae” by Giovanni Battista Cavalieri As an Iconographic Compendium

The article examines the collection of engravings “Antiquarum Statuarum Urbis Romae” by Giovanni Battista Cavalieri, which, unlike other graphic collections of antiques, contains exclusively images of round sculpture. The analysis of Cavalieri’s album as an original work of art allows to put forward a hypothesis about its functional purpose. The typology of sculpture images indicates that the engraver’s priority was to provide the most complete information about the depicted objects. The artistic features of the engravings indicate that Cavalieri sought to document the antique as such, without perceiving its appearance as a model of an ideal human figure suitable for educational purposes. The above observations suggest that the collection could be conceived as an iconographic compendium created on the basis of antique sculptures from Roman collections.