Alessandro Albani (15 October 1692 – 11 December 1779) was a Roman Catholic cardinal remembered as a leading collector of antiquities, dealer and art patron in Rome. He supported the art historian, Johann Joachim Winckelmann and commissioned paintings from Anton Raphael Mengs. As a cardinal (from 1721) he furthered the interests of the governments of Austria, Savoy and Britain against those of France and Spain; he was a noted jurist and papal administrator in his earlier career. Upon his death he was the last cardinal created by Pope Innocent XIII.
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👉 Alessandro Albani in the context of Villa Albani
The Villa Albani (later Villa Albani-Torlonia) is a villa in Rome, built on the Via Salaria for Cardinal Alessandro Albani. It was built between 1747 and 1767 by the architect Carlo Marchionni in a project heavily influenced by others – such as Giovanni Battista Nolli, Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Johann Joachim Winckelmann – to house Albani's collection of antiquities, curated by Winckelmann. The villa has been conserved intact into the 21st century by the Torlonia Family, who bought it in 1866. In 1870, the treaty following the Capture of Rome from the Papal States was signed here.
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Alessandro Albani in the context of Timotheus (sculptor)
Timotheus (Greek: Τιμόθεος; born in Epidaurus; died in Epidaurus, c. 340 BC) was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC, one of the rivals and contemporaries of Scopas of Paros, among the sculptors who worked for their own fame on the construction of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus between 353 and 350 BC. He was apparently the leading sculptor at the Temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus, c. 380 BC.
To him is attributed a sculpture of Leda and the Swan in which the queen Leda of Sparta protected a swan from an eagle, on the basis of which a Roman marble copy in the Capitoline Museums is said to be "after Timotheus". The theme must have been popular, judging by the more than two dozen Roman marble copies that survive. The most famous version has been that in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, purchased by Pope Clement XIV from the heirs of Cardinal Alessandro Albani. A highly restored version is in the Museo del Prado, and an incomplete one is in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.
View the full Wikipedia page for Timotheus (sculptor)Alessandro Albani in the context of Pope Clement XII
Pope Clement XII (Latin: Clemens XII; Italian: Clemente XII; 7 April 1652 – 6 February 1740), born Lorenzo Corsini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 July 1730 to his death in February 1740.
Clement presided over the growth of a surplus in the papal finances. He thus became known for building the new façade of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, beginning construction of the Trevi Fountain, and the purchase of Cardinal Alessandro Albani's collection of antiquities for the papal gallery. In his 1738 bull In eminenti apostolatus, he provides the first public papal condemnation of Freemasonry.
View the full Wikipedia page for Pope Clement XII