Sir Charles Frederick and the forgery of ancient coins in eighteenth-century Rome

Abstract

In the early part of the eighteenth century, a number of Englishmen with a special interest in ancient coins travelled to Rome to see the monuments of the city and to acquire coins and antiquities from the shrewd local dealers. Joseph Addison, Andrew Fountaine, Conyers Middleton and Joseph Spence are among those who spent much time in the company of such Roman antiquaries as Marco Antonio Sabatini, Francesco de' Ficoroni, Bernardo Sterbini and Francesco Palazzi. This article publishes a number of letters that shed light on the meetings between these collectors and dealers. A further group of documents published here, acquired in 1981 by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, belonged to another English collector, Charles Frederick (1709–85), who visited Rome in 1737–8 and met a number of the local antiquaries. These papers, many written by Frederick's Roman correspondents, provide a remarkably candid picture of the activities of the local dealers and collectors and include a lengthy, detailed report on the otherwise obscure world of the coin forgers at work in Rome.