ABSTRACT
In the first part of this contribution, Gabriella Tassinari outlines the figure of Count Giacomo Verità (Verona, 1744–1827), who was the superintendent of the Museo Lapidario in Verona, and formed his huge and heterogeneous museum of antiquities. Verità was a competent and informed numismatist. The size of his collection is truly remarkable and was praised by his contemporaries: It comprised thousands of coins, now preserved in the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona.
Also, Verità’s glyptic collection was considerable: It consisted of almost 1,700 intaglios and cameos and replicas of glass, now merged in the collection of the Museo Archeologico al Teatro Romano at Verona. The engraved gems offer a great variety of iconographies and styles but generally are not of great artistic merit.
In the second part, Alessandra Magni presents some unpublished ancient gems (housed in the Museo Archeologico al Teatro Romano), whose features (iconography and style) could arouse the interest of a numismatist, like Verità. Indeed, the intaglios are identified by comparison with the Greek and provincial coins owned by Verità: For instance, a fragment of an engraved carnelian, portraying Alexander with ram’s horns, is related to the famous staters of Lysimachus, King of Thrace.
