ABSTRACT

While medieval collections tended to consist of precious items, some objects of great curiosity (for example unicorns' horns) and armoury, Renaissance collectors were instead more concerned with the arts (a gallery of pictures was commonly taken as a badge of princely worth) and with a wider range of collectibles: coins and medals, antiquities, some mathematical and musical instruments, gems, cameos and so on. Drawing its spiritual inspiration and many of its physical artefacts from Italy, Charles I's collections marked something of a culmination in European princely collecting (Lightbown, 1989: 53).