Giovio Series

Intended by Giovio as a public archive of famous men, the collection was originally housed in a specially-built museum on the shore of Lake Como.

Although the original collection has not survived intact, a set of copies made for Cosimo I de' Medici now has a permanent home in Florence's Uffizi Gallery.

[1] Initially focused on men of letters, the collection grew to include military figures, kings, popes, artists and even a few renowned women.

[4] What made Giovio's collection unique was his intent to open it to the public: his 20th century biographer T. C. Price Zimmermann writes that "the idea of founding a portrait museum on the lake was his most original contribution to European civilization.

"[5] The inspirational value of collections of portraits was a familiar Renaissance trope, consciously revived from Antique precedents: as the humanist Poggio Bracciolini had written in his essay De nobilitate liber, the Romans should be emulated, "for they believed that the images of men who had excelled in the pursuit of glory and wisdom, if placed before the eyes, would help ennoble and stir up the soul.

The 1517 Illustrium imagines of the antiquarian Andrea Fulvio, which paired short biographies with woodcut portraits drawn from coins, was one of the few similar contemporary works.