Hubert Goltzius

[4] His mother was the daughter of Hubrecht Goltz or Goltzius (the Elder), a painter who was originally from Hinsbeck in Germany and had moved to Venlo in 1494.

He was then sent to Liège where from 1544 to 1546 he studied painting and engraving at the academy operated by the prominent humanist and painter Lambert Lombard.

[1] In addition to being a painter, architect, printmaker and writer, Lombard was an avid coin collector, an activity he had likely started while residing in Rome.

[6] In his preface to the reader (“Ad Lectorem Praefatio”) of the Vivae omnium fere imperatorum Imagines, a C. Iulio Caes.

[7] In 1565, he would assist Dominicus Lampsonius with the editing and publishing of his Lamberti Lombardi apvd Ebvrones pictoris celeberrimi vita, a panegyric on Lombard that praises his vast learning, role in educating a generation of Netherlandish artists and early promotion of printmaking in Northern Europe.

The family had four children: Marcel became an apothecary, Scipio a draughtsman and painter (only one know painting of Fruit and Vegetable Vendors, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), Julius an engraver at the Officina Plantiniana printing house in Antwerp and Aurelius whose job description is unknown.

On 28 September 1551 he testified that two years before he had delivered to Elisabeth Borremans, wife of the painter Jan van Sevenhoven, 8 paintings of which four scenes, respectively of a Cleopatra, an Ecce Homo, an Our Lord on the Cross and a Christmas Night.

He also testified that he had supplied four canvases representing respectively Adam and Eve, an Ecce Homo, the Carrying of the Cross and Lucretia.

[9] In 1566, Goltzius published his most influential book, the Fasti magistratuum ettriumphorum Romanorum, in which he gave a chronological overview of the history of Rome, from its foundation to the death of Emperor Augustus, based on coins and marble inscriptions.

The Plantin Press of Antwerp published his Opera Omnia in 1644-1645 in five volumes, with a frontispiece engraved by Cornelis Galle the Elder after a design by Rubens, who was an avid collector of ancient medals.