Italian medals c.1530-1600 in British public collections

First developed in the princely courts of Renaissance Italy in the 1430s, medals were in the sixteenth century transformed into a recognisably modern form, in the messages they conveyed, the techniques employed in their manufacture, and the uses to which they were put.

Contributing to this change were influential patrons including Cosimo de' Medici and successive popes, and artists celebrated for their works in other media, such as Leone Leoni and Benvenuto Cellini.This catalogue takes up the story where Sir George Hill's classic Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance before Cellini, published in 1930, leaves off.

Over 1200 medals are included, many in several examples, from the British Museum, one of the finest collections of such material in the world, and other major British public collections.

The catalogue entries provide historical and iconographical information on the medals, many of which are published for the first time. The introductory essays discuss the centres of production, artists and subjects of the medals; the reasons they were made; their design, production and functions; the diffusion of the Italian medal throughout Europe in the 16th century, and the history of collecting 16th-century Italian medals in Britain.