Badania nad kolekcją monet antycznych w Ossolineum

• Authors: Adam Degler

Title variants

EN

A study of the collection of ancient coins in Ossolineum

Abstracts

EN

Ossoliński National Institute (abb. ZNiO or Ossolineum) came into existence as a foundation on 4 June 1817 with the consent of the Austrian Emperor Francis I. On 25 December 1823, an agreement was concluded between Count Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński and Prince Henryk Lubomirski, who intended to combine their library and museum collections within the confines of one institution, which was to become a treasury of Polish national mementoes. According to the foundation document and the content of the agreement of 1823, the Institute was supposed to include the Library and the Museum, and a literary curator, the entailer of Przeworsk from Lubomirski family, was to keep watch over its activities (in service to the national culture). The collection of ancient coins was stored in the Ossolineum until 1944. Numerous donations of ancient coins arrived between 1828 and 1829. The two main donors of the ancient coin collection were Prince Henryk Lubomirski, who donated at least 1828 coins altogether and Count Ignacy Krasicki, the donor of 1075 ancient coins. Count Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński contributed 58 specimens, mainly denarii from the period of Roman Empire. A precious gift was handed over by the brother of Henryk Lubomirski, Prince Fryderyk Lubomirski - 7 Roman gold coins, 21 silver and l copper. Owing to these and smaller donations (49 coins), at the end of 1829 the collection contained at least 3010 specimens. In 1885, the collection of ancient coins counted already included 5608 specimens, but this apparent quantitative growth of the collection is actually related to putting the coins in order, which Wojciech Kętrzyński undertook the same year. We know much about the content of the collection thanks to the manuscripts Inventarium Musei Lubomirsciani: Numi Veteres Urbium Populorum et Regium; Inventarium Musei Lubomirsciani (Greek and other non-Roman coins); Numi Romani Consulares, Familiarum et Imperatorum (Roman Republican and Imperial coins); Ignacy Krasicki’s Opisanie Medalów Biblioteki narod. imien. Ossolińskich we Lwowie [“A Description of Medals in the National Ossoliński Library in Lwów”, all types of ancient coins] and Katalog monet rzymskich [“A Catalogue of Roman Coins”] by Wojciech Kętrzyński. From 2005 to 2006, thanks to the comparison of coins and their descriptions in Kętrzyński’s work, 2406 specimens in the Ossolineum collection in Wrocław out of 2716 specimens described in Katalog... could be identified. Numbers which Kętrzyński marked on the coins, according to collectors' practice of signing their collection as adopted in the nineteenth century and before, turned out to be of great help. Notes written down in the space Annotatio constitute an unquestionable merit of Inventarii Musei Lubomirsciani. Here we frequently meet information concerning the donor, bidder, exchange or archaeological provenance of coins. 415 Greek specimens were described in these manuscripts, including Greek Imperial, as well as Barbarian coins (Latin Numi Barbarorum) and 2603 specimens from the Roman Republic, Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. As far as 117 Roman denarii described in Inventarii... are concerned, we have information that they come from two hoards from East Galicia: nine denarii from Bertyszów and 108 denarii from Krasiejów. These hoards were studied by Kropotkin (Bertishov and Kraseev), yet the place of their whereabouts have remained unknown to this day. Ossolineum also has a small part of the famous hoard of Boroczyce in Volhynia - 32 Roman denarii from the second century after Christ, purchased in 1928. We owe such a good level of documentation to the fact that from the start the collection of ancient coins was handled by efficient people. Count Krasicki himself was a collector and in his work he used the eight-volume work by Joseph Eckhel titled Doctrina Numorum Veterum, then the most modern work on antique numismatics. The authorship of Inventarii... still needs establishing with the help of graphological analyses, but it is an inventory that complies with scientific requirements even from today's point of view. Kętrzyński's catalogue is highly informative and still serves as the basis for identification of many Roman coins. Over 1939-1946, the Ossolineum numismatic collection went through its most difficult times. In September 1939 Lviv came under occupation of the Soviet Union, and in January 1940 the Soviet authorities set about closing down the Lubomirski Museum, distributing parts of the collection among Lviv museums remaining under the management of the Ukrainians. In July 1941 the Germans entered Lviv and the Head Department of Science and Education of the General-Gouvernement handed over control of Ossolineum to the custodian Mieczysław Gębarowicz, previously secretly sworn in director of ZNiO by the literary curator Andrzej Lubomirski. At the beginning of 1944, when the front was coming, the German authorities ordered the evacuation of that part of the collection that was important for German culture. The operation was managed by Mieczysław Gębarowicz. The most valuable part of the collection of Ossolineum, including parcels with coins hidden in the consignment by Gębarowicz himself, was conveyed in two raił shipments. The collection came first to Kraków, then to Zagrodno in Silesia (formerly Adelin, Adelsdorf), where it was deposited in outbuildings of the manor owned by Countess von Pfeil, together with the collections from other libraries of Lviv, Warsaw and Cracow. In August 1945, these collections were transported to the National Library in Warsaw. The Ossolineum collection was transported to Wrocław at the beginning of July 1946. Thanks to a huge project of manuscript digitalization, conducted since 2004 in Lviv and Wrocław, the archives of Ossolineum are going to be combined again. This fact is of the utmost importance for scholars studying the history of Ossolineum and its collection, but also for the general history of collecting practice and numismatics. It is enough to mention that one of the manuscripts digitalized is Album numizmatyków polskich (“Album of Polish Numismatists”) by Antoni Ryszard, whose importance in studies of Polish coin collecting and national numismatics is hard to overrate. This year (2008) it was placed on the website of the Dolnośląska Biblioteka Cyfrowa (“Lower-Silesian Digital Library”). The research realized within the framework of the author's doctoral thesis entitled "The collection of antique coins in Ossolineum" is to restore the coins to their history, establish the successive owners and donors or bidders of particular coins or groups of coins, and finally, reconstruct the archaeological provenance of the coins where this is possible to determine (13 figures).

Keywords

EN

ancient coins; archives; collection; identification; Lviv; Ossolineum; Ryszard Antoni; Wrocław

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Wiadomości Numizmatyczne
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 52
• Issue: 1(185)
• Pages: 1-20

Dates

published

2008

Contributors

author

Adam Degler

• Muzeum Książąt Lubomirskich, Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, ul. Szewska 37, 50-139 Wrocław

Identifiers

Biblioteka Nauki

16530145