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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum White Stork (Leg and Feather) attributed to Vincenzo Leonardi ca. 1630-40 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum White Stork (Head) attributed to Vincenzo Leonardi ca. 1630-40 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |
"Cassiano made a very great contribution to the study of archaeology and the natural sciences, as the present exhibition demonstrates; and it is unfortunate that his equally inspiring support of major artists cannot be indicated so directly. But admiration for what he achieved should not lead to distorting the nature of that contribution. He was a truly cultivated as well as a learned man, but he was a patron and not a creator. The more that is discovered about him, the more it is clear how much information and material he supplied to the authors in his circle – so much indeed that he can, without exaggeration, be looked on as their collaborator. But although he wrote a vast amount, he published nothing – at least under his own name. This argues for a notable generosity of spirit – but also, perhaps, for a certain reticence, even timidity, that was characteristic of him in other respects also. His approach to archaeology and the natural sciences was very far removed from that of most owners of those Wunderkammern that survived into his own day – but he naturally shared some of their preoccupations. Although he paid unusual attention to the usual – the fruits and animals, for instance, that were to be found in his immediate vicinity – he too was particularly intrigued by the exotic, the bizarre, the deformed, the remote: and such interests were liable to interfere with the pursuit of scientific progress, as was to be more clearly understood by later generations. He set much store by accuracy – but many of the copies of antiquities made for him underwent unrecorded "restoration" before they entered the Paper Museum. His services to Cesi, to Galileo, to Poussin and to very many other major figures of the day were of real significance – but only the genius of Poussin was radically affected by his support. Cassiano cannot be described as "typical" in any way, because his achievement was so superior – and was recognized at the time to be so superior – to that of his contemporaries. But the books he promoted are beautiful and fascinating rather than outstandingly important, and because his own researches were not known outside the admittedly wide circle of his friends and visitors and correspondents (and are only now becoming accessible), his place in the intellectual development of Europe is difficult to assess."
– Francis Haskell, from his catalog introduction for the 1993 exhibition in the Prints and Drawings Gallery at the British Museum, The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657). Other quotations from this catalog appear below.
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum UCCELLIERA (Title Page) Treatise on Birds by Giovanni Pietro Olina dedicated to Cassiano dal Pozzo 1622 Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum Treatise on Birds by Giovanni Pietro Olina dedicated to Cassiano dal Pozzo 1622 Royal Collection, Windsor |
"When Cassiano was inducted into the Accademia dei Lincei in 1622, he submitted a book about birds, the Uccelliera, published the same year, as proof of his scientific expertise. The author's name is given as Giovanni Pietro Olina (1585-1645), a lawyer friend of Cassiano's, but much of it is known to have been based on material written or assembled by Cassiano himself. Furthermore, the etched illustrations of birds are taken from a series of beautiful watercolor drawings commissioned by Cassiano from Vincenzo Leonardi, one of the great masters of naturalistic illustration, whose name has emerged only with the recent resurgence of interest in Cassiano and his circle."
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum Two Views of an Egg (with albumen) early 17th century watercolor Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum African Civet ca. 1630 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum Deformed Broccoli ca. 1621-46 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum Dryad's Saddle (seen from above) ca. 1621-46 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum Dryad's Saddle (seen from below) ca. 1621-46 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum Two Views of Pummelo by Vincenzo Leonardi ca. 1645 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum Two Views of Deformed Orange by Vincenzo Leonardi ca. 1645 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |
"Ferrari was much taken with the type of malformation illustrated by this specimen [above], which, he noted, was frequently to be found in the surroundings of Naples and on the slopes of Vesuvius. It is in his discussion of malformed oranges like this one that he made the remark that "while we are generally horrified by monstrosities in the case of living beings, we love them in fruit." Such specimens are not now, of course, regarded as a separate species, but rather as a chimera or bizzaria, as these forms were long called in Italy, resulting from a genetic aberration consequent on either deliberate or casual hybridization."
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum Two Views of Deformed Melon attributed to Vincenzo Leonardi ca. 1630-40 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum European Pelican (Head) attributed to Vincenzo Leonardi 1635 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum European Pelican attributed to Vincenzo Leonardi 1635 watercolor and bodycolor over chalk Royal Collection, Windsor |