The Settala Collection, 1666

Image 1. Interior view of the Galleria Settala. 

Source: Paolo Maria Terzago, Pietro Francesco Scarabelli, Museo ò Galeria: Adunata dal Sapere, e dallo Studio del Sig. Canonico Manfredo Settala Nobile Milanese. Tortona, 1666. Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program, Object Number 85-B25073.  Full work available on archive.org.

Image 2. Portrait of Lodovico Settala (1550-1633) in the Museo del Novecento, Milan. Source: Wikimedia (Public domain).

Images 3-5. Engraved portraits of Lodovico and Manfredo Settala, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Inv. nos. PORT_00076591_01, PORT_00093970_01, and PORT_00093969_01.

Other images. Portrait of Manfredo Settala, attributed to Daniele Crespi (1600-1630), oil on canvas, circa 1625, 60x45 cm. Copyright Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana. On Getty Images no. 106631232.

Commentary. This collection was established by Lodovico Settala (1550-1633), a prominent Milanese physician, and continued by his son, Manfredo (1600–1680), a canon of the Cathedral, who became one of the leading collectors in seventeenth-century Europe.  Manfredo intended to donate the collection to Milan's most famous library, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, but the library could not accommodate so vast a collection and it was dispersed after his death. Widely visited in its day, it is now known primarily through this catalogue.  This rather crude engraving, the only one in the volume, shows a vast collection, with some objects hanging from the ceiling in the traditional fashion but others displayed in a orderly manner in glass-fronted boxes.

Literature

Mauro Colombo, 'Manfredo Settala, l'Archimede milanese', Storia di Milano: http://www.storiadimilano.it/Personaggi/Milanesi%20illustri/settala/manf...

Aimi A., De Michele V., Morandotti A., Musaeum Septalianum. Una collezione scientifica nella Milano del Seicento, 1984.

De Michele V., Cagnolaro L., Aimi A., Laurencich L., Il Museo di Manfredo Settala nella Milano del XVII secolo, Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano, 1983.

Credits: Howard Hotson (October 2016)