The Second Wave

Renaissance antiquarians relied heavily upon coins to reconnect with the Classical world. Popes and princes became avid collectors, stocking their Kunstkammern (cabinets of curiosities) with thousands of numismatic treasures. Collecting led to cataloguing and research, but also to the production of forgeries and fantasy coins to feed the antiquities market and to fill the gaps of history. Books showcased imagined coin portraits of every notable figure beginning with Adam and Eve. This preoccupation with portraiture abetted the use of physiognomy by numismatists, who sought psychological insights from the images of Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, Nero, and others depicted on coins. The efforts of numismatists such as Joseph Eckhel to collect and classify all known ancient coin-types, numbering in the tens of thousands, eventually made it impossible for a single individual to comprehend all of numismatics.