«Peireskius alter»: Valletta e l’antiquaria a Napoli alla fine del Seicento

The analysis proposed here of the role of Giuseppe Valletta (1636-1714), a Neapolitan jurist, historian, philosopher, and collector of art, reveals that his broad interests, hitherto studied separately, were actually all rooted in his activity as a collector. The reconstruction of his experience in the Neapolitan antiquities trade leads to two results: a new appreciation of his stature as a major intellectual and, more generally, a more definitive understanding of antiquarian historiography in the proto-Enlightenment. Having gone beyond Peiresc, his model, Valletta was no longer the erudite scholar attentive only to details and indifferent to the greater historical issues, but an antiquarian well able to relate to public opinion while heeding the cultural dimension of his country’s history.