Travelling and Exoticism
Travelling artists and patrons, exchange of artworks
Patronage associated with collecting occasionally gave rise to the display of objects and curiosities from both the natural and material worlds.
Patrons and agents associated with the creation and exchange of artworks during the Baroque period were the support, and in part, the essence of the phenomenon of travel and exoticism. Patronage, both religious and secular, allowed for of the evolution of taste, the circulation of artists and their works and the accumulation of material culture. Patronage associated with collecting occasionally gave rise to the display of objects and curiosities from both the natural and material worlds.
Etching showing the so called Museo Cospiano in Bologna

Before 1677
Biblioteca Comunale dell'Archiginnasio
Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Giuseppe Maria Mitelli
Etching
Illustrating the book by Lorenzo Legati (Bologna, 1677), the etching shows the interior of Marquis Ferdinando Cospis museum. Cospis collection grew due to his contacts and exchanges with travellers and correspondents abroad. The marquis is a good example of 17th-century encyclopaedic taste, which for him, appears to be inspired more by curiosity and wonder than by a true scientific interest.