Thesaurus of Greek and Roman Antiquities

Javeriana University Pontifical Libraries

Among the books that rest in the Mario Valenzuela, SJ Library of Philosophy and Theology and that deserve to be selected to be part of the collection edited by the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana y Villegas Editores, this large collection of complementary works stands out:

In 1737, long before the beginning of the period known as the Enlightenment, the Venetian editors Juan Bautista Pasquali and Bartolomé Javarina took on the enormous task of publishing the thirty-three volumes of Greek and Roman antiquities, which at that time formed four valuable thesauri: the Thesaurus antiquitatum Romanarum by Johann Georg Graevius (first edition of 1694-1699), the Thesaurus graecarum antiquitatum of Jacob Gronovius (first edition of 1697-1702), the Novus thesaurus antiquitatum Romanarum of Albertus Henricus Sallengre (first edition of 1716-1717), and the Utriusque thesauri antiquitatum Romanarum by Giovanni Poleni, who completed, indexed and compiled the preceding works for Pasquali and Javarina.

The main engraver of the work was Pedro Mónaco, a Venetian artist who collaborated with Tiepolo, with the intellectual Pope Benedict XIV, and published important compilations of architectural views and works of art by his contemporaries.

The monumental work of selection and compilation carried out by these scholars of Antiquity - a folio copy of which rests in the libraries of the Javeriana University - houses a wide series of texts and illustrations on topics ranging from politics, military, religion, engineering, cartography, biographies and portraits, to detailed urban descriptions of games, combats, shows, costumes, music, food, objects of various kinds and much more.