Abstract

Until now, the provenance of the most important Arundel Marbles (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum) has not been traced. The comparison between the "Venus" and the "Caius Marius" with two engravings of the "Icones Statuarum Antiquarum Urbis Romae" by Girolamo Franzini (Roma 1599) suggests that Thomas Howard bought the two statues in Rome from the Rucellai collection, in 1613-1614 ca., only some years after the death of Orazio Rucellai (1605), who was trying to emulate the example of Ferdinando de' Medici and had managed to put together a small collection of antiquities.