Rediscovery of a Mesoamerican greenstone sculpture from the collection of Ulisse Aldrovandi

Abstract

Abstract This article presents a pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican greenstone sculpture, formerly held in the collection of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605) and recently rediscovered by the author in the storerooms of the Museo Civico Medievale in Bologna. After a discussion of Aldrovandi’s general attitude towards natural and cultural specimens from the New World, the article explores the ways in which the Bolognese polymath described and illustrated the sculpture in his Musaeum metallicum (1648), where he named it as ‘Idolum pileatum’. It is argued here that Aldrovandi’s main interest was not so much proto-anthropological as of a taxonomic kind, in line with his interest in material culture as both an antiquary and a natural historian. The last section of the article explores the sculpture’s cultural biography, reconstructing its collection history and also putting forward a hypothesis for the circumstances of its arrival in Bologna.