New light on the art collection of Andrea Menichini

Among the seventeenth-century state papers held at the National Archives at Kew is a list, dated 1670, of fifty-four works of art that were for sale at that time in Italy. The document was penned by John Dodington, an English diplomat who had recently taken up a post in Venice. Despite providing a wealth of detail on the objects for sale – several of which he ascribed to some of Europe’s most illustrious painters and sculptors from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries – Dodington neglected to name the owner of this impressive assemblage. This article establishes the identity of the seller, recounts the history of his collection, and traces the ultimate fate of some of his possessions.