Joseph Eckhel (1737-1798) and his numismatic network

Joseph Hilarius Eckhel (1737-1798), professor of classics at the University of Vienna and director of the cabinet of coins and antiquities of the imperial collections, is the founding father of numismatic science. His main work, the Doctrina numorum veterum (8 vols, Vienna 1792-1798), revolutionized research on ancient coins in a methodological perspective; some of its parts have never been superseded and retain their value to date. Still, there is no comprehensive modern monographic treatment of Eckhel and his fundamental contribution to numismatics: our knowledge is mainly based on 19th century studies, whose approach and methodology are completely outdated. Thus, the ways and means of the shaping of Eckhel`s system and method, which were instrumental in building his reputation, remain largely unknown. The re-discovery of a most important group of 165 scholarly letters addressed to Eckhel by 38 numismatists and classicists from all over Europe in the archives of the Coin Cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna provides the occasion for this research project on Eckhel - the first of its kind. It will be conducted in the framework of "Fontes Inediti Numismaticae Antiquae (FINA)", a recently inaugurated international project under the patronage of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Académie Royale de Belgique, which is dedicated to the publication of manuscript sources illuminating the history of numismatic scholarship. The letters to Eckhel, which are mainly in French, Italian, Latin and German, will all be transcribed and edited, a numismatic commentary on them will be provided, and they will be analyzed in detail for their implications for the modern understanding of the discipline. They will be published in a monograph, and the texts will also be made available on the Internet, free of charge. Furthermore, preliminary investigations in other European archives have brought to light single letters as well as groups of letters written by Eckhel to his correspondents, which complement the documents preserved in Vienna. They will be studied and published in our project, too. In this way, it will be possible to reconstruct the correspondence of the "Father of Numismatics" with some scholars in its entirety. Thus, Eckhel`s scientific activity can for the first time be analyzed on the basis of all sources available. The letters may be expected to shed new light not only on the history of scholarship of the period, but, more generally, also on European social and intellectual history as a whole. In the framework of the project, the two-day congress "Ars Critica Numaria. Joseph Eckhel and the Development of Numismatic Method" will be organized. It is to be held at Vienna`s "Alte Universität" (currently the main building of the Austrian Academy of Sciences), where Eckhel used to lecture. The congress proceedings will be edited by the project team.

The Austrian Joseph Eckhel (1737?1798) is commonly regarded as the most important numismatist of the Age of Enlightenment. He was professor of classics at Vienna university and director of the collection of ancient coins of the Imperial collections; his main work, the Doctrina numorum veterum (8 vols, Vienna 1792?1798), was the foundation of all subsequent research of ancient numismatics. Despite Eckhels obvious importance for the subject, his life and work were never studied properly.A corpus of 162 scholarly letters written to Eckhel by 38 European classicists and coin collectors, which is kept in the archives of the coin cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, was the point of departure for the present three-year project, directed by Bernhard Woytek (co-workers: Daniela Williams and Manuela Mayer). These letters are most important primary sources, which had been neglected completely up to now. In the course of the project, carried out in the framework of the international research initiative Fontes Inediti Numismaticae Antiquae (FINA), five more letters addressed to Eckhel, as well as no fewer than 85 letters written by Eckhel himself were found in foreign archives and collections. The correspondence was fully transcribed, and a historical as well as a numismatic commentary was produced: a print edition currently is in preparation. Also, a digital edition of the correspondence (which will be available online through open access) is being created, in cooperation with the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities (ACDH) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.The project brought about a paradigm shift in the modern conception of Eckhel: he was not just a solitary thinker in his closet, working in splendid isolation, as some 19th century commentators would have it, but exchanged ideas with a multitude of colleagues. Eckhels network of correspondents, covering large parts of Europe and even extending to Asiatic Turkey, goes back to his teacher Joseph Khell von Khellburg, but it was considerably enlarged by Eckhel; occasionally, it is possible to show that he specifically searched for correspondents who were in a position to help him solve a specific numismatic problem. The information (as well as the actual coins) exchanged in this network had a direct bearing on Eckhels publications; also, the letters give us a glimpse of his curatorial activities in the Imperial collection. From 27 to 30 May 2015, the international congress Ars Critica Numaria. Joseph Eckhel and the Development of Numismatic Method organised in the framework of the project ? took place in Vienna, at which 21 speakers from Europe and the US presented their research on Eckhel and numismatics in the Age of Enlightenment.