Antonio Arrighi was one of the leading silversmiths of eighteenth century Rome, particularly favoured by King John V of Portugal. In Rome he was the silversmith of the Oratorian church of Sta Maria in Vallicella, and in Lazio he was employed by the monasteries of Monte Cassino and Trisulti; he found numerous patrons not only in Rome, but also in Bergamo, and in the prosperous province of the Marche, and he received a prestigious commission from the Order of Malta. Like almost all Roman silversmiths of his day, he worked with equal facility in bronze. The discovery of ten volumes of his accounts (including some from the time of his father Giovanni Francesco, also a respected silversmith) serves to document this work. But these volumes have here been extensively transcribed because no other such work-books are known from the period. They provide unique evidence of the way in which a silversmith operated, how he himself saw his output, how he interacted with other members of his professions and associated trades, and his relations with his patrons. Arrighi, whose oeuvre is here illustrated, with many details in colour, was not only an important figure in the history of metalwork, but one who can stand as a typical example of his profession. Thus these newly discovered documents, which make up the second part of this book, provide a vivid insight into the way that silversmiths functioned in baroque Rome.
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