-Letter of 13 Aug. 1649 (from Leiden to Nijmegen): "[p. 37] Nummos Florentinos tandem juris mei feci, postquam anno fere toto cum mercatorum sycophantiis captiunculisque luctatus sum. Navis, quae illos allatura est, jam ante menses duos Liburno discessit, quam Hetruriae portum nosti: ut quotidie mihi exspectanda sit, nisi si in portum Hispaniae aliquem deflexit. Quicquid sit, aut hoc aut proximo mense numismatum copiam mihi futuram spero. Aurei CXII sunt, argentei DCCLXX. Aerei CXLVIII exigui omnes nec argenteis majores. In iis colligendis Passignanus ὁ μακαρίτης Eques et pictor celeberrimus aetatem totam triverat. Erat autem nonagenarius, cum moreretur.
Audivi alios in eadem Urbe nummos venales esse, quos apud nobilem quemdam videram. Argentei circiter quadringenti sunt, aerei trecenti. Si scirem duplicatos commodo pretio, minori etiam, quam mihi constent, in alium conferri posse, juris mei et illos facerem. Sed rei nummariae totam curam deposui, donec Florentinos illos nactus sim. Nam de Neapolitanis quid exspectandum sit, nescio. Adeo mercatores litteris meis, quas frequentes scripsi, nihil hactenus respondent. Toto tamen jam anno promittunt missuros se mihi depositum: idque iis, per quos officii eos admonendos curavi. Si pergunt fallere, ut Proregis Neapolitani auctoritate nummi ab iis extorqueantur, per Equitem Puteanum curabitur: cujus impetum hactenus sustlamino(?). Negligenter enim illos rem gerere existimo: de dolo malo absit ut metuam. Genua aureos nuper duos, argenteos quinquaginta circiter accepi: quos illic reliqueram, una cum Galeria Justiniana: in quo libro quadringentae circiter statuae graphice delineatae exhibentur, quas Romae in palatio Justiniano est videre. De Florentinis certiorem pluribus te faciam, ubi ad me pervenerint.
Has jam scripseram cum litteras ab Equite Puteano Roma accipio, quibus monet mercatores Neapolitanos foro cessisse: se procuraturum tamen omni opera, ut nummi aut iis, aut eorum creditoribus extorqueantur: quos ego quidem periisse mihi existimo, nisi ille θεὸς ἀπὸ μηχανῆς praeter exspectationem nobis hic adsit.
Mitto aureorum Florentinorum indicem ab amico quodam meo viro docto, sed istarum rerum, ut videbis, valde imperito confectum. Nam Diadumenianum, quem inter illos vidi, aliosque bonae notae omisit. Indicem ipsum remittes, ubi commodum erit."
(At last I have made the Florence coins mine, after wrestling for about a whole year with the deceits and lies of the dealers. The ship which is to bring them here left Livorno, which as you know is the port of Etruria, now two months ago, so they are daily expected by me, unless it turns away to some Spanish port. However that may be, I hope that the collection of coins will be mine this month or next. There are 112 gold coins and 720 silver. The 148 bronzes are all small and no bigger than the silver. The late Passignano, a knight and very famous painter, spent his whole life in collecting them. And he was a ninety year old when he died.
I heard that other coins, which I had seen in the possession of a certain nobleman, were for sale in the same city. There are about four hundred silver and three hundred bronze. If I knew that I could pass the duplicates on to someone else at a decent price, even if it were less than they cost me, I would make them mine also. But I have put aside any effort for coins, until I have got hold of the Florence ones. And I have no idea what to expect about the Naples ones. The dealers have so far made no reply to my letters, which I have frequently written to them. For a whole year now they have been promising that they would send my deposit to me, and the same for them through whom I took care to advise them of the service. If they continue to fail to extort the coins from them on the authority of the Viceroy of Naples, it will be taken care of by the Eques Puteanus whose force I have so far relied upon. I think they are conducting the matter negligently. May there be no bad tickery, as I fear. In Genoa I got two gold and about fifty silver coins, which I left there, together with the Galleria of Giustiniani, the book in which are graphically drawn about forty statues which are to be seen at Rome in the Palazzo Giustiniano. Concerning the Florence coins I will send you more information, when they have come to me.
I had just written this letter when I received one from the Eques Puteanus, in which he advises me that the Neapolitan dealers have gone out of business; that he will nevertheless make every effort to ensure that the coins are extracted either from them or from their creditors. I certainly think they were lost to me, unless that deus ex machina unexpectedly comes to my aid.
I send the list of the Florence gold coins made by one of my friends, a learned man, but, as you will see, very unskilled in these matters. For he has left out the Diadumenian, which I saw among them, as well as others of merit. Would you send back the list when it is convenient?) (G. C. in de Betouw (ed.), De lucernis veterum reconditis in agro Neomagensium suburbano (Nijmegen, 1783), pp. 36-39)
