Resta Codex

The famous Resta Codex is surely one of the most important art historical treasures of the Italian Renaissance! Padre Sebastiano Resta, a gifted graphic collector of the 17th century, assembled 281 drawings by great Italian masters in this album. The line-up of artists represented here stretches from Trecento to Seicento, from Giotto to Raphael and Leonardo to Masaccio and Botticelli. Exciting notes and anecdotes from the hand of the collector supplement the precious drawings. Rediscovered in the Library of Palermo after being lost for a long time, the Resta Codex is considered to be a true treasure chest of graphic art during this time!

A Collected Album with Exciting History

The famous Resta Codex is stored today in the Biblioteca Ambrosia in Milan. This valuable album with drawings by Italian masters is named after its author: Padre Sebastian Resta (1635–1714). Resta was a gifted collector and great connoisseur of graphic art. He pasted anlarge number of drawings into notebooks in the course of his life. They comprise 3,500 drawings in 30 volumes altogether, the so-called Resta Codex is surely the most famous. Unlike most of the 30 albums, this one was never plundered and its contents divided among collections across the world. The Resta Codex was thought to be lost for a long time, until it was rediscovered in the Palermo Public Library.

The Drawing as an Unmitigated Access to the Artist

A selection of the 100 most beautiful sheets from the total of 281 in the Resta Codex assembles works presenting a wonderful overview of the treasure that unfolds here: drawings by the greatest masters of Italian art from the Trecento to the Seicento. Among the artists represented here are such great names as Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Giotto, Massacio and many more. The drawings offer an unhindered inside view into the genesis of great works of art and into the idea world of these great masters. Resta furnished the pasted pages with notes, information, speculations, anecdotes, and other comments from his hand. The 234 pages of this codex, measuring 52 x 37.2 cm, enchant nearly every lover of Italian Renaissance art!