Giuseppe Fede


Conte Giuseppe Fede was an Italian nobleman, collector and archaeologist of the 18th century. As early as 1724 he started to buy up parcels of land on the site of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli and excavate on them. Like his father, he was a collector-excavator who retained some of the sculptures he excavated for himself whilst releasing others onto the antiquarian market.
He had at least four of the sculptures he found restored by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi before 1768, and Cavaceppi included sculptures found by Fede in his Raccolta.

Primary sources

  • Winckelmann, Briefe, Numbers 150, 486, I, 455
  • Johann Bernoulli, Sammlung kurzer Reisebeschreibungen und anderer zur Erweiterung der Länder-und Menschenkenntnis dienender Nachrichten, II, 607
  • Carlo Pietrangeli, Scavi e scoperte di antichita sotto il pontificato di Pio VI, plates 146-148

Secondary sources