Seroux d'Agincourt, Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Georges

SEROUX D'AGINCOURT, JEAN-BAPTISTE-LOUIS-GEORGES. - French archaeologist and numismatist, b. at Beauvais (France) on 5 Apr. 1730, d. at Rome on 24 Sept. 1814 and buried in S. Luigi de' Francesi.

In 1778 he set out for England, Holland and Germany; the following year he visited Italy and settled in Rome, where he prepared his great work Histoire de l'art par les monuments depuis sa décadence au IVe siècle jusqu'à son renouvellement au XVIe, 6 vols., Paris 1810-23, with 325 plates; the work was translated into Italian by St. Picozzi (Prato 1829) and again at Mantua in 1841. Some analytical plates were edited by Genée. In this work S. d'A. published some previously unpublished paintings; unfortunately, following the bad practice begun by M. A. Boldetti, he helped to ruin the cemetery frescoes by trying to detach them from the walls, as he did at Priscilla in the Greek chapel with the personifications of the seasons, leaving his signature on the wall as well. The original manuscript is preserved in the Vatican Library (codd. Vat. lat. 9839-49). For Christian archaeology, plates 9-13 for architecture, plates 4-8 for sculpture and plates 6-12 are of interest. In 1814 his last work appeared: Recueil de fragments de sculpture antique en terre cuite.

Cirillo Vogel