263 JOURNAL OFTHEWARBURG AND COURTAULD INSTITUTES, LXXIV, 2011 NICOLAS PEIRESC ANDTHE DELPHICTRIPOD IN THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS Anthony Ossa-Richardson A tanuncertaindatepriorto43bc,theRomansestablishednearMassaliathenaval port of Forum Julii—their second on the southern coast of Gaul, after Narbo. 1 It flourished under Augustus, declining in the Christian era before being sacked by theMuslimsintheninthcenturyandreconstructedinthetenth.Inthefirstdecades oftheseventeenthcenturythetown,nowFréjusinthevernacular,becameacentre ofantiquarianactivity,asthelocalAntelmifamilyrecoveredandstudiedearlydocu- ments from the cathedral archives as well as antiquities from the surrounding area. In 1629 an ornate bronze tripod, about a foot and a half high, was unearthed from theoldforumneartheruinedtheatreandaqueduct,tothenorth-eastofthepresent town; the object was immediately purchased by a family friend of the Antelmis, the scholar and antiquary Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637), then staying fortymilesawayathisbirthplaceandholidayresidence,Belgentier. 2 Peirescbelieved the tripod to be pre-Roman, a likeness of the sacred object used by the Pythia or Delphicpriestesswhendeliveringheroracles.HecomposedaFrenchdissertationon thetripod,probablybegunin1629andcompletedin1630,haddrawingsmadeofit andcorrespondedwithlearnedfriendsthroughoutEuropeforhalfadecade,hungry forinformationontheDelphictripodandkeentodemonstratethattheobjectinhis ownpossessionheldthekeytothepaganmysteries. 3 Theresponsewasmixed.Bythe endof1635Peireschadgivenupthematter;twoyearslaterhewasdead. 1.MysummaryisbasedonJ.-A.Aubenas, Histoire de Fréjus:Forum Julii,ses antiquités,son port,Fréjus1881, pp.1–268,stillthemostdetailedandreliableworkon the town’s origin and history. C. Gébara et al., Fréjus antique,Paris1998,p.13,favourafoundationdateof 49bc,forwhichnoreasonsaregiven. 2. The exact circumstances of the discovery and purchase are unclear. In a MS note about the tripod, Peiresc claims it was found in 1630 by one Etienne Barjoleandthatheboughtiton15Mar.:Paris,Biblio- thèque nationale de France [hereafter: BnF] MS fr. 9530,fol.166 r ;transcribedbyAubenas(asinn.1),pp. 621–22. In another autograph document, however, Peirescstatesthatitwasunearthedin1629(thisscript is now bound into the same MS: ibid., fol. 168 r );the dateof1629wasfollowedbyDesmolets(citedbelow, n. 5), p. 244. As clarified by M. van der Meulen, ‘A Note on Rubens’s Letter onTripods’, Burlington Magazine,cxix,1977,pp.646–51(651),Peirescwrote to Peter Paul Rubens about the tripod in Nov. and Dec. 1629; see also his letter to Pierre Dupuy of Dec.1629(citedbelow,n.16).Jacques-FélixGirardin, Histoire de la ville et de l’église de Fréjus, 2 vols, Paris 1729,i,pp.67–69,assertedthatthetripod was found in 1630 and given to Peiresc by Nicolas Antelmi; GirardinwasfollowedbyA.L.MillindeGrandmaison, in Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, ii, Paris 1843, s.v.‘Antelmi’, p. 55b.A. Germondy,‘Cantons de St-Tropez et de Grimaud’, Bulletin de la société des sciences,belles-lettres et arts du département duVar,xxvii, 1860,pp.361–411(382),finally,claimedbyoraltradi- tionthatthetripodwassenttoPierreAntelmibyaM. Coste, who had discovered it at Le Pilon, StTropez, some13milesaway. 3. Peiresc’s autograph draft of his dissertation, labelledsimply‘1630.Triposd’Apollo’,and‘Letripos’, ispreservedinParis,BnFMSfr.9530(availabledigi- tally via the BnF’s Gallica facility), fols 266 r –73 v ;in thesameMSarepreservedfurthernotesonthetripod, together with related correspondence. For two of Peiresc’sownsketchesseeibid.,fol.266 r ;fordetailed drawingsseeParis,BnF,CabinetdesEstampes,Cabi- net de Peiresc, MS Aa 53, fol. 64 r (attr. to Mathieu Frédeau);MSAa54,fol.103 r .Akeytothepartsindi- catedbyletterscanbefoundatBnFMSfr.9530,fol. 323 r . 10-Anthony_with credit:JWCI 14/12/11 16:02 Page 263