This study is exploring the collections and the collector's aims in putting together one of the major examples of a princely collection of antiquities. Both the categories of the objects and the forms of display adopted at different times during Cosimo's reign are discussed in the historical context of a developing and expanding independent principality. Using a wealth of (mostly unpublished) archival sources, this volume attempts to reconstruct as far as possible the collection and its display in Florence. It also sets out the archaeological and artistic context of Cosimo's collection of antiquities that survives in part in the Florentine museums. Cosimo I de' Medici (1519-1574) collected antiquities from the moment he became Duke of Florence in January 1537. In so doing he continued a family tradition from the previous century and also connected with the cultural politics of the main line of the house of Medici.