Medals of centenarians / by F. Parkes Weber.

  • Frederick Parkes Weber
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medals of centenarians / by F. Parkes Weber. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    sented. The medals of the French poet Fontenelle are likewise included, though he died before completing his hundredth year.^ The centenarians in the following list are arranged in the chronological order of their births, and the following somewhat legendary person must therefore take precedence. Apollonius Tyaneus, the Pythagorean philosopher, is said to have been a centenarian. The story of his life, as given by Philostratus the Athenian, is fabu- lous, and his reputation depends chiefly on the miracles which he was reputed to have performed, and on a parallel which some authors have drawn be- tween him and Jesus Christ. He is said to have been born at Tyana, in Cappadocia, about the year 4 B.C., and to have died at Ephesus about 97 a.d. The following Roman contorniate medallion bears his portrait. OJt;.—APOLLONIVS TFANEVS (sic). His bust clothed in paludamentimi, with bearded laureate head to right. Eev.—FLIANE. A victor in the chariot race, holding a whip and palm-branch, and standing in a quadriga facing; the four horses of the quadriga have their heads adorned with palm-branches. In the exergue, NICA. * Of all persons commemorated by medals the gi-eat painter Titian (1477-1576) in length of life x^robably ranks next to those whose medals aire here described. He died of the plague at Venice on the 27th August, 1576, in his ninety- ninth or one hundredth year. In addition to various later medals there exist two cinque-cento Italian medals bearing Titian's portrait, one by Leoni Leoni (Armand, Les Medailleurs Italiens, vol. i., p. 166, No. 21), and the other by Pastorino (Armand, op. eit., vol. i., p. 208, No. 122). A specimen of the latter is in the British Museum.