Philipp von Stosch

Baron Philipp von Stosch (22 March 1691 – 7 November 1757) was a Prussian antiquarian who lived in Rome and Florence.

Stosch was born in Küstrin (today Kostrzyn in Poland) in the Neumark region of Brandenburg. In 1709, with the blessings of his father, a successful artist who became Mayor (German: Bürgermeister) of Küstrin, Stosch began a tour of Holland, France, and England, which eventually led him to Italy. In Rome, a letter of introduction brought him into the circle of Pope Clement XI, a collector and connoisseur of antiquities. Soon he developed a close friendship with the cardinal-nephew, Alessandro Albani. Called home with the death of his elder brother in 1717, Stosch began a series of broader European journeys.

Once again in Rome, Stosch became a dealer in art and antiquities at the center of the antiquarian group that were commissioning excavations in search of works of art. Above all he was a collector of engraved gems of antiquity, books and manuscripts, early engravings and drawings and reputedly a connoisseur of Roman men (reference to his homosexuality). He financed his passions by some unorthodox means, including spying on the Jacobite court in Rome for Sir Robert Walpole's British Government. Stosch was unmasked as a clandestine operative in 1731, and his life was threatened. He was forced to flee the Papal States and took refuge in Florence, under the tolerant rule of Grand Duke Gian Gastone de' Medici. There he settled into a long retirement devoted to connoisseurship, pensioned by the British until he died in 1757. Before long his growing collection required a separate house of its own. (ref. Datenbank Altertumswissenschaften)

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