The Antiquary (play)

The Antiquary is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Shackerley Marmion. It was acted in the 1634–36 period by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit Theatre, and first published in 1641. The Antiquary has been succinctly described as "Marmion's best play."

The play drew upon several contemporary sources for its inspiration. Antiquarianism and the collection of "rarities" was a growing trend in Marmion's era. Marmion's title character, Veterano, has a habit of staring at a sculpture with a broken nose; this may have been intended as an allusion to Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel, a famous antiquarian and art collector of the day. Marmion also was influenced by a contemporary controversy: in 1629, King Charles I and his Privy Council developed a scheme to confiscate the collection of the celebrated antiquary Charles Cotton the elder.

Marmion set his play in Pisa (although, with references to the Rialto and the senate, he seems to have been thinking more about Venice). Like some other rulers in folklore and story (Harun al-Rashid being the most famous example), the Duke of Pisa chooses to go about in disguise among his subjects, to observe them and to amuse himself in the process. He witnesses a variety of odd characters, including Petrutio, who has been made vain and conceited by his foreign travels, and Moccinigo, an old man shocked by a courtesan's rejection into pursuing the hand of the 16-year-old Lucretia.

Veterano is an elderly and wealthy collector of antiquities; he denies his nephew Lionell any financial support and spends his money on his supposed treasures. Gullibly, he believes he owns the net in which Vulcan captured Mars and Venus, and "the great silver box that Nero kept his beard in." Lionell, an "ingenious witty gentleman" and a "young knave," cheats his uncle by selling him bogus rarities in disguise. The Duke, in confederacy with Lionell, threatens to confiscate Veterano's collection, since it is too precious to be in the hands of a private citizen; in response, Veterano wills his estate to Lionell.

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