3.1 Hans Jakob Fugger
Stradaâs first contacts with Hans Jakob Fugger, his chief patron for well over a decade, certainly took place before the middle of the 1540s. As suggested earlier, the possibility remains that Strada had already met this gifted scion of the most illustrious German banking dynasty, his exact contemporary, in Italy. Fugger [Fig. 3.1], born at Augsburg on 23 December 1516, was the eldest surviving son of Raymund Fugger and Catharina Thurzo von Bethlenfalva. He had already followed part of the studious curriculum which was de rigueur in his family even before arriving in Bologna: this included travel and study at foreign, rather than German universities.1
Hans Jakob, accompanied on his trip by his preceptor Christoph Hager, first studied in Bourges, where he heard the courses of Andrea Alciati, and then followed Alciati to Bologna [Fig. 1.12]. Doubtless partly because of the exceptional standing of his familyâthe gold of Hans Jakobâs great-uncle, Jakob âder Reicheâ, had obtained the Empire for Charles vâbut certainly also because of his personal talents, Fugger met and befriended a host of people of particular political, ecclesiastical or cultural eminenceâsuch as Viglius van Aytta van Zwichem, whom he met in Bourges and again in Bolognaâor later would ascend to high civil or ecclesiastical rank. His friends included both Germans, such as the companion of his travels and studies, Georg Sigmund Seld, afterwards Reichsvizekanzler, his compatriot Otto Truchsess von Waldburg, afterwards Cardinal and Prince-Bishop of Augsburg [Fig. 1.14], and Wigulaeus Hund, later Chancellor of the Duke of Bavaria. Among the Italians he met we find the young Alessandro Farnese, the future Cardinal [Fig. 1.15], and Cristoforo Madruzzo, afterwards Prince-Bishop of Trent; another fellow student was Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, afterwards Bishop of Arras, Cardinal, secretary of state of Emperor Charles v and King Philip ii of Spain and Viceroy of Naples [Fig. 1.13].2
The young Hans Jakob was a very assiduous student, who showed a great interest in classical studies; and his interest included the material remains of
Christoph Amberger, Hans Jakob Fugger, 1541; present location unknown.
Fuggerâs nostalgia may have been particularly poignant because, in consequence of his fatherâs sudden death, he had been obliged to break off his studies prematurely. Although Hans Jakob should have taken his fatherâs place in the company, his uncle Anton [Fig. 3.3] thought him, probably rightly, still too young for this: so, again according to the family tradition, he was sent to gain some practical experience, first in the Antwerp branch of the firm, and then in several others. During this period he perfected his extraordinary command of foreign languages: according to the Fuggerchronik, he fluently spoke Italian, French, Dutch, Latin and Greek, and he also appears to have been well-versed in Czech and Polish and to have known some Hungarian, which was his motherâs native tongue.
Fuggerâs unusual command of the modern languages may have been one of the talents that recommended him to Ferdinand i, and it appears that Fugger spent some time at Ferdinandâs court in Innsbruck and in Vienna, where a number of young nobleman were educated together with the young Archdukes. Fugger would always remain on excellent terms with the young Archdukes and their sisters, and in particular with the eldest, Maximilian, who shared so many of his interests. It was here that Hans Jakob met his first wife, Ursula von
Giulio Romano, Sacra Famiglia, painted 1520â21 for the Fugger Chapel in Santa Maria dellâAnima, Rome.
Lambert Sustris (?), after Titian: Emperor Charles V; Munich, Alte Pinakothek.
In view of Hans Jakobâs lively interest in politics it is not surprising that he soon came to take part in the administration of his native city. Paradoxically Fuggerâs tolerant but determined Catholicism and his familyâs traditional adherence to the imperial party were an advantage to him in the city which in 1537 had expelled its Roman-Catholic clergy and had adhered to the Schmalkaldic League. Among Fuggerâs first important tasks were embassies to the powerful Imperial minister, Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle, and to Charles v himself [Fig. 3.3]. As an imperial partisan his intercession was of some use in the conflicts of Augsburg with Charles v, and in 1548 he was appointed to a position in the government of the town. In 1549 he became a member of the Imperial Council, and in 1551 he was given an honorary position in Ferdinandâs
Hans Mielich, Albrecht v, Duke of Bavaria; Munich, Alte Pinakothek.
Friedrich Brugger, Hans Jakob Fugger: Beförderer der Wissenschaft, Statue commissioned in 1857 by King Ludwig i of Bavaria; Augsburg, Fuggerplatz.
Already in the preceding decade Hans Jakob had been engaged in the direction of the firm. Since 1550 he had been chiefly occupied with the management of its Spanish interests, which had immeasurably increased in the preceding quarter of a century: one only needs to think of the monopoly in mercury which the firm obtained from Charles v, its lease on the possessions of the âMaestrazgosââthe Spanish knightly orders of Santiago, Alcántara and Calatravaâand of its branches in Chile and Peru. Such expansion had only been possible because the firm had continually agreed to finance Charles vâs policies, and therefore the bankruptcy of the Spanish Crown following Charlesâ abdication and the consequent financial crisis profoundly shook the foundations of the firm. It would have been difficult even for a man of much greater commercial interest and talent than Hans Jakob to recoup the immense losses incurred: the Fugger remained creditors of the Spanish crown for close to three million ducats. Hans Jakobâs princely style of life and his generous patronage of learning and of the arts did not contribute to redress the balance, and he soon found himself even in private financial difficulties. In 1561 and 1562 he could not pay his taxes, and his debts in Augsburg alone came to over two hundred thousand Gulden; in June 1564 his lack of solvency had become so pressing that he was constrained to announce his personal bankruptcy, with a total amount of debts of over a million Gulden. This seemed worse than it was: Fugger possessed very extensive landed property in Alsace, Swabia and Bavaria, and in fact he was helped out by the Augsburg City Council itself, who saw to an agreement with his local creditorsâthese were in fact paid off even earlier than was stipulatedâand by Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria [Fig. 3.4], who first lent him a large sum of cash, and afterwards agreed to take over part of Fuggerâs debts in return for his splendid library and his collection of antiquities. The Duke moreover successfully mediated in Hans Jakobâs difficulties with his cousins, which were caused by his bankruptcy and by a dispute about his share in the assets of the firm after Antonâs death. The conflict was finally resolved in early October 1565, when a final division was made, and Hans Jakob completely withdrew from the firm.5
The Dukeâs intervention on Fuggerâs behalf is only one expression of the intimate friendship that had developed from about 1547 onward between the young Bavarian Prince and the slightly older Augsburg patrician, âdem Fürsten von Bayern vertraut wie ein Bruderâ.6 Already in the middle of the 1550âs Fugger appears to have become indispensable to the Duke, whose political opinions and cultural interests he shared and probably strongly influenced. Soon he was entrusted with important diplomatic missions, and he kept the Duke abreast of the latest news by means of the Fuggerzeitungen, regular bulletins drafted by Fugger correspondents and employees all over Europe.7 Following Fuggerâs withdrawal from the firm and from political activities in his native Augsburg, his connection with Munich strengthened and assumed a more formal character: at Easter 1565 he was appointed Musikintendant. This in fact involved the supervision of all Italian correspondence, which not only included letters dealing with the acquisition of musical instruments and the recruiting of musicians and singersâdoubtless in close consultation with Albrecht vâs celebrated Kapellmeister Orlando di Lassoâbut also with the purchase of books, antiquities, and works of art for the Bavarian court. In the autumn of the same year Fugger was asked to lead the retinue of the young Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria, who was sent to Florence to represent his father at the wedding of his sister-in-law, the Archduchess Johanna, to Francesco deâ Medici. In 1570 Fugger was appointed a Privy Councillor, and he was given a quite exceptional salary. In 1573, finally, the notorious bankrupt was appointed to the newly created function of Hofkammerpräsident, chairman of the duchyâs financial authority: proof that though his bankruptcy had damaged Fuggerâs financial position, it had in no way detracted from the general respect his merits entitled him to.
Duke Albrechtâs own esteem and affection for Fugger is clearly expressed in his will of 1573, in which he determined that Fugger should continue to receive his salary even if he resigned his functions at court, and that his still outstanding debts should be remitted. Fugger, whose health had never been strong, would not profit from these generous legacies, since he predeceased his patron by some four years in July 1575. He was buried at the side of his first wife in the Dominican Church at Augsburg; and since 1857 his memory is kept alive not only by the epitaph he composed himself, but also by a bronze statue at Augsburgâby that time a Bavarian townâwhich was erected in his honour by the distant descendant of his friend and patron, King Ludwig i of Bavaria [Fig. 3.5].
The coat of arms of Hans Jakob Fugger and the portraits of Hans Jakob and his first wife, Ursula von Harrach, in the Ehrenbuch des Fuggerischen Geschlechts; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
This statue, however, does not commemorate Fuggerâs commercial success or his political achievements, but is dedicated to the memory of the âBeförderer der Wissenschaftâ, that is to Fuggerâs extraordinary importance as a patron of learning. Learning in which Fugger himself was very far from deficient, and in which he doubtless would have played a much more important active role, had his position and pressing responsibilities not prevented him. This is most clear from Fuggerâs short treatise on the history of the Schmalkaldic Wars: written by an engaged observer who himself had to some extent participated in the conflict, and based on the many sources to which he had exclusive access, it remains a most informative and illuminating document for the political and religious history of the years preceding the Augsburg Interim.8
Fuggerâs particular interest in history is further borne out by two other works that for centuries have been erroneously attributed to his pen. The first of these is the Gehaim Eernbuch Mans Stammens und Namens des Eerlichen und altloblichen Fuggerischen Geschlechts, a history and genealogy of his family that he commissioned from the Augsburg archivist Clemens Jäger and the draughtsman Jörg Breu the Younger; it was written in 1545â1547 in collaboration with and under close supervision of Fugger himself [Figs. 3.6â3.7].9
A page from the Vienna version of the Ehrenspiegel Ãsterreichs, and a detail showing the silver shrine for the relics of Margrave Leopold III of Austria, commissioned on the occasion of his canonization by Emperor Maximilian I; Vienna, Ãsterreichische Nationalbibliothek.
Fuggerâs immediate contribution to the actual contents of a much more splendid commission, the famous Wahrhaftige Beschreibung zwaier<â¦>der alleredlesten<â¦>Geschlechter der Christenheit, des habspurgischen unnd österreichischen Gebluets<â¦>bis auf Carolum den fünfften und Ferdinandum den ersten, commonly known as the Ehrenspiegel Ãsterreichs, was limited to its conception and general supervision. The text of this voluminous compilation of the genealogy and history of the Habsburg dynasty was likewise written by Clemens Jäger, and is of little moment: âkein Mensch wird jemals mehr aus diesen Ungetümen sein Wissen zur bereichern suchenâ, says Otto Hartig. But the profusion and splendour of its illustrations is truly exceptional, and it comes as no surprise thatâsome twenty years laterâthe Ehrenspiegel was copied on behalf of the Austrian Archdukes themselves.10
The Ehrenspiegel cannot compete with, say, the Grimani Breviary or the Farnese Hours in artistic quality: in fact, as Hartig points out, all superfluous and distracting decoration is studiously avoided. But it is exceptional in that its illustrationsâan extraordinary collection of portraits, views of towns and villages, battles, emblems and coats of armsâare the fruit of a conscious and sustained attempt at historical and topographical accuracy: some of the miniatures document in detail monuments and inscriptions that had already been destroyed at the time [Figs. 3.8 and 3.9].11 This interest in drawings and engravings not as works of art, but as documents, as more or less reliable sources of information, is, as we shall see, typical for Fugger and his circle; and Strada soon demonstrated that he fully shared this attitude.
More than as a historiographerâthe treatise on the Schmalkaldic Wars had no influence, since it was never published!âor as âFundatorâ of the Ehrenspiegel, Fugger is of importance for his extraordinary patronage of learning.
The extent of Hans Jakobâs patronage, however, greatly surpassed those of his relatives. It is best demonstrated by the extensive list of books that his protégées presented or dedicated to him. This list gives over forty names, and opens with Syrianusâ comments on Aristotleâs Metaphysics, in a translation by Girolamo Bagolino, which was published in 1558 by the Accademia Veneta with a very flattering dedication to Fugger. The Accademia della Fama, as it was also called, had been founded in that year by the Venetian nobleman Federico Badoer, after consultations with intellectuals and princes from all over Europe, among which Fugger was the most important German representative. Among the other Italians we find Anton Francesco Doniânot surprisingly the copy of the first book of his Le Ville which he presented to Hans Jakob includes an additional manuscript text âLa Villa Fuccharaââthe antiquary Ortensio Landi, the ecclesiastical historian Onofrio Panvinio, and Jacopo Strada himself. Among the learned Germans we find Sigmund Gelenius, the bibliographer and naturalist Conrad Gesner, Johann Ludwig Brassicanus, Nikolaus Mameranus, Abraham Loescher, Johann Heinrich Münzinger, Johannes Pedioneus, the printer Johannes Oporinus, and Hieronymus Wolf, to mention only a few.13
Of course such dedications or gifts were not always tokens of gratitude for immediate financial support. Sometimes the various authors referred to other benefits received from Hans Jakob, who might have used his influence in helping them find a job, could have been their host in Augsburg, or had helped them to find or to gain access to some important but rare source necessary for their work. It is to Fuggerâs credit that, though his staunch adherence to the established religion is without question, he never let religious difference prevent him from helping those whose intellectual gifts clearly deserved his support: and such tolerance included his day-to-day life and his own house, as is demonstrated by his appointment of the strict Protestant Hieronymus Wolf as his librarian [Fig. 3.12].
But not all authors who presented their works had received such concrete support from Fugger: sometimes they merely acknowledged the helpful exchange of opinions with the learned colleague, or dedicated the fruit of their labours to Fugger purely for his wide renown as a patron of learning and the fame of his extraordinary library. This library, which for some years was the largest and most complete in Germany, laid the foundations of the Munich Hofbibliothekânow the Bayerische Staatsbibliothekâand of all Fuggerâs endeavours has doubtless conferred the most lasting benefits on posterity. Already as a young student Fugger had used his ample means to acquire many books, such as a new edition of Livy which, when a student at Bourges, he lent to his teacher Alciati.14 By the time he returned from Italy in 1535, his collection had already grown sufficiently to be specifically referred to in one of Vigliusâ letters. Fuggerâs just pride in his library, which was the fruit of a conscious and systematic programme of collecting, is expressed in the opening paragraph of the Ehrenspiegel, in which he relates his efforts to the example of Alfonso of Aragon, King of Naples, who had included an opened book in his armorial bearings.15 The great naturalist and bibliographer, Conrad Gesner
Fugger sought to acquire a possibly complete collection of texts in the three ancient languages, that is including Greek and Hebrew, the study of both of which was still very recent; in particular that of Hebrew, which was only coming into its own with the advent of the Reformation, and the consequent increase in interest in the Old Testament. To Fugger, completeness meant that if no printed edition of a given text was available, he would strive to acquire a manuscript copy: and in fact the editio princeps of some texts was prepared on the basis of manuscripts from his own library.17 He often employed the agents of the Fugger firm in the various capitals of Europe to provide him with new editions, to discover the manuscripts of important, unpublished texts and, if these could not be acquired, to have them copied by expert scribes. Moreover he occasionally employed more specialist agents, who were scholars themselves, such as the Flemish neo-Latin poet Niccolò Stopioâacting director of Bombergâs printing house in Venice, which specialized in Hebrew editionsâwho kept him informed of the Venetian book market; Stopioâs compatriot Arnoldus Arlenius, a learned student and merchant of ancient manuscripts and curator of the important collection belonging to Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Charles vâs ambassador to the Serenissima; and, some years later, the brilliant young antiquary Onofrio Panvinio.18 Though Fugger provided his
Though the collection of classical and biblical texts in the three ancient languages must be considered as the backbone of Fuggerâs library, and he himself was particularly interested in classical and modern historiography and its auxiliary sciences (such as numismatics and epigraphy), Fuggerâs conscious aim was to build up an extensive but balanced body of documentation covering all branches of science and the humanities. Such encyclopaedic passion clearly reflects the spirit of the age, a spirit which is evident in the proliferation of dictionariesâor âTheatresâ, âPromptuariaâ etc.âthat attempted to codify human knowledge, such as the Pandectarum sive partitionum universalium, published in 1548 by Fuggerâs protégé Conrad Gesner [Fig. 3.10]. This bulky volume, containing no less than thirty thousand subject entries, cross-references, and bibliographical data, was itself merely the companion volume of Gesnerâs Bibliotheca Universalis, a four-volume bibliography of all books in Latin, Greek and Hebrew ever printed. Its first edition was published in 1545 [Fig. 3.11], soon followed by a supplement volume, as well as by some cheaper, abridged editions.19 It is clear that the Biblioteca Universalis strongly stimulated Fuggerâs ideas: in the very year that it came out he unsuccessfully invited Gesner to become his first librarian. Gesnerâs work probably first made Fugger think of his library as an independent instrument of research, as an institution rather than as a private library: the Bibliotheca Universalis became the ideal model for his library, rather than just a convenient guide for future acquisitions.20
Conrad Gesner, celebrated bibliographer and botanist, and the title page of his Bibliotheca Universalis, Zürich 1545.
The Greek scholar Hieronymus Wolf, Fuggerâs first librarian, and his successor as such, Samuel Quiccheberg, author of the Inscriptiones vel tituli theatri amplissimi, Munich 1565.
Fuggerâs thirst for universal knowledge and his interest in a systematically accessible arrangement of such knowledge are confirmed by his connections with the Antwerp doctor Samuel Quiccheberg, whom he appointed as his librarian in about 1559, and who appears also to have been charged with
The Munich Hofbibliothek, which at that time was being moved into new premises designed and built for the purpose, was thus enriched with a collection of several times its own size: Fuggerâs library had already swallowed whole the entire library that had once belonged to the Nuremberg humanist Hartmann Schedel. Fugger had acquired this collection en bloc in 1552, and he had maintained it as a separate entity. Fuggerâs success in his attempt at completeness can be deduced from the present holdings of the Munich Staatsbibliothek, as described by Hartig: though he gives no estimate of the number of printed books in Fuggerâs library, this must have exceeded rather than have fallen short of 10.000 volumes; and together with Schedelâs codices the library contained about a thousand volumes of manuscripts.23 Hartigâs survey is doubtless a more reliable guide than Jacopo Stradaâs panegyric on the library to which he himself had contributed some of his proudest achievements; yet it is surely no coincidence that Strada, who had been involved in its expansion since about 1544, chose to demonstrate its excellence by means of a comparison with Gesnerâs Bibliotheca Universalis.24
3.3 Fuggerâs Employment of Strada
Stradaâs acquaintance with Hans Jakob Fugger dates from the middle of the 1540s at the latest. Though it is quite possible that Strada had first met Fugger in Italy, it is not very likely that Strada came to Germany in response to Fuggerâs explicit request: in that case he would have settled in Augsburg, rather than in Nuremberg. But though we do not know exactly when and how their contact was established, their meeting was inevitable in view of their common interests, if only because Strada must have been eager to study the well-known collection of antiquities that had belonged to Fuggerâs father, Raymund the Elder, as well Hans Jakobâs own collection.25 It appears that Fugger considered Strada ab initio as a scholar, an antiquary, rather than as an artist: we have no concrete indications that he commissioned or acquired any original works of art, such as paintings or objects of goldsmithâs work, from him or that he employed him
Fuggerâs almost exclusive interest in Stradaâs scholarly potential is not surprising, because Fugger was much more a patron of learning than a patron of the artsâvery little is known of his activities in that field, in which he was rather overshadowed by his younger cousin Hans.26 As we have seen, Fugger had many contacts with scholars from Germany and the Netherlands, many of whom were resident in Southern Germany: in Augsburg, Nuremberg, at the Bavarian court in Munich or at the University of Ingolstadt. Though he also maintained close contacts with several scholars in Italyâamong which the poet Ortensio Landi and the historian and antiquary Onofrio Panvinioâthere were few Italian intellectuals actually present in his immediate circle, and few scholars who knew Italy from thorough first-hand experience. The linguist Fugger may have greatly enjoyed the possibility of regularly practising his Italianâin which he was remarkably proficient, to judge from his letters to Panvinioâyet Stradaâs first-hand knowledge of the tangible remains of Antiquity preserved on Italian soil must have been his principal attraction: whereas the northern scholars in Fuggerâs circle by this time may have admired these during their visits to Italy, they had not yet studied them in detail.27
Petrus Apianus, engraving; the title page from Apianus and Amantiusâ Inscriptiones sacrosanctae vetustatis (1534), in part based on the collections of antiquities brought together by Hans Jakob Fuggerâs father, Raymund; and two of its illustrations: the Column of Trajan in Rome, and some inscriptions found in and near Augsburg.
It was this studyâthe study of the history of the ancient world not only from its literary sources but also from its tangible remains, such as inscriptions, coins, and even from the remnants of its works of art, architecture and techniqueâthat was Fuggerâs private passion. This passion he had inherited from his father, Raymund Fugger (1489â1535), whose modest, but quite choice collection of antiquities had been one of the sources for Petrus Apianusâ and Bartholomäus Amantiusâ Opus inscriptionum sacrosanctae vetustatis totius fere orbis of 1534, which work was dedicated to and financed by Raymund himself [Figs. 3.14â3.17]. Raymundâs collection, known only through a description by the humanist Beatus Rhenanus and a document relating to the division of Raymundâs estate among his heirs, was housed in two rooms on the upper floor
At the final division of Raymundâs estate between his heirs in 1548, the collection of antiques was not assigned to Hans Jakob, as one would have expected, but to his brother Raymund the Younger; though in the reshuffling of Fugger property connected with Hans Jakobâs bankruptcy in 1566 the two collections were united and ceded, as we have seen, to Duke Albrecht in partial refunding of Hans Jakobâs debts.30 Unfortunately, even less is known about Hans Jakobâs own collection than about that of his father, and it was obviously subordinate to the library.31 Library and collection filled several rooms of his Augsburg house, and apart from books and manuscripts their contents included coins and medals, full length antique statuary, and a series of marble busts of Roman Emperors and Empresses. There also appear to have been contemporary works of art, such as casts in bronze and/or gesso, paintings and drawings, as is indicated in the brief passage devoted to Hans Jakobâs library in the Fuggerchronik:
Next to this quantity of beautiful books [in his house] will not only be seen common and badly painted portraits, as can generally be seen with other people, but instead a huge number of old Roman portraits, all manner of consuls, dictators and other leader of the Romans, as well as the Italian and German Kings of the Romans and the [Holy Roman] Emperors, in drawings, in painting, or casts.32
Jacopo Strada, Epitome thesauri antiquitatum, Lyon 1553: title page; coat of arms of the dedicatee, Hans Jakob Fugger; woodcut medallic portraits on pages 20 (dependents of Claudius) and 21 (Caligula).
The emphasis on portraits in various forms corresponds to Fuggerâs own historical and genealogical interest as well as to Stradaâs research, which may well have been stimulated by Fugger, who in any case intended to reap some of its fruits. Fugger employed Strada chiefly in connection with his collection of antiquities and its appurtenances, initially particularly in the field of numismatics. When Strada met Fugger he had already acquired some expertise in this field, owing to his study of Giulioâs medals and his travels in Italy. In the preface to the French version of his 1553 Epitome thesauri antiquitatum he even claims that he came to Germany partly âpour recouvrer desdites Medailles, Ã lâaccroissement et perfection de mon livreâ.33 Hans Jakob now generously provided him with the means necessary to continue his studies, very likely in the form of a stipend similar to those he had given other erudites:
<â¦> while I was in Germany, this good lord has been so good and kind to me, as to provide me liberally and wholeheartedly all that was convenient and necessary to me, so that it would be a perpetual shame and everlasting infamy, if I would disdain to present this my labour, for as much as it is worth, to him who is my lord and sovereign master <â¦>34
This implies that Strada for some years received a stipend or pension sufficient to live on together with his travel expenses while he visited and studied in detail the numismatic collections of Germany.35 Meanwhile he elaborated and arranged the numismatic documentation (descriptions, drawings, casts in wax or other copies) that he had already collected in Italy. This material was intended to be published in a voluminous, fully illustrated numismatic Corpus, which would never be realized because of the excessive expense its printing
But Fuggerâs library would profit in a more substantial way from Stradaâs numismatic studies: the numismatic material that Strada collected was also drawn upon to produce an immense series of pen-and-ink drawings for Fugger, in fact a manuscript version of the planned Corpus, the Magnum ac Novum Opus Continens descriptionem Vitae, Imaginum, numismatum omnium tam Orientalium quam Occidentalium Imperatorum ac Tyrannorum <â¦> [Figs. 3.22â3.23]. The obverse and reverse of every single coin were represented each on a large sheet of beautiful paper (âcarta realeâ), and in a size very much larger than life (in the drawings the average diameter of the coins is 25 cm) [Figs. 3.26â3.33]. Initially these drawings were made by Strada himself, later he had them executedâalways under his close supervision and probably on the basis of his own sketchesâby several draughtsmen he employed in his studio.
The drawings were very highly valued: a fellow antiquary and collector, Adolf Occo, wrote that Fugger had paid a ducat for each of them, and this price is confirmed by the compensation Strada asked for similar drawings he offered to the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1574.37
Jacopo Strada and workshop, title page and dedication of his Magnum ac novum opus, begun for Hans Jakob Fugger in 1550 and continued for Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria; now in Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek.
Jacopo Strada, pages from the Magnum ac novum opus: Chapter title and abbreviated biography of Julius Caesar preceding the drawings of his coinage.
Jacopo Strada, pages from the Magnum ac novum opus: the obverses of coins of Caesar and of Eunoë, wife of King Bogud of Mauritania, and reputedly one of Caesarâs mistresses.
Strada continued to work on this project for over twenty years: the last volumes were sent in 1571 to Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria, who had acquired the series together with Fuggerâs library and collection. Since the thirty-odd volumes of this Magnum opusâthey are now split up between the Forschungsbibliothek at Gotha in Thuringia and the British Museumâcontain in total over nine thousand drawings, their manufacture must have contributed greatly to his prosperity.38
Jacopo Strada, pages from the Magnum ac novum opus: Various drawings of reverses, not all of them based on authentic ancient coins. The architectural reverses can be considered as reconstructions of the buildings depicted, rather than as documentation of the individual coin. The drawing of Charlemagneâs monogram is based on existing Carolingian coin types.
Why did Fugger so highly value these drawings? Hardly for their merit as works of artâin any case rather modestâfor in that case Fugger, though an important patron of learning, but no great patron of the visual arts, would have been as advanced in his tastes and insights as those very few Italian collectors of drawings of which Giorgio Vasari is the best known. But Fugger was very much aware of the value of such visual material as a vehicle of exact information, information which could not be conveyed by words alone. This awareness he shared with many of his contemporaries, as is shown by the remarkable development in those years of the quantity and quality of the illustrations of scientific books or practical and theoretical manuals: the beautiful engravings from Titianâs studio in Vesaliusâ De Fabrica Corporis Humana, and the first well-illustrated architectural treatises (Serlio, Vignola) come to mind. Such illustration, however, was extremely expensive, and therefore only feasible when large
Workshop of Jacopo Strada: coats of arms of the city of Rome, of Duke Guglielmo of Mantua, and of four noble families of Mantua (including his own), from the albums of armorial drawings commissioned by Hans Jakob Fugger; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
Stradaâs preoccupation with the collecting and diffusion of information in visual form became a Leitmotiv in his later career, and was fully shared by his patron. This is demonstrated not only by the numismatic corpus and other comparable material that Fugger acquired from Strada himself, such as the splendid illuminated volumes documenting the coats of arms of Popes and Cardinals, of Italian states and cities, and their noble and patrician families [Figs. 3.34â3.36], but also by, for instance, a (lost) manuscript version of Jean-Jacques Boissardâs book on costume, and the series of portraits and arms of the Popes commissioned from Onofrio Panvinio.39
For both Fugger and Strada, such material was an indispensable complement of the books preserved in the library, and it is presented as a completely integral part of the âTheatreâ or ideal museum sketched in Samuel Quicchebergâs Inscriptiones vel tituli theatri amplissimi. Quiccheberg, who from the late 1550s onward was responsible for Fuggerâs library and collection, already had links with Fugger in the late 1540s, and he may well have participated in discussions about this aspect of the collection. He certainly singled out this aspect of Fuggerâs library for special praise, and explicitly mentions Stradaâs Magnum opus in his description:
Raymund has indeed with this same brother [= Hans Jakob] and advised by Jacopo Strada acquired antique statues, and books in which countless coins are separately painted, in so many volumes that if they had to be transported they would burden many pack-mules.40
Nonetheless his argument in favour of the inclusion of such material in his Theatre, for instance in a section exclusively devoted to copper-engravings, was neither profound nor particularly original:
So in time such albums and other materials are increased by diligent patrons to such an extent, that solely from these images it appears possible to acquire knowledge of many subjects, for the observation of a single image makes a greater impression in the mind than the daily reading of many pages [of text].41
Apart from providing his patronâs library or Kunstkammer with these fruits of his erudition and diligence, Strada probably also acquired various antiquities for Fuggerâs cabinet, in particular ancient coins and medals. Strada was very much at home in the shops of the goldsmiths and jewellers, which had become
It is suitable that great lords have talented men at their disposal to send to various countries, in order to look for marvellous things <â¦>43
When Strada dedicated his edition of Caesarâs Commentaries of 1575 to Albrecht vâthe epistle as a whole is one long paean on the Munich Hofbibliotek and Fuggerâs fundamental role in its creationâhe relates how he had been sent to Italy with the specific purpose of purchasing such âmarvellous thingsâ for his patronâs cabinet.44 Though Stradaâs travels probably were primarily intended as learned peregrinations, and the results of his study would find their way into the numismatic albums prepared for his patron, it may be assumed that Fugger expected some more immediate and concrete results in return for his capital outlay. That such results did indeed include the acquisition of antiquesâin particular of antique sculptureâis indicated by Fuggerâs comment, in a letter to Niccolò Stopio of 1567 referring to Stradaâs purchases: â<â¦> di quelle [= âanticaglieâ] ne comprò in Roma già parecchi anni fa, me resto sattisfattoâ.45 The wide range of Stradaâs tasks can be best demonstrated by an account of the documented travels he made while in Fuggerâs service, that is his trip to Lyon in about 1550, and his subsequent trip first to Lyon, and then to Rome in 1553â1555. These are of sufficient importance, also in view of Stradaâs later career, to have a paragraph of their own.
3.4 Architectural Patronage for the Fuggers: The Donauwörth Studiolo
Fuggerâs documented patronage of Strada is restricted to antiquarian and heraldic materials. But Fuggerâs commission of numismatic drawings can also be considered as artistic patronage: they are works of art in their own right. Because of his patronage Fugger was well placed to judge Stradaâs competence in the field of design, of which his numismatic drawings provided excellent examples. Stradaâs detailed reconstructions of the architectural reverses show that this included architectural and ornamental design. It would not be surprising if his patron sought to profit from this competence: thus Strada may have contributed to the refurbishment of the castle at Taufkirchen an der Vils, which soon after its acquisition in 1554 became Hans Jakobâs preferred country residence [Fig. 3.37].46
Schloss Taufkirchen, acquired by Hans Jakob Fugger in 1554 and the Pflegehaus in Donauwörth, rebuilt by the Fugger from 1536 onward.
Because of Stradaâs artistic background and his profound first-hand knowledge of avant-garde Italian architecture he would in all probability be consulted when his patron or members of his family and his immediate circle planned some artistic enterprise. One of these was the total reconstruction of the Pflegehaus at Donauwörth, acquired by Hans Jakobâs uncle and guardian Anton Fugger in 1536 and rebuilt and decorated in the following decade [Fig. 3.38].
A chimneypiece and a wooden portal still in situ in the Fugger house at Donauwörth.
Three wooden portals from the Fugger house at Donauwörth; Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum.
The various decorative elements of the building, such as chimneypieces and wooden portals, all are in a consciously classical, architectonic manner; most of them appear to have been executed only in the mid-1540s [Figs. 3.40â3.45]. The most spectacular element among these is the wooden Stübchen, a small chamber or study constructed in wood, now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich [Figs. 3.43â3.45]. Both the architectural conception and the
The exterior and details of the interior of the Donauwörth Stübchen, Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum.
Some of the elements in the Stübchen and two of the wooden portals [Figs. 3.41â3.42] appear to derive from Serlio, some of whose designs were already printed (in particular in the Quarto Libro, first published in 1540). But these printed designs are not sufficiently close to the Donauwörth portals to have served as immediate examples; they could only have served as a source of inspiration to artists already thoroughly conversant with their underlying principles of design. Strada was trained in Italy exactly in the environmentâMantua, Romeâwhich appears to have inspired the style of the Stübchen, and he and his patron certainly had immediate access to Serlioâs printed volumes.48 By 1546, the date of these two portals and the Stübchen, Strada had already been working for the Fugger for some years, reason why I think it is warranted to propose a tentative attribution of the design of these to him. Such
3.5 Stradaâs Trips to Lyon
Stradaâs first visit to Lyon took place in 1550, according to the preface to his edition of Serlioâs Settimo Libro. The primary motive of his trip was presumably his desire to make the first arrangements for the publication of his Epitome thesauri antiquitatum, and probably during this first sojourn he found a partnerâthe Netherlandish bookseller Thomas Guérinâto finance the printing, and came to some provisional agreement with the printer, Jean de Tournes; with the wood-engraver, probably Bernard Salomon; and with Jean Louveau, the author of the French translation [Figs. 3.20â3.22].50
At first sight it seems odd that Strada should have decided to print his book in Lyon, where Fuggerâwho probably bore part of the expenseâhad no commercial contacts, instead of other centres of printing such as Frankfurt, Nuremberg, or Venice. The reputation of its printers cannot have been the sole motive of Stradaâs choice: though it might have been difficult to find a wood-engraver of a sufficiently advanced style in Germany, in Venice he certainly would have. Perhaps just because the Fugger, unlike other German bankers, were not represented in Lyonâthey were too closely tied to the Habsburg interest to maintain branches in FranceâHans Jakob was glad to create an opportunity to establish or renew contacts with a major intellectual centre in Europe, and to obtain the material for his library and collection (books, manuscripts, medals, perhaps other antiquities) that Strada could select for him.
3.5.1 The Humanist Circle in Lyon
Through his Italian connections, Strada must have been aware of the wealth and intellectual life of the town, which boasted a veritable colony of merchants and bankers from Florence, Lucca, Lombardy and Genoa, with some of whom he may have had contacts. Like many other Nuremberg merchants, Stradaâs acquaintance Willibald Imhoff did maintain very close ties with Lyon, and may
Strada planned his second sojourn in Lyon to be longer than the first: he left Nuremberg early in August 1552, after having obtained permission to live up to three years in Lyon without losing his Nuremberg citizenship, and having sold his household effects.52 He would remain in Lyon at least until the actual printing of the treatise, which was completed on 6 November 1553.53 This visit therefore afforded him ample opportunity to establish contacts with the lively humanist circle flourishing in this centre of the Pléiade. A good impression of the brilliance and cosmopolitanism of this circle in the years preceding Stradaâs arrival is given in Jean-Claude Margolinâs article on Jean Visagierâs Epigrammata, a volume of poems recording the names of and dedicated to the members of what Visagier considered a sodalitium, an informal academy which included Rabelais, Etienne Dolet, the German scholar-printer Sebastien Gryphius, Maurice and Guillaume Scève and Louise Labé, to name only a few.54 Strada will have felt particularly at home because of Lyonâs traditional connections with Italy: the city counted a considerable number of Italian families among its patriciate, such as the Gondi and the Guadagni, and at the time its archbishop was Cardinal Ippolito dâEste. Moreover various individual Italian expatriates had made their home temporarily or permanently in Lyon. One of these was Fuggerâs old acquaintance Ortensio Landi (â 1560), a friend of Dolet who had worked as an editor in Gryphiusâ workshop in 1534â1535, and who had visited Hans Jakob in Augsburg in 1544â45. So Strada must have known him personally, and through him could establish contacts with other Italians in Lyon, such as the humanist Gabriele Symeoni, the lawyer Giulio Calestano and, perhaps most illustrious, the architectural theorist Sebastiano Serlio.55 The intellectual life of the city was strongly stimulated by the presence of an impressive
Stradaâs printerâs mark as used on the title page of the Epitome thesauri antiquitatum and the variant used in his edition of Caesar, Frankfurt 1575, compared to the printerâs mark of Thomas Guérin, on the title page of his edition of Plutarch, Basel 1570.
3.5.2 Stradaâs Contacts in Lyon: Engravers, Printers and Humanists Booksellers
Stradaâs first contacts in Lyon of necessity will have been with this circle: for the execution of his Epitome he needed to find a printer and an engraver who would be capable and willing to produce the book according to his wishes. He probably dealt with several printers and artists before settling with De Tournes and Bernard Salomon: a choice dictated by a desire for the highest possible quality rather than the lowest possible expense. Likewise it may well have been one of the Lyon publishers who provided him with the names of potential translators of the book, a job which was finally given to a humanist from Orléans, Jean Louveau. Possibly inspired by the success of the enterprise of the marchand-libraire Guilaume Rouillé Strada decided to publish the book at his own expense, instead of placing it with a professional publisher. It was a quite expensive project: a quarto volume of over four hundred pages, including close to five hundred woodcut images of medals, and published simultaneously in Latin and in a French translation. Doubtless this expense was partly borne by Hans Jakob Fugger, to whom Strada dedicated the book.
Strada was of course aware of at least some of the ins and outs of the book trade; yet apart from financial considerations, his relative inexperience in publishing will have contributed to his decision to enter a partnership with the marchand-libraire Thomas Guérin. There is no doubt, however, that Strada was the senior partner, since it is his printerâs device [Figs. 3.18 and 3.46â3.47] that figures on the title-page, rather than Guérinâs [Figs. 3.48â3.49].57
Strada must have spent quite some time in adding the final touches to his manuscript, putting the illustrations together, organizing and supervising the printing, and obtaining a copyright privilege from King Francis i, which was granted on the 11th of July 1553.58 Yet in between he had sufficient time on his hands to engage in other activities. Part of the time he will have scouted the bookshops in search of items suitable both for the library of his patron, Fugger, and for his own growing collection. But he obviously also continued his antiquarian research. Lyon afforded him ample opportunity to establish contacts with local scholars who shared his antiquarian enthusiasm. Proudly indicated by the poet Jean Lemaire de Belges as âle second oeil de la Franceâ, its foundation antedatedâaccording to Charles Fontaineâs Ode de lâAntiquité et excellence de la ville de Lyonânot only that of Paris, but even that of Rome itself.59 Objects testifying to this honourable past were collected at least since Pierre Sala (1457-ca. 1530), a âvarlet de chambreâ in the household of Louis xii, brought together a small collection of local finds in his country seat, which he appropriately named lâAnticaille [Fig. 3.50]. In addition to a version of the Tristan legend, he wrote a manuscript treatise on Les antiquitez de Lyon, the first of an ample series of texts devoted to the subject writtenâbut not often publishedâin the sixteenth century.60
LâAnticaille, Pierre Salaâs villa on the hillside of Fourvière above Lyon, in a miniature in a manuscript of his romance Complainte au dieu dâAmour; Vienna, Ãsterreichische Nationalbibliotek.
The Table Claudienne, discovered in Lyon in 1528.
Antiquarian studies in Lyon were not limited to local findsâsuch as the Table Claudienne, found in 1528 and first published by Symphorien Champier in 1537 [Fig. 3.51]âor even to local topics: thus the poet François Rabelais interested himself in Roman topography.61 In 1553 the marchand-libraire Guillaume Rouillé even published a chronicle of the world organized around a series of woodcut portraits of its protagonists that, he claimed, were taken from ancient coins. This cannot always have been the case, considering that these portraits include Adam and Eve, Noah, Osiris, Agamemnon and other personalities for whom such authentic sources would not have been available. This did not prevent this Promptuaire des médalles des plus renommées personnes qui ont esté despuis le commencement du monde to become a success: first printed in 1553, it ran through no less than eleven editionsâin French, Latin, Italian and Spanishâbefore the end of the century [Figs. 3.52â3.54].62
Guillaume Rouillé, Promptuaire des medalles des plus renommées personnes, Lyon 1553: title page and biographies and medallic portraits of Semiramis, Zameis, Abraham and Sarah.
There is a superficial resemblance between Rouilléâs Promptuaire and Stradaâs Epitome thesauri antiquitatum, which appeared in the same year. Yet Strada obviously cherished more scholarly ambitions: he limited himself to the Roman Emperors, who certainly had issued coins which could actually be found. He explicitly stated that he only included images of those rulers of which he had in fact seen an original coin (however spurious to our more critical judgment). Though he probably met many members of Lyonâs intellectual milieu, we only know about those he had met in the course of his numismatic researches, the collectors of antiquities, for whom coins and medals were the most informative, affordable and easily available items.63 From the provenances given with the descriptions of coins in Stradaâs manuscript A.A.A. NumismatÏn ÎιαÏÎºÎµÏ Î we can identify some of the collectors Strada visited.
Chief among these was the antiquary Guillaume du Choul, conseiller du roi and bailli of the Dauphiné. In his house La Madeleine, which was situated in the Montée du Gourguillon in the old part of the city, on the right bank of the Saône, he had brought together a celebrated collection of antiquities, and he published a number of learned studies of various aspects of Roman civilization.64 Strada describes his contacts with Du Choul in the preface of his Epitome thesauri antiquitatum:
<â¦> coming to France, I have met and frequented the company of Monsieur Guillaume Choul, born in that city, highly experienced in history and in the explanation of the reverses of coins and figured medals; a man moreover of such rare and ample judgment that one may easily count him among the first experts in this field, and not without reason, both for his excellent memory and his good and refined judgment. In his magnificent house (as I donât think it necessary to hide) I have seen a great quantity of all sorts of antique medals, among which some are of gold, others of silver, and the rest of copper, which he has lent to me to copy those that I needed for my book of coin-reverses.65
Both Strada and Du Choul refer to each other in their printed works, and appear to have mutually exchanged information and studied each otherâs coins: whereas in his A.A.A. NumismatÏn Antiquorum ÎιαÏκεÏ
Î Strada only described some individual pieces from other Lyon collections, he describes scores of those he had seen in Du Choulâs cabinet, which implies that these not only were of a better quality, but also that Strada had had much greater opportunity to study them in detail. At the time Strada was already sufficiently interested and expert in architectureâprobably stimulated by his contacts with Serlioâto be able to provide Du Choul with his own reconstructions (after the reverse of medals) of the temples of Janus Quadrifrons and of Jove Capitolinus: woodcuts of these were included in Du Choulâs Discours de la religion des anciens Romains, first published in Lyon in 1556 [Figs. 3.56â3.58]. It is quite possible
Guillaume du Choul, Discours de la religion des anciens Romains, Lyon 1556: title page and illustrations of the temples of Ianus Quadrifrons and Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome, supplied by Jacopo Strada.
Among the provenances of coins given in the ÎιαÏκεÏ
Î Rouillé does not figure: judging from the Promptuaire Strada will hardly have considered him a serious numismatist. He may have better appreciated his new Italian acquaintance, Giulio Calestano, a lawyer from Parma who had provided Du Choul with some of his coins; fifteen years later Strada would attempt to acquire Calestanoâs numismatic collection on behalf of Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria.68 The
âEpitaphâ for Gabriele Symeoni, in his Description de la Limagne dâAuvergne, Lyon 1561; the title page of his Le imprese heroiche et morali, Lyon 1559, and op. 8, the emblem of Augustus, compared to Jacopo Stradaâs printerâs mark first used in his Epitome Thesauri Antiquitatum of 1553 (detail of Fig. 3.46).
Contacts with Gabriele Symeoni are not documented, but very likely, in view of their sharing both antiquarian and technological interests. Symeoniâs antiquarian interest is apparent in the epitaph he devised for himself [Fig. 3.58]. His expertise in the field appears in his many publications, such as Illustratione de gli epitaffi et medaglie antiche, printed by de Jean de Tournes, Stradaâs printer, in Lyon in 1558, or his detailed description of the Auvergne,the Description de la Limagne dâAuvergne en forme de dialogue, which was published by Guillaume Rouillé in 1561. An indication of their possible contact is the extremely complex allegory of the printerâs mark that Strada chose for himself for his book printed in Lyon [Fig. 3.61]: one of its motifs, the butterfly kept in the claws of a crab with the device Festina Lente was derived from a coin of Augustus,
Title page of Stradaâs ms. Imagines onmium numismatum, 1554; Paris, Bibliothèque de lâArsenal.
One would expect Strada to have wished to profit from his sojourn in Lyon by visiting Paris and to the principal centre of visual culture of the French Renaissance, Fontainebleau. The style of the title pages he drew for his manuscript numismatic works [Figs. 3.22â3.23, 3.62 and below, Fig. 4.04] reminds one of the courtly Mannerism of the School of Fontainebleau rather than the work of his contemporaries in Italy itself. Yet the only indication that he may have done so is a reference to the royal treasurer Jean Grolier (1479â1565) in the preface to the Epitome thesauri antiquitatum. Nowadays Grolier is best known as the owner of a splendid library: because of their superb bindings, books from his library count among the principal treasures of libraries and collectors lucky enough to possess them. But he also had a great interest in classical Antiquity; he was in touch with the informal academy of scholars and artists around Cardinal Marcello Cervini in Rome which attempted to reconstruct Roman civilisation by studying both classical texts and the physical relics unearthed in the city and elsewhere: coins, inscriptions, sculptures and other antique artefacts, and the ruins of ancient edifices.
Grolier was particularly interested in coins, to the extent of financing the publication, at the Aldine press in Venice, of the second edition of Budéâs fundamental treatise De asse et partibus eius, which appeared in 1522. Grolierâs expertise in the field gained him a place in a royal commission supervising the minting of French coin. In his house in the Rue de la Juiverie in Lyon he had brought together a collection of antique coins and statuary, which he had acquired by means of agents he employed to this purpose, and which was highly esteemed by Du Choul: âMonsieur the treasurer Grolier, an exceptional lover of Antiquity, in whose hands can be found the most beautiful medallions that can be found in our France at presentâ.73 An example of the beautiful small boxes in which he kept his medals, like his book bindings covered in gold-stamped morocco, is still preserved in the Musée Condé at Chantilly.74
When Strada wrote the preface to his Epitome thesauri antiquitatum he knew this collection, which Grolier had taken with him when he moved to Paris in 1530, only by reputation. He expressed the hope to be able to visit it in the future, for he considered it as âtout ce que je pense me rester touchant la perfection de mon livreâ.75 It appears, however, that this visit never took place, because he had been shown the very few coins from Grolierâs collection that he mentions in his ÎιαÏÎºÎµÏ Î either in Lyon or in Rome. It is easy to suggest some possible explanations for this fact: he may have met Grolier himself in either place (Grolier still possessed a house in Lyon), or may have seen coins destined for the collection in the hands of one of Grolierâs agents, while it is also possible that he only knew them by means of drawings or casts. Strada never refers to a visit to the French courtânot even in his preface to Serlioâs Settimo libro, where one would expect itâand in his ÎιαÏÎºÎµÏ Î he mentions no Parisian collectors apart from Grolier. This indicates that if Strada visited Paris or Fontainebleau at all, he cannot have remained there for any considerable time.
3.6 Stradaâs Contacts in Lyon: Sebastiano Serlio
Most of the learned men mentioned above were humanists chiefly interested in antiquarian material, such as coins and inscriptions, which provided fixed and reliable data that could be used to interpret the literary sources, and thus could help to reconstruct the political history and aspects of the civilization of the Roman Empire. This was done, for instance, in Guillaume Du Choulâs Discours de la réligion des anciens Romains, printed by Rouillé in 1556. Du Choul was one of the few scholars who paid particular attention to the architecture of the ancients, including in his treatise, as we have seen, reconstructions of some of the temples of Rome that Strada had provided him with [Figs. 3.56â3.57]. Du Choulâs interest in such practical aspects of Roman civilization is confirmed by two other treatises, the Discours sur la castramétation et discipline militaire des Romains and Des bains et antiques exercitations Grècques et Romaines, printed together in 1555, likewise by Rouillé, and often reprinted. Such interest in classical architecture was not completely new in Lyon: several of its scholars and poets referred to the remains of the Roman city that could still be observed
The Ionic Gallery of the Hôtel Bullioud in Lyon (1536) designed by Philibert de lâOrme shortly after his return from Rome; and the woodcut portrait from the 1626 edition of his architectural treatise.
Already in 1533 the young and gifted architect Philibert de lâOrme (ca 1515â1570) [Fig. 3.64] had travelled to Rome, where he not only moved in the circle of the Sangallo cousins, but soon engaged in measuring and even excavating ancient ruins, employing a team of masons to such effect that his work drew the attention of Marcello Cervini, the librarian of the Vatican, who was closely involved in the study of Vitruvius and the remains of classical architecture that took shape in Rome in these years.77 On his return De lâOrme introduced a more pure form of classicist architecture in Lyon, designing in 1536 the famous Ionic gallery in the Hôtel Bullioud [Fig. 3.63].
De lâOrme left Lyon for good shortly after completing the Galerie Bullioud and it is improbable that Strada ever met him elsewhere in France. But he did meet another architect-antiquary whose published works, because of their wide dissemination, already were and would remain even more influential than De lâOrmeâs. This was the Bolognese architect and theorist Sebastiano Serlio (1575â1555), who had retired from the French court in 1548, and had settled in Lyon where he hoped to publish the remaining books of his architectural
Sebastiano Serlio, title pages of the Primo Libro (Paris 1545), the Terzo Libro and the Quarto Libro or Regole generali (both Venice 1544), and the Quinto Libro (Paris 1547) of the architectural treatise, all first published before Strada met Serlio in Lyon.
Sebastiano Serlio, Livre extraordinaire de architecture: title page and three designs for portals from the bilingual edition printed by Jean de Tournes (Stradaâs printer) in Lyon in 1551.
Serlio did, however, succeed to persuade Jean de Tournes to publish the so-called Extraordinario Libro, a set of designs of ornamental door-surrounds. This was probably considered a potential bestseller, and it was indeed reprinted no less than fifteen times within the next twenty years, both in French and Italian [cf. Figs. 3.69â3.72].78
Doubtless Strada knew Serlioâs published works and was aware of his reputation: he sought him out already during his first visit to Lyon in 1550. Notwithstanding the considerable difference in age, they had much in common: both were Italian, both were artists with a particular and profound interest in architecture, both were passionate students of classical Antiquity and, last but not least, they both appear to have been suspected of Protestant leanings.79 Obviously they discussed Serlioâs projects, and already during his first visit Strada proposed to print the unpublished part of the treatise. Serlio was by now seventy-five years old, and not having found a publisher in Lyon ready to undertake such an expensive project, he may well have despaired of seeing his works into print. So he was happy to let Strada have his manuscripts, which
Sebastiano Serlio: pages from Serlio manuscripts as acquired by Jacopo Strada: the Sesto Libro (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliotek) and the Settimo Libro (Vienna, Ãsterreischische Nationalbibliothek).
Apart from the material Strada needed to publish the remaining books of the treatise, Serlio also entrusted him with all the manuscript material and the drawings he owed, part of which apparently was likewise intended for publication, as appears from Stradaâs preface to the Settimo Libro:
Now the said author, finding himself old, and suffering from the gout more than usual for his age, and also being tired of his labour, reasoned that he would rather sell to me also the remnant of the drawings that in the course of his life he had made in his own hand, as well as those by others that he had brought together. A good part of which he had moreover provided with his descriptions, planning one day to have them printed, and had ordered them in many volumes. But getting older, and also not very abundantly endowed by Fortune, he decided to make me the owner of all of this material, so that after his death it would not be lost or get into the
hands of professors of his art, who as the raven would dress themselves in the feathers of the peacock. And for that reason he wanted to see the end of it, and know with whom his drawings would remain after his death, and it seemed to him he would be the most content and happy man in the world, if they remained in my possession, thinking it certain that I would do them ample justice, by publishing them in print.80
Sebastiano Serlio: pages from Serlio manuscript Castrametatio according to Polybius) as acquired by Jacopo Strada; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
Serlioâs confidence was not misplaced: Strada definitely planned to publish both remaining books of the treatise and the Book on military architecture, though in the end he only managed to print the Settimo Libro. Though this took him over twenty years, he took great care and laid out a great sum of money to realize a splendid edition, providing it with a Latin translation, having the woodcuts executed by expert engravers in Venice, and finally selecting one of the best printers working in Germany at the time, Andreas Wechel [cf. Figs. 3.77â3.80].81
Title page and illustrations from Jacopo Stradaâs edition of Serlioâs Settimo Libro, Frankfurt 1575.
Serlio spent part of his time during Stradaâs second stay in putting in order his material, with which he was not quite finished by the time of Stradaâs departure for Rome:
But while he thus to his great satisfaction was putting the material in order, and revising the texts which went with the figures of the drawings, so that I could the easier serve myself of them, an occasion arose for me to leave France and to return to Rome for some affairs of mine. And so I
paid him with a goodly sum of money for everything that he had, both drawn in own hand, and drawn by others <â¦>. Now when I left, it was not without great sadness on both sides that we said goodbye to one another. After my departure he himself hardly stayed any longer before returning to Fontainebleau, and there the good old man ended his life, leaving a great name behind him there, just as he had done in other parts of the world. For one can well say that he has restored Architecture, and has made it easy to everyone; and has pleased more with his books, than ever did Vitruvius before him: because the latter, for being a difficult author, was not that easily understood by everyone.82
This sympathetic and perceptive tribute shows that Strada even twenty years later still greatly valued what had beenâtogether with his contacts with Guillaume du Choul and the printing of his Epitome thesauri antiquitatumâthe most memorable event of his very profitable visit to France.
3.7 Civis Romanus: Stradaâs Sojourn in Rome
Strada cannot have left Lyon before the end of 1553, since he obviously would have been eager to carry a sufficient number of copies of his treatise, the printing of which was finished on the 6th of November 1553. So he would have arrived in Rome about Christmas of that year at the earliest. He decided to leave, according to the preface of his edition of Serlioâs Settimo Libro, shortly after the unexpected death of Pope Marcellus ii in the spring of 1555; probably in fact only after the election of his successor, Paul iv Carafa, shattered any hopes for further papal employment. It is not known exactly when he left; by December 1556 he appears to have been back in Nuremberg already for some time. So his sojourn in Rome probably lasted a year and a half at least, about two and a half years at most; in any case sufficiently long to refresh his memories of his earlier visit in the mid- or late 1530s, to get thoroughly acquainted with the latest developments in antiquarian learning, and to examine the artistic achievements of the last years of the reign of Paul iii as well as the considerable enterprises realized during the relatively brief pontificate of Julius iii [Fig. 3.82].
3.7.1 The Roman milieu
What did he find? The long pontificate of the Farnese Pope (1534â1549), Paul iii, had helped to repair much of the damage done by the Sacco di Roma in 1527.
Perino del Vaga, Luzio Romano and Livio Agresti: Decoration of the Sala Paolina of Castel St Angelo, Rome, commissioned by Pope Paul iii and executed 1542â1547.
Vincenzo Danti, Pope Julius iii, bronze in front of Perugia Cathedral, 1555.
Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola et al., the Nymphaeum of the Villa Giulia, Rome, commissioned by Pope Julius iii and executed 1553â57.
So the change in quality of artistic achievement in Rome in the 1530s is not a result of the Sack only: the development in style away from the ideals of High Renaissance art, already discernible in the 1520s, was an independent and inevitable movement. If Raphael had lived, if Giulio would have remained in Rome, Roman art of the 1520s and 1530s might well have been of a somewhat higher quality and of a greater degree of originality, but it is unlikely that it
But Rome was also a very lively intellectual milieu, though of a new seriousness caused not so much by the trauma of the Sack, as by the need to find an effective response to Luther and the German Reformation. Classical, historical and antiquarian studies occupied a central place in the preoccupations of this milieu. Considering philological and historical studies as indispensable tools in interpreting Scripture and patristic literature, it warmly welcomed any endeavour that shed more light on the history of the Roman Empire, and implicitly on that of the Early Church. Several other reasons can be adduced why the interest in Classical studies was particularly strong in Rome. The chief single factor was the presence in Rome of so many of the physical remains of Roman civilisation, often of quite outstanding quality and beauty, and of a grandeur that flattered the campanilismo surviving in the cosmopolitan culture of Papal Rome.83 Moreover such interest was continuously kept awake by new spectacular discoveries, often of great interest both for artistic and erudite reasons: the find in 1546 of the Fasti Capitolini easily excited as much enthusiasm among scholars as that of the Laocoön had done among artists and dilettanti.
Contacts between scholars and artists were unusually close at this time, as is evident in the erudite Vitruvianism of the informal Accademia Romana. Re-founded in 1542 by members of the circle of Cardinal Marcello Cervini [Fig. 3.89], it included artists such as Pirro Ligorio. Its method largely parallels the philological procedure of the humanists. Its researches can be interpreted as the quest for an absolute, classical authority: just like correct Latin should be based on the study of canonical classical texts, all serious artistic endeavour was to be guided by a correct edition of Vitruvius, supported and elucidated by careful study of the remnants of architecture from the best periods of Antiquity, in particular of certain canonical buildings such as the Pantheon,
The re-founded Accademia Romana or Accademia della Virtù probably based its research on what had been preserved of Raphaelâs project. It should be noted that its programme was not limited to narrowly artistic concerns, but explicitly strived to collect all available evidence helpful to reconstruct in the mind both the physical environment of Ancient Rome and the civilisation of which that environment was the backdrop. Information was to be collected by measuring ruins, by copying, studying and interpreting coins, medals, inscriptions, reliefs and sculptures, bronzes, vases, etc. The column of Trajan was studied not only, and not even in the first place, for its aesthetic value, but for the information it provided about Trajanâs campaigns, and in general about the manner in which the Romans used to combat and defeat their enemies. For the identification and interpretation of deities, persons, personifications, constructions, objects depicted in coins or sculpture it was essential to utilize the literary sources of Antiquity that in ever greater quantity were made available by humanist philologists. This was an essentially historical or antiquarian approach, and it certainly merits to be taken seriously as a precursor of modern archaeological method. Among much other material it produced, for instance,
There were also a number of socio-political reasons why the humanists resident in Rome were especially drawn to the study of Antiquity. In the first place, such study was considered an erudite, virtuous pastime that was particularly suitable for the learned and celibate clerics that made up the greater part of the Papal court. Antiquarian studies were explicitly recommended in Paolo Cortesiâs treatise De cardinalatu of 1510, in which Cortesi argued that in dispensing patronage, his ideal cardinal should âselect for special consideration men who engaged in humanistic studies, and especially those who investigated the more recondite aspects of Antiquity and the Latin language. He also expected that the cardinal would be able to appreciate such eruditionâ.87
When Cortesi wrote his treatise, another important motive for turning to antiquarian studies had not yet manifested itself. This was the advent of the Reformation, which based its doctrines consistently on Holy Scripture and the authority of the early Church. Attempts to reconstruct the early history of the Churchâeither to prove where it had gone off the track, as the Protestants tried to do, or to demonstrate that the Roman Catholic Church was the true and uncorrupted successor of the Church of the Apostles, as the Counter-Reformation attemptedâoften had to rely on antiquarian data (inscriptions in catacombs, Early-Christian sarcophagi, the mosaics in the Christian basilicas dating from the later Empire). The chief attempt from the Protestant side was the history of the Church known as the Magdeburg Centuries: edited by Matthias Flacius Illyricus, its first instalment appeared in 1559.88
It is no coincidence, I think, that the people involved in preparing the Roman Catholic response to the Centuries were often the same who are studied nowadays for their contribution to the development of classical studies. The best example is Onofrio Panvinio [Fig. 3.90], a young and very industrious scholar who both prepared an edition of the Fasti Capitolini and a new augmented edition of Platinaâs history of the Popes. His interest in the physical remainders of both pagan and Christian Rome is borne out by his correspondence
As said, I do not think this is a coincidence, but the nature of the connection is not self-evident; the response to the Reformation can hardly be considered as a cause of the boom of antiquarian studies around the middle of the sixteenth century. But it is possible that it provided scholars interested in antiquarian subjects with an excuse to indulge their hobby. Moreover, Reformation and Counter-Reformation also provided a negative motivation to study classical Antiquity: reading AgustÃnâs letters one recognizes his profound and passionate interest in antiquarian studies, but one also realizes that such research provided him with a rare possibility occasionally to escape from the stress of contemporary business and dispute, in particular theological dispute.91
The interest in the remains of Antiquity, initially practiced mostly in clerical circles in Rome, soon migrated to a secular context: it is merely implied in Il libro del Cortigiano of Baldassare Castiglione, himself close to the Curia environment, but re-emerges more explicitly in some other tracts on courtesy and gentlemanly behaviour, such as Tomasso Garzoniâs La piazza universale.92 Interest in Antiquity was considered a suitable hobby for princes and high-placed officials also because it provided them with a decent means of showing off their wealth as well as their erudition. The proliferation of collections of antiquities documented by Maarten van Heemskerckâs drawings and Aldrovandiâs Delle statue di Roma should be considered from this point of view. These were brought together by competing prelates or by local patricians, who were stimulated by Roman patriotism or the pride connected with true or assumed descent from ancient Roman gentes.93
During Stradaâs stay in Rome, which coincided with the last two years of Julius iiiâs pontificate, interconfessional strife was still held in check by the faint hope that the Council of Trent might lead to some form of consensus between the Church of Rome and the Protestants. Julius iii himself, often characterized as the last Pope of the Italian Renaissance, was no religious fanatic, and was more interested in a good administration of the Papal State than in burning heretics. A typical representative of the curial âbourgeoisieâ, he was a friend of humanist erudition and a sensitive patron of the arts, as is demonstrated in Alessandro Novaâs monograph on Juliusâ commissions.94 The Villa Giulia as planned by Vasari and Vignola would have been perhaps the most convincing example of the integration of a splendid collection of antique sculpture in a setting of contemporary classicizing architecture; an integration so perfect that it is difficult to decide whether the Villa was conceived to house the antiquities, or whether the antiquities were collected to decorate the Villa.
The Villa Giulia must already have been one of the principal attractions in the emerging tourist-industry, of which the existence is documented by the publications of various types of guide books, such as Lucio Mauroâs Le antichità della Città di Roma, printed together with Ulisse Aldrovandiâs Delle antiche statue che per tutta Roma, in diversi luoghi, et case si veggono.95 Such industry is moreover attested by the succes of several publishers of prints illustrating the principal monuments of ancient and contemporary Rome, such as Antonio Salamanca and Hieronymus Cock, and in particular Antonio Lafreri.96 The popularity of such material is indicated by the fact that Giovanni Battista Cavallieriâs Antiquarum Statuarum Urbis Romae Liber, a sort of visual complement of Aldrovandiâs guidebook first printed probably in the 1550s, was thereafter continually reprinted in editions of ever increasing bulk.97
Two of the Roman collections of antiquities visited by Jacopo Strada, in the Palazzo Capranica-della Valle (engraving by Hieronymus Cock after Maarten van Heemskerck) and in the Casa Sassi (drawing by Heemskerck; Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett).
Collections such as those in the Belvedere in the Vatican, the Capitol, and in the courtyards or gardens of the palaces of the Roman nobility and the various cardinals resident in Rome would be normally of easy access to the interested visitorâmany of whom were connected to the household of one of these prelates or magnates in one way or the other. Apart from the Vatican, probably the grandest collection was those of the Farnese, which incorporated several earlier collections acquired by purchaseâsuch as that of Raphaelâs friend and patron Agostino Chigi, and that of the Sassi familyâor by inheritance: in particular those housed in the Palazzo Medici-Madama acquired through
These grander collections were complemented by the smaller cabinets, often consisting chiefly of coins, small bronzes, some gems, some inscriptions that were popular among the less wealthy members of the Curia. The presence of such a considerable number of collectors, coupled to short-term visitors to Rome who were desirous of bringing home at least one or two souvenirs, provided a brisk market for all sort of antiquities, chiefly centring around the Campo deâ Fiori, but about which not much is known as yet. Demand was sufficiently ample to encourage even an industry in copies and, probably, outright fakes, though it is not always easy to decide in which category the many Renaissance imitations that have been preserved should be classified.98
Stephanus Vinandus Pighius, Themis Dea, seu de lege divina, Antwerp 1567, reporting a learned discussion in 1550 about a Roman herm in the collection of Rodolfo Cardinal Pio da Carpi.
Such collections often were the setting, or at least the subject of learned conversations among the humanists, conversations of which one can get some idea from Antonio AgustÃnâs Dialoghi intorno alle medaglie. An even better impression is provided in Stephanus Vinandus Pighiusâ Themis Dea printed in Antwerp in 1578 [Figs. 3.86â3.87]. This short dialogue pretends to report a discussion that had taken place in about 1550 in the garden of Cardinal Carpi on the Monte Cavallo. Apart from the author himself, a Dutch antiquary who was at the time a member of the household of Marcello Cervini, the participants included Antonio AgustÃn, Jean Matal or Metellus, AgustÃnâs secretary and assistant, and Antoine Morillon, who was in the service of Cardinal Granvelle. Subject of the discussion is a female herm that Cardinal Carpi had recently added to his collection, which is interpreted in detail with the help of classical literary sources.99
Discussions such as that described by Pighius appear to have regularly taken place, and they often included not only erudite humanists, but also erudite artists, whose opinion was valued especially for the practical expertise they could contribute. This often concerned architectural questions, especially in the more or less informal sessions of the Vitruvian Academy as reported by the learned bishop Girolamo Garimberti, who mentions the painter Sebastiano del Piombo and the architects Jacopo Meleghino and Antonio da Sangallo the Younger among the discussants.100 Artists were prized as exact draughtsmen who could document the ancient relics in precise drawings, which greatly facilitated comparative research, and whose measured drawings of the ancient ruins were indispensable for any interpretations of their original appearance and function. Already about 1537 three leading members of the Academy, Marcello Cervini [Fig. 3.88], Bernardino Maffei and Alessandro Manzuoli, had, according to Vasari, commissioned the young Vignola âdi misurare interamente tutte lâanticaglie di Romaâ.101 Such studies, moreover, were of great importance for a better understanding of Vitruviusâ text, many passages of which were quite obscure, as Strada himself would underline in the preface of his edition of Serlioâs Settimo libro. Of course those artists whose education and interest enabled them to understand this scholarly function of the drawings they prepared were particularly prized. Such learned artists certainly were not discouraged to express their opinion on other antiquarian subjects: the best example is Pirro Ligorio, to whose impressive compilation of antiquarian material humanist scholars such as AgustÃn continuously had recourse, and whose help and suggestions were often gratefully acknowledged.102
3.7.2 Stradaâs Contacts in Rome
It is not known whether Strada had kept up with any friends and professional connections he had made during his earlier sojourns in Rome. But even if he had not, his reception was guaranteed partly by his connection with Hans Jakob Fugger and partly by his own achievements. The Fugger firm had always maintained an important branch in Rome, and their participation in the cultural life of the Urbs is demonstrated by the chapel they dedicated in Santa Maria dellâ Anima, for which Hans Jakobâs grandfather Jakob had commissioned an altarpiece from Giulio Romano, and by the inclusion of a description of
Unfortunately it is not known what sponsors had supported Stradaâs request, if any were deemed necessary. But from other sources we can gather some information about the people with whom Strada established and maintained contact during his residence in Rome. In some rather literary passages in the prefaces of the books he published Strada sung the praise of the Papal court as a centre or academy of scholarship and erudition, passages sufficiently interesting to paraphrase here. In his preface to Onofrio Panvinioâs Epitome pontificum Strada says, for instance:
In those days there were in Rome many noblemen, members of the Curia Romana and the Papal Household, and others, who were greatly interested in the history of the Popes, and to them Panvinio habitually referred any doubtful points or tricky questions he met with in his research. Chief
among these was that illustrious prelate, Alessandro Cardinal Farnese, whose splendid court cultivated outstanding talent in any field, and welcomed and stimulated outstanding votaries of all the fine arts and sciences. Apart from many noblemen of the oldest and purest lineage, one would also meet there theologians, philosophers, astronomers, mathematicians, historians, poets, doctors, lawyers, philologists, architects, engravers [âsculptoresâ], painters, sculptors [âstatuariosâ], antiquaries, gem-cutters, goldsmiths, and soldiers: in short, people proficient in all the useful and fine arts. Even I, unworthy, was desired by their common patron to join these remarkable men, which obviously did not displease me; for apart from his liberality towards me, he introduced me into this erudite academy, from which, besides great enjoyment, I derived no little profit.105
Elsewhere Strada specifically names Alessandro Farnese his patronus, but it is unlikely that Strada actually was in the Cardinalâs service. More probably he was made welcome to his collections, and was occasionally invited to participate in the discussions of the more or less informal academy meeting in the Palazzo Farnese.106 The latter option appears more likely also because Strada had brought his young family and had established an independent household which, apart from his personal servants, included at least one of the artists he employed.107 Strada was particularly interested in the history and customs of Ancient Rome, in so far as these could be reconstructed from its wreckage still floating about by the historians and antiquaries he met there: âThough these monuments be mute, they can instruct those who are well versed in Roman historyâ, he says in the preface to his edition of Panvinioâs Fasti et Triumphi, and then went on to heap laurels on the heads of a number of scholars he had met in the Palazzo Farnese:
There we find live oracles, who by both discussing the things that have come down to us, and by restoring in their learned commentaries what has been lost through the injuries of time, can give an exact interpretation of what once was, as anyone can witness who has heard discourse Antonio AgustÃn, Padre Ottavio [= Pantagato], Gentile Delfini, Achille
Maffei, Benedetto Egio, Gabriele Faerno and numerous others on many different subjects. All students of Antiquity have recourse to them, as to the temple of the Delphic Apollo, and hear them with great enthusiasm and attention, not dispersing without having obtained great profit from their conversation. Of incredible perfection is such wisdom and eloquence, when it is found in persons of sensitivity and refinement, and of spotless personal integrity.108
There are sufficient indications to show that Strada did indeed maintain personal contacts with a number of the members of this circle. He claims to have met Onufrio Panvinio [Fig. 3.90] in the Palazzo Farnese âwhere, to my great pleasure, I daily enjoyed the conversation of Onofrio Panvinio, whose great assiduity and precision in his research of past times I have always greatly admiredâ. These contacts are confirmed by the fact that Panvinio allowed Strada to publish a first version of his treatise on the Fasti Capitolini and also made available to him a copy of his manuscript history of the Popes. Stradaâs edition of these two works, the Fasti et Triumphi and the Epitome Pontificum, would appear in 1557 with dedications to the Emperor Ferdinand I and his eldest son, Maximilian King of Bohemia, respectively.109 It appears, however, that Strada owned his good contacts with the rather shy and withdrawn Panvinio in particular to Antonio AgustÃn [Fig. 3.89] From AgustÃnâs correspondence with Panvinio it appears that it was the former who had drafted some sort of a contract between author and publisher: so if the suggestion that Strada print the book was not actually his, at least he strongly supported it.110
Stradaâs contacts with Antonio AgustÃn appear to have been particularly close, and their intimacy was the obvious consequence of the interest in ancient numismatics they shared. By the middle of the sixteenth century the collecting of ancient coins had become so fashionable as to generate a lively community of dealers and peddlers, chiefly in the neighbourhood of the Campo deâ Fiori, and several collectors possessed quite impressive cabinets, though by the 1550âs none of these was as yet organized in a very systematic way: that was first to be realized by the splendid collection brought together by Fulvio Orsini, librarian of Alessandro Farnese.111 Strada spent a great deal of his time in inspecting these various coin-cabinets, whose contents he studied often in
From the people of whom Strada makes such honourable mention in his preface to Panvinioâ Fasti, Antonio AgustÃn, Gentile Delfini, Achille Maffei and Gabriele Faerno also turn up in this list, while only Benedetto Egio and Ottavio
Three of the intellectuals with whom Strada consorted in Rome: Cardinal Marcello Cervini, prefect of the Vatican Library and afterwards Pope Marcellus ii (attributed to Jacopino del Conte), Antonio AgustÃn (anonymous engraving), and Onofrio Panvinio (the portrait from his tomb in SantâAgostino in Campo Marzio, Rome).
The most important collection Strada studied, however, was that belonging to Antonio AgustÃn, which appears to have been Stradaâs primary source, of even greater importance than his own collection. In the five volumes I have been able to study Strada mentions about sixty to seventy serious collectors, but AgustÃnâs medagliere alone is responsible for over a fifth of the coins described. Though it is well known that AgustÃn was one of the principal experts in the field, whose Dialogos de medallas, inscriciones y otras antiguedades of 1587 remains an important source for the history of numismatics in the Renaissance, very little is known about his collection.118 Stradaâs descriptions are of signal importance in an attempt at reconstruction, a reconstruction that should be based on the holdings of the Royal Collection in Madrid, because King Philip ii inherited most of AgustÃnâs library and collections. Certainly it was of outstanding quality, if Strada so often preferred Agustìnâs exemplar of a given type to those preserved elsewhere. Yet it should be kept in mind that Stradaâs exceptional dependence on AgustÃnâs collection does not necessarily mean that at the time of Stradaâs visit it was unrivalled in Rome for quality and quantity of its contents. It rather indicates that Strada was accorded exceptional opportunity to repeatedly study and copy AgustÃnâs medals, and this suggests that the intimacy between auditor and antiquary was more intense than is suggested by the few references to Strada in AgustÃnâs published correspondence.
It is difficult to recreate their relationship exactly. Stradaâs labour in AgustÃnâs cabinet will rarely have been accomplished in the actual presence of his host, whose responsibilities allowed him little time for his erudite pursuits. But Strada was not the only student to occupy himself with AgustÃnâs coins, and imperceptibly he must have learned a great deal from comparing notes and exchanging opinions with his fellow-guests. In AgustÃnâs few moments of leisure more formal discussions must have taken place, either in his own house or elsewhere, in which many of the learned men Strada claimed to have known in Rome habitually took part. Decades later the venerable Archbishop of Tarragona still cherished the memories of such evenings, which he attempted to recreate in the moments when he could relax from his ecclesiastical duties: the Dialoghi intorno alle medaglie describes the aged prelate instructing his young friends in the importance of ancient coins as historical sources, and teaching
<â¦> that without understanding Latin he [= Pirro Ligorio] could have written well about such things? A[gustÃn].: In the same way as do Humberto Golzio, Enea Vico, Iacopo Strada, and others, so that who reads their books would believe that they have seen and read all the Latin and Greek books that ever were written. They make use of the labour of others and being able to draw well with a brush, they wield a pen equally well.119
This passage, however, has not always been interpreted or translated correctly, and in any case should be taken with some grains of salt. However sceptical he may or may not have been, AgustÃnâs judgement did allow the quality and utility of the works of Ligorio, Vico, Goltzius and Strada: is it a coincidence that these can still be considered the four greatest of mid-Cinquecento antiquaries? AgustÃn obviously appreciated Stradaâs drawings and his Epitome thesauri antiquitatum, if only for the high quality of its printing. As a most astute man of the world, he must have been impressed with the energy with which Strada attempted to get things done, and the ample means whichâat least partly thanks to Fuggerâhe had at his disposal to realize his ambitions. These, rather than Stradaâs erudition, must have been the motives which made him advise Panvinio to entrust the manuscripts of his books to Strada to have them printed, and it appears that he himself was instrumental in drawing up the contract. Even when Stradaâs publications of these books resulted in a fiasco, AgustÃn did not intend to break off his relations with Strada merely to please Panvinio: when he visited the Imperial court in 1558 he sided with Strada in his controversy with the Imperial Historiographer Wolfgang Lazius, realizing that though the latter was a good and learned historian, he had an insufficient command of the intricacies of numismatics as a discipline.120
It cannot be doubted that Strada greatly profited from his contacts with AgustÃn, and though the project of his numismatic Corpus for Hans Jakob
The Codex Coburgensis has been plausibly interpreted as more or less coinciding with one of the items included in the programme of publication envisaged by the Vitruvian Academy in Rome, strongly supported by Marcello Cervini, which has been briefly outlined above. Though no direct contacts between Strada and this Accademia del Virtù are documented, Strada was in touch with many of its individual members. It is difficult to imagine, however, that a former pupil of Giulio Romano, who arrived in Rome carrying all of Sebastiano Serlioâs drawings and manuscriptsâincluding those by Peruzzi and others that Serlio had brought together in the course of his long life, apart from much graphic material recently published in Franceâand who himself was an enthusiastic student of architecture and of Antiquity, would not have
3.8 Commissions and Purchases: The Genesis of Stradaâs Musaeum
3.8.1 Acquisition of Antiques
With his erudite research and his other enterprises, Strada was very strenuously occupied during the two years of his residence in Rome. Unfortunately it is difficult to establish in how far Stradaâs activities were related to specific commissions from Fugger, and in how far he acted on his own initiative and in his own immediate interest. It is clear that no exclusive relationship to any patron in Rome was established, and it is rather likely that Strada maintained himself, his family and the other members of his retinue at least in part from the income deriving from Fuggerâs commissions. In the preface to his 1575 edition of Caesar he described his trip to Rome as an explicit initiative of his patron, who had charged him to âto acquire gold, silver and bronze coins and marbles of remarkable antiquity, which I at great expense had brought to Augsburgâ.123 This suggests that Stradaâs principal object was the acquisition of antiquities for Fuggerâs growing collection: when Strada frequented the shops of various antiquarians and peddlers he doubtless did not limit himself to studying their coins in order to complete his numismatic Corpus, but also selected those objects with which he thought best to enrich Fuggerâs studio. He also purchased antique statuary on Fuggerâs behalf, of which very little is known: Strada emphasises the busts of Emperorâs and Empresses, which accords well with his patronâs historical interest, and such busts were a most suitable type of decoration of the library in which Fuggerâs collection was collocated. But Stradaâs
3.8.2 Commissions of Visual Documentation
We do know, however, much more about another aspect of Fuggerâs commission: the acquisition of visual documentation of the relics of Antiquity, as well as of the most splendid achievements of the art of the Renaissance. Stradaâs numismatic corpus, the Magnum ac novum opus preserved in Gotha, is the principal relic of his work for Fugger in this field; it has been discussed and illustrated above [Figs. 3.22â3.33]. This project was begun before Stradaâs departure from Nurembergâits title-page bears the date 1550âbut Strada continued working on it for many years. Possibly Strada still added to it on behalf of Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria, who acquired the series together with the rest of Fuggerâs library and collection in 1566. While in Rome he continued working on the project, probably immediately having converted the sketches of the coins he had studied during the day into the fair drawings to be included in the Corpus. Possibly he was occasionally allowed to send his draughtsmen into the collections he frequented, or to carry home some of their holdings for a few days. One of these draughtsmen, Giovanni Battista Armenini, years later recorded his work for Strada, in whose house he lived for some time:
<â¦> and I copied for him [says Armenini] certain antique bronze and golden medaillons, in watercolours, the size of a palmo each; which portraits, with [images of] their reverses, he then sent to the Fuggers, very rich merchants of Antwerp, a most powerful city of Flanders, after he had bound them into most beautiful books.125
Giovanni Battista Armenini, De veri precetti della pittura, Ravenna 1587, title page.
Giovanni Battista Armenini et al., coloured drawings documenting Raphaelâs Vatican Loggia, Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, Cod. min. 33.
This description perfectly fits the corpus of drawings in Gotha already discussed and illustrated above. But Strada employed draughtsman such as Armenini also in other projects: from another passage in Armeniniâs Deâ veri precetti della pittura [Fig. 3.91] we know that, though Armenini possibly was the only artist lodging with Strada, he certainly was not the only one to be employed by him. The execution of the numismatic drawings for Hans Jakob Fugger was, moreover, only one of the tasks allotted to them. Following an admiring description of Raphaelâs Vatican Loggia, Armenini reports how
<â¦> every part of this ensemble, including its tiled floor, was drawn on paper and coloured in the miniature technique, in the proper way, by the hand of the most talented young artists in Rome in my time, and of which I myself was one; once thus coloured it was then sent by the man who had commissioned it, and paid royally for it, to Antwerp, to a great lord of the Fugger family, who, it was said, took great delight in it. And for that agent I mean, another copy was made which, after not much time,
he himself took to Spain to the great court of King Philip, with an infinite number of other drawings which he bought all the time, and were commissioned from us to draw for him plans, temples, medals [= coins], arches, columns, statues and other ancient objects that have been found throughout that city in the course of time, and those however that were among the most notable, and were of greater quality than the others.126
In view of Armeniniâs inaccuracies, and the provenance from Ambras of the series of drawings of the Vatican Loggia which has been preserved in the Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, one cannot be sure that all these âdissegni infinitiâ were in fact among Fuggerâs commissions. In any case Strada kept a set of the Loggia
Apart from Armenini, only one of the âpiù valenti giovaniâ mentioned by Armenini can be identified with some degree of certainty. This is Giovanni Antonio Dosio, who noted in an album of drawings of antique cinerary urns which ones he had copied out on behalf of Strada.129 Stradaâs compatriot
Unidentified draughtsman, mid sixteenth century, an image from the Codex Coburgensis (Veste Coburg, Cod. HZii), compared to a detail from the title page of Stradaâs Series Imp[eratorum] Ro[manorum] (Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, Ms. A 1243a), shows both the correspondence in approach in mid-sixteenth-century antiquarian drawings, and the difference in manner between individual draughtsmen.
The anonymous draughtsmen of the Codex Coburgensis likewise may have been among the artists Strada employed at this time: his manner suggested a Mantuan origin to Richard Harprath; his use of clearly distinguished parallel hatchings is reflected in the title-pages of some of Stradaâs later manuscripts [Figs. 3.94â3.95, cf. Figs. 3.22â3.23].131 The preparation of such material for Strada and for other visitors to what in fact was a burgeoning tourist attraction must have been quite a welcome source of income for young artists embarking on their career by studying Roman antiquities and the canonical works of the great masters of Renaissance Rome.
3.8.3 Acquisition of the Drawings Left by Perino del Vaga and Giulio Romano
Stradaâs acquisitions doubtless also included many drawings (probably also prints) which he could buy ready-made from draughtsmen, engravers and booksellers specializing in this trade, or which he found occasion to purchase from other collectors tempted by the generous prices Strada appears to have offered.132 Chief among such occasional purchases was his acquisition of all the
<â¦> before I left [Rome], I went to visit Madonna Catharina, who had been the wife of Perino del Vaga, court painter of the Pope, in his time the foremost artist in Rome and when alive a great friend of mine. Discussing with her the materials of her late husband, I found that she was disposed to sell all his drawings rather to me, than to whomsoever else she knew, not wishing that such [splendid] efforts would remain in Rome, and that others would abuse them to increase their own glory. Thus I could buy from her two chests [full] of drawings all by hand, among which were all the works he himself ever made, and also many by Raffaello dâUrbino, who had been his master. Among these drawings I found a very great quantity of architecture, both [of projects] in Rome, and [of projects] in France and in other places in Italy.133
Obviously proud of his Musaeumâas such he indicated the collection housed in his splendid mansion in ViennaâStrada might easily have overestimated the importance of his acquisitions. Therefore it is fortunate that his enthusiastic account is again corroborated by a passage in Giovanni Battista Armeniniâs De veri precetti della pittura. He relates that when he was living in Stradaâs house as one of the young draughtsmen employed in his projects, he had been able to study the drawings from Perinoâs estate at leisure:
Among so many others [I have seen] I well remember the many drawings left by Perino at his death, which, when I was in Rome, were all bought, and by one of his daughters sold, for a price of fifty gold scudi, which were paid out in my presence, in the year 1556, by a merchant from Mantua with whom I was living at the time <â¦> and for that reason, apart from
that first time, I have seen them many times, because he gladly gave me that opportunity <â¦>.134
At first sight Stradaâs purchase of Perinoâs drawings might appear to have been motivated by his making use of a chance opportunity, or by sentimental considerationsâStrada had known Perino when he was young, and calls him his old friendâor even merely by the wish of helping out Perinoâs widow. But in view of Stradaâs similar acquisition of Serlioâs Nachlass at Lyon a year earlier it seems to fit into a more deliberate programme of acquisition. This supposition is strengthened by Stradaâs acquisition, in his hometown Mantua, which he visited on his way back to Germany, of all the graphic material left by his former master, Giulio Romano. Again he relates this affair in the preface to his edition of Serlioâs Settimo Libro:
Now departing from Rome to return to Germany, I passed through Mantua, and went to renew my acquaintance with Raffaello, the son of Giulio Romano; who having been left richly provided by his father, little delighted in the visual arts, but was rather inclined toward amorous relationships and having a good time. And for that reason, apart from what his father had left him, he had little that was worthwhile, because he was not able to exercise the art of design and lacked judgment in architecture, nor was he able to avail himself of the designs of the other things his father had left him; whereas had he remained poor, necessity would have forced him to follow the profession of such a great man as was his father. So it was not difficult for me to get hold of all the drawings that had belonged to his father, that had been left to him; wherein were found together the most beautiful designs of Raffael dâUrbino, who had been his master; and moreover those in his own hand; and in particular in the field of architecture, both ancient and modern. And when we had agreed on the price, I paid him <â¦>.135
Both Perinoâs and Giulioâs collections incorporated, apart from their own work, sets of designs by or after other masters with whom they had worked in their career, in particular by Raphael, whose star pupils and heirs they had been, together with Giovan Francesco Penni, whose portion also had ended up in Perinoâs hand through his wife, Penniâs sister Caterina. Armenini relates that
I saw in his own hand a large part of the works painted by Raphael, who had been his master, which were drawn in black chalk, as were some of the nude figures from [Michelangeloâs Last] Judgment, which drawings were in such a manner reduced to his [Perinoâs] own sweet manner, that you could say that they were rather born from, or invented by him, rather than copied after the works of others <â¦> here were moreover many sketches taken from prints, which were designed by Italians and by Germans, just as there were an infinite number of [drawings after] funerary steles, wall coverings, statues, grotesque ornaments, all derived from the Antique, with other similar things which are scattered and often hidden throughout Rome, but which we were aware of [and therefore did recognize in Perinoâs drawings]; and he in copying these, he nevertheless would change now one thing, then another, and those that were damaged or not very attractive, he would add, or remove, or enrich them, in short, he would change them to such an extent, with his graceful manner, that it was difficult even for experienced observers to see where he had unearthed them [= found his examples].136
Vasari described Giulio Romanoâs collection of drawings, which included not only a huge cupboard containing
<â¦> all the plans of all the buildings that had been made after his designs and instruction, not only in Mantua and in Rome, but everywhere in Lombardy <â¦>
but also
<â¦> all the plans of antique buildings of Rome, of Naples, of Pozzuoli, of Campania, and of all the other principal remains of Antiquity that are known, drawn in part by himself, in part by others.137
So in both cases these collections not merely represented the work of a few individual artists and their workshops, but documented the work and the interests of an entire artistic milieuâbasically that of Rome in the first half of
This programme may have been inspired and partly financed by Hans Jakob Fugger: such material provided the visual complement to the written documentation present in his library. Yet it is likely that Strada also collected material for himself. Whereas at least part of the documentation he specially commissioned, such as the drawings of the Vatican Loggia, was destined for his patron, there is evidence that he kept the original material acquired respectively from Serlio, Perinoâs widow, and Giulio Romanoâs son, for himself.138 And it seems likely that he kept copies for himself even of the documentation he commissioned for Fugger or for other patrons. In this way his travels allowed him to lay the foundations for the collection he proudly indicated with the term Musaeum, and which can be considered to anticipate on a more modest scale the famous Musaeum chartaceum brought together in the first half of the seventeenth century by Cassiano dal Pozzo. An attempt to identify at least some of the contents of Stradaâs graphic collection will be made in Chapter 13; its function in relation to Stradaâs professional activities will be a recurrent theme in the rest of this book.
3.9 Departure from Rome
Though Stradaâs acquisition of these materials accorded with Fuggerâs ideas, it is not likely that all of them were made on his account. It is clear that Strada did not regard himself as indissolubly bound to Fugger, because he also offered his numismatic drawings to other patrons. The Bibliothèque de lâArsenal in Paris owns a beautiful manuscript presenting pre-imperial coinage in a make-up identical to the volumes commissioned by Fugger; its elegant titlepage indicates that it was made in Rome in 1554, though its intended recipient remains
All the same it appears very unlikely that Strada ever acted on such considerations. But he did claim that he succeeded in obtaining the patronage of Pope Julius iii himself:
<â¦> when I found myself in Rome, not many months passed, before I was called into the service of Pope Julius iii Monti, who lived at that time. But it lasted only a few months, because His Holiness died. But Marcello
Cervini succeeding him, and hearing that I intended to return to Germany, made me reaffirm my service. But he as well passing into a better world in a short time, I decided to leave <â¦>141
I have found no confirmation of these claims, and we have no inkling what kind of service Strada would have been expected to render Julius iii. Cerviniâs close involvement in the antiquarian scholarship of the Vitruvian Academy promised opportunities of employment, but his death after a pontificate of hardly three weeks, and the consecutive election of the puritan Gian Pietro Carafa, as Pope Paul iv, shattered any illusions Strada may have had about a career in Rome.
So he decided to pack up his trunks again and to move back to Nuremberg with his household, which by now consisted of himself, his wife and at least two young children, perhaps one or more assistants and doubtless one or two servants. Apart from personal luggage he carried with him his acquisitions on behalf of Fuggerâwhich included a quantity of antique marblesâand the accretions to his own collection, including the work he and his assistants had done in Rome. The road to Germany, across the Brenner, brought him to Mantua, and he must have been quite happy to have the opportunity to visit his native city, to meet his family perhaps for the first time in many years, to present his wife to them, and to show her and his children the splendour of what was, after all, their fatherland. Doubtless he went to pay his respects to the young Duke, Guglielmo Gonzaga, and his guardian and at the time regent of the Duchy, Cardinal Ercole. His documented visit to Raffaello Pippi, son and heir of Giulio Romano, from whom he acquired his fatherâs drawings, has already been discussed. But probably Strada also renewed contacts with many old friends and colleagues. These included his exact contemporary, Giovanni Battista Bertani, who had succeeded Giulio Romano as first architect to the Gonzaga, and who shared Stradaâs antiquarian enthusiasm; and the engraver Giovan Battista Scultori, who appears to have been interested in ancient coins, since in the ÎιαÏÎºÎµÏ Î Strada described a few coins that he had seen in Scultoriâs collection. These contacts would be useful later in his career: both Bertani and Scultori were employed by Strada in the late 1560s.
It is not known when exactly Strada left Rome, when he arrived in Mantua, and when he finally arrived back in Nuremberg: winding up his affairs in Rome after the sudden death of Marcellus ii in May 1555 must have taken some time, and the trip to Mantua may have been a leisurely one: unless travelling by sea as far as Genoa, it can be assumed that the company travelled via Florence and
Stradaâs departure from Rome can be considered as a turning point in his career. His reference to his hopes of employment by the Pope indicates that he had not yet definitely decided what his career was to be, and where he hoped to realize his ambitions. But he had finally completed the foundation upon which it could be built: after his early education in Mantua, he had enriched his formal knowledge by his contacts with humanists in Italy, Germany and France and by means of his studies in the cabinets of many learned collectors had acquired a specialized competence in ancient numismatics, one of the principal branches of antiquarian studies. His contacts with Hans Jakob Fugger had been of particular significance: Fugger had provided him with the
Stradaâs travels had also equipped him with an up to date expertise in the visual arts of Italy, at the time the trendsetter in Europe, and he had built up an extraordinary collection of visual documentation both of ancient and contemporary art that would enable him to pass on this expertise to both patrons and artists that visited his studio. His collection or âMusaeumâ would moreover serve as a stock of inventions drawn upon for the materials that were produced in his workshop on behalf of his patrons: chiefly Hans Jakob Fugger, Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria and the Emperors Ferdinand i and Maximilian ii. Probably the network of personal acquaintances and correspondents he had created included many othersâfellow merchants, booksellers, bankersâthat would come in useful for the commercial aspects of his activities.
The following biographical sketch is chiefly based on Maasen 1922, supplemented by information from Hartig 1917, pp. 193â223 and passim; Lehmann 1956â1961, i, pp. 41â73 and passim; Kellenbenz 1980. The volume on Hans Jakob and his cousins as patrons of the arts in the series Die Fugger und die Kunst promised in the Preface of Lieb 1958, p. vii, has never appeared. A full biography of Hans Jakob Fugger remains one of the major lacuna in the history of the German Renaissance.
On Alciati and on the circle of students Fugger later met in Bologna, cf. Ch. 1.3. It should be noted that the Fuggers of Hans Jakobâs generation were considered as nobles (if not as members of the Augsburg patriciate, certainly as Counts of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn, fiefs they held since 1507); this is corroborated by Hans Jakobâs apparently extended stay at the court of Ferdinand i in his youth, his subsequent marriage to a daughter of an Austrian baronial family, and by the habitual participation of various Fuggers in tournaments at the Imperial court and elsewhere.
Cf. below; an incident in Bourges both demonstrates Fuggerâs interest in classical, particular historical studies, as well as the advantage of being rich and having the international network of a great firm at oneâs disposal: Fugger had lent Alciati his copy of the new, 1531, edition of Livyâs Historiesâthe first which contained the recently rediscovered books of the Fifth Decadeâwhich he had just received. It so fascinated Alciati that he forgot to turn up for his course (Maasen 1922, p. 6). On Raymund Fuggerâs collection, see Von Busch 1973, pp. 85â90. He funded the publication of Apianus/Amantius 1534, which included the inscriptions from his own collection.
On the Sacra Conversazione commissioned for the Fugger Chapel, see Sylvia Ferino Pagden in Giulio Romano 1989, p. 77, 262.
On the consequent litigation of Hans Jakob and his heirs with the other branches of the family, see Schneider 2016.
Letter of Ambrosius Blaurer to Heinrich Bullinger, June 1563, quoted in Hartig 1917, p. 31, note 7.
Zwierlein 2010.
Autograph and clean copy preserved in BHStA, K. schw. 500/8 and A.K. schw. 543/4; cf. Maasen 1922, pp. 70â73.
bsb-hs, Cgm 9460; it is integrally accessible on-line through the digital collection of the Staatsbibliothek, persistent link: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00042105/image_01 ; cf. Welt in Umbruch 1980, i, nr. 162, pp. 224â225; Rohmann 2004; Burkhardt 2004; Fugger im Bild 2010, Teil 1, pp. 31â95.
München, bsb-hs Cgm 895 and 896. Jacob Schrenk von Notzing made a copy for Archduke Ferdinand ii of Tirol, for which purpose the Munich original was sent to Innsbruck; (now in Vienna, önb-hs, Cod. 8613, 8614 and 8614*; descriptions and access to digital versions http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/AL00171034; http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/AL00171035; http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/AL00171036; secretly he also made a second copy on behalf of Archduke Maximilian, Rudolf iiâs youngest brother (now in Dresden, Landesbibliothek). See Hartig 1917, pp. 197â199 and Beilagexiii, pp. 332â334; Maasen 1922, pp. 59â70; Welt im Umbruch 1980 (Cat.), i, nr. 160, pp. 223; Fugger im Bild 2010, Teil 1, pp. 108â111.
Hartig 1917, p. 198: âDie Vorlagen des Künstlers nachzuweisen brächte hier grösseren wissenschaftliche Gewinn als die Ermittlung der Quellen des Schriftstellersâ.
Hartig 1917, pp. 201â223. The Augsburg student Hieronymus Fröschl was, for instance, maintained by Anton and Hans Jakob Fugger for over twelve years in his studies, which culminated in his doctorate at Ferrara in 1556. He had obliged himself to serve the firm in his capacity as a lawyer for a few years, yet this hardly detracts from the merit of such patronage: doubtlessly the Fugger could easily have found competent lawyers without financing their entire education! Hans Jakob also financed the travels (1548â1550) and gave detailed instructions about the curriculum of the young medical student Lorenz Grill, who was appointed professor at Ingolstadt immediately upon his return (ibidem, pp. 203â204).
This is an arbitrary selection! see Maasen 1922, pp. 81â91; Hartig 1917, pp. 193â223; in his dedication to Fugger of his Epitome du thrésor <â¦> (Strada 1553<a> and <b>), Strada devotes a passage to Fuggerâs patronage: âConsiderant donques que ie nâay iamais veu homme à qui la cognoissance des antiquitez ayt esté plus plaisante quâà vous [<â¦>] quâà bien bon droit les gens vertueux et doctes que vous aves esleves et soutenuz par vos bienfaits, et qui sont parvenuz à dignitez et honneurs, à lâadveu de vostre nom, en sont assez suffisante preuveâ.
Cf. above, note 3.
Quoted in Hartig 1917, p. 193: âDieweil dann der hochloblich vnd weiss Alphonsus Kinig zu Arragonia, Neaples vnd Sicilien, sich aller Historien zu lesen, hoch beflissen, auch als ein hertzweiser Kinig ein herrlichen Schatz von allerlay Buechern, mit grosser antzal versamlen lassen, auch sein höchste freud vnd wollust in den Buechern, welche Er der todten Rate genant, gehabt, Ja ein aufgethon Buch in seiner Maiestat Haupt Insigel vnd wappen, für ein Librey gefieret. Vnd aber Got der Allmechtig mir souil Gnaden verlihen, das Ich aus warer angeborner natur vnd liebe, zu aller lobwürdigen guten kunsten aller faculteten, vor andern meines Eerlichenn Geschlechts, ein solche herrliche Bibliothecam (welche mit sonderm Lob, von vilen gelerten aus ferrer landen besucht wirdet) versamlet, zusammenbringen, auch mit guter ordnung regieren vnd bewahren lassen <â¦>.
Preface to Aelianus Claudius, Opera quae exstant omnia, Graecè et Latinè (Zürich 1556), quoted in Hartig 1917, p. 194, n. 4.
For instance, Fugger had provided Conrad Gesner with two manuscripts of Aelianusâ De Natura Animalium (first published in Gesnerâs edition of Aelianusâ works, Zürich 1556), one from the Augsburg town library, one from his own collection (Hartig 1917, p. 210).
On Stopio, see below, Ch. 12.2.1; on Arleniusâwho also styled himself âPeraxylusââsee Hartig 1917, pp.215â216; he later worked as a corrector for the printer Torrentius, his compatriot, at Florence. Mendozaâs collection was later acquired by Philip ii; on Panvinio, with whom Fugger kept up a intensive correspondence between 1562 and 1567 (now in the Vatican, and excerpted in Maasen 1922, pp. 96â126), see Perini 1899; Ferrary 1996.
Gesner 1545 and 1555 (and facsimile reprint with introduction: Gesner/Widmann 1966); Gesner 1548; on Gesner as a bibliographer, see Hartig 1917, passim; Besterman 1936, pp. 33â41; Fischer 1966; Eisenstein 1979, pp. 97â100; Braun 1990.
Gesner proposed that the systematic part of his catalogue could be used as the catalogue of any library, if one marked in it the books owned; and the margins offered some space for adding new publications. A copy belonging to Hans Jakobâs nephew, Philip Eduard Fugger, demonstrates that this was in fact occasionally done (see Gesner/ Widmann 1966).
Quiccheberg 1565; Quiccheberg/Roth 2000 (text edition and German translation); Quiccheberg/Meadow/ Robertson 2013 (English translation); on Quiccheberg (the name is also spelt Quickelberg), see Hartig 1917, pp. 33â34, 70, 93â96, 227â229 and passim; Berliner 1928; Hartig 1933; Bernheimer 1956; Hajas 1958; Scheicher 1979, pp. 68â71; Seelig 1985. pp. 86â87; Falguières 1992; Jansen 1993<b>.
Hartig 1917, pp. 223â240; the signatures written in the hands of Fuggerâs librariansâHieronymus Wolf and Samuel Quiccheberg and the assistants Carolus Stephanus and Wolfgang Prommerâcan still be noted in many books and manuscripts in the Munich Staatsbibliothek.
Hartig 1917, pp. 135â137.
Dedication to the Duke of Bavaria in Stradaâs edition of Caesar: Caesar 1575, p. *4-r.: âCertè qui Bibliothecam Tigurinam posteà ter locupletatam in typis mandarunt, paria cum hac haud quaquam potuerunt facere, cuius describendae si illis facta fuisset copia in iv. maiora volumina ipsis sua Bibliotheca excrevissetâ.
Von Busch 1973, pp. 85â90.
On Hans Fugger, see lill 1908; s.v. âFugger, Johannesâ in ndb 5, 1961; Burkhardt/ Karg 2007.
Excerpts from Fuggerâs correspondence with Panvinio (preserved in the Vatican Library, cod. Vat. Lat. 6412) are given in the appendix to Maasen 1922, pp. 96â126. When he accompanied Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria to the wedding of Johanna of Austria, Ferdinandâs cousin, to Francesco deâ Medici, Fuggerâs conversation greatly pleased Cosimo i, with whom he had âwelsch referirt, darauf replicirt, duplicirt und driplicirt wordenâ (ibidem, p. 48).
On Raymundâs collection, see Bursian 1874, and Busch 1973, pp. 85â90, who cites Beatus Rhenanusâ Rerum Germanicarum libri tres, Basel 1531 (p. 194) and the deed of division of 1548 in Dillingen, Fugger Archiv, FA 5,6.
Von Busch 1973, pp. 88â90, refers to the lively industry of copies of famous antique statues and the popularity of imitations of antique art in general. If the identification of the two statues in Munich is correct, they must be regarded as deliberate forgeries; but Von Busch rightly points out: âda sie aber das ganze Jahrhundert hindurch als wertvolle Originale galten, kann die heutige Einschätzung ihre Bedeutung für das Museum des 16. Jahrhunderts nicht mindernâ.
Von Busch 1973, p. 115.
Described in Von Busch 1973, p. 111â113.
Chronica des ganszen Fuggerischen geschlechts <â¦>, München, bsb-hs, ms. Cgm 3188, fol. 99v, as quoted in Von Busch 1973, p. 112: âNeben diesen anzaal herrlichen bücher werden auch nicht Allein gemeine und schlechte Contrafattungen, wie die bei andern menschen in gemein gesehen werden, sonder nach rechter kunst und Aigenschafften, An dapfere hohe anzal altter Römischer Contrafattungen, allerley Consules, Dittatores, und hauptleudt der Römer, Wie die Italliänischenn Unnd Teuschen Romischen könig und Keiser gerissen gemalet und gegossenâ.
Strada 1553<b>, Epitome du thrésor, p. aa 4 verso; the Latin edition (p. A 4 verso) reads: âtum ut augendo libro meo raros Numos adipiscererâ.
Strada 1553<b>, p. aa 4-v.: â<â¦> pendant que iâay esté en Allemagne ce bon Seigneur mâha esté tant doux et benin, quâil mâha baillé liberalement et de bon coeur ce qui mâestoit commode et necessaire, que ce seroit un perpetuel reproche, et infamie pour iamais, si ie desdaignois faire present de ce mien labeur, digne de soy, à lui qui est mon Seigneur et souverain Maistre <â¦â; in the Latin edition (Strada 1553<a>), p. A 4-v.: âEius benignitate tantisper, dum in Germania vixi, quidquid expetebam, liberaliter et comiter suppeditatum est, ut maximam ingrati animi notam mihi prorsus inuram, si hunc laborem meum illo dignum, alioqui nunquam id facturus, patrono meo non dedicemâ.
In his ms. A.A.A.NumismatÏn ÎιαÏÎºÎµÏ Îâin which he always notes the owners of the coins he describesâStrada mentions the collections of Willibald Imhof, of Johann and Georg Kändler, of Georg Römer and of Johann Starck in Nuremberg, of Hieronymus Agninus in Frankfurt, and of Hans Jakob Fugger and Samuel Quiccheberg in Augsburg; all of these collections were also visitedâor at least describedâby Hubert Goltzius in his 1563 edition of Caesar [see Dekesel 1981], and also mentioned by Quiccheberg, p. H i-r.; it is not known when Strada visited these collections, probably both before and after his sojourn in Lyon and Rome (1552â1555). On the ÎιαÏÎºÎµÏ Î, see Jansen 1993<a>.
For a discussion of Stradaâs numismatic procedure and the publications he planned, see Jansen 1993a, and below, chs. 14.7 and 15. On the Epitome, see Jansen 1993<a>, pp. 212â221 and, a.o., Haskell 1993, pp. 14â15; Cunnally 1999, pp. 2â33, and 208â209.
Adolf Occo in a letter to Bonifazius Amerbach, quoted in Patin 1683, p. 187; Doc. 1574-09-09, Strada to Jacopo Dani: â<â¦> da Sua Altezza non voglio altro che un tallero del pezzo sotto sopra, cioè un tallero la testa et un tallero il roverso, et similmente del suo ellogio. Venne sonno poi dellâaltre, con molto più manifatura, che non le faria per un par di ducati il pezzo <â¦â.
Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, mss. A 2175, 1â14 and 16â30; cf. Cyprian 1714, nrs. 239â268; the four volumes that were given as lost by Hartig 1917, pp. 214â215, and Von Busch 1973, p. 331, n. 13, are in the British Museum, mss. Arundel 65, iâiv. A resume of the contents made when part of the volumes were sent to Munich in 1566 gives a total of 6171 drawings (Hartig 1917), Beilagexii, 7 (pp. 324â328). Their description opened the inventory of the Munich Kunstkammer by Johann Baptist Fickler of 1598, published in Diemer 2004, nrs. 1â34 and 36â37, pp. 41â43; its commentary volumes provide further information: Diemer/Diemer/Sauerländer 2008, 1, pp. 1â6, and they were illustrated and briefly described in an exhibition catalogue on the history of the Munich Staatsbibliothek, Kulturkosmos der Renaissance 2008, cat. nr. 93 and 94, pp. 260â263.
Stradaâs so-called âItalienische Wappenbücherâ (Munich, bsb-hs, Cod. icon 266â280) are described in Kulturkosmos der Renaissance, cat. nr. 57, pp. 164â165. They are integrally accessible through www.muenchener-digitalisierungszentrum.de. Boissardâs ms. was dedicated to Fugger and dated 1559 (Hartig 1917, p. 120, nr. 93) and is discussed in great detail in Thimann 2005. Panvinio, with whom Fugger corresponded extensively in 1562â1567 [extracts published in Maasen 1922, Beilagen nrs. 6â51, pp. 97â126] also provided manuscripts of his important writings on ecclesiastical history. On his effigies and arms of the Popes (likewise in Munich, bsb-hs, Clm. 155â160), see Hartig 1917b.
Quiccheberg 1565, p. G iii-v.: âRaimundus vero cum eodem fratre, antiquarum statuarum, librorumque in quibus innumera numismata privatim depinguntur, tanta volumina adhibito Iacobo a Strada conquisivit, ut si asportandi sunt, eis aliquot clitellarii muli debeant onerari; cuius argumenti exemplari solum in Caesareis museis apud Maximilianum Imperatorum conservantur augenturqueâ.
Quiccheberg 1565, p. E iv-v.: âSubinde ergo huius instituti fasciculi et materiae a diligentioribus patronis adeo augentur, ut quam plurimarum disciplinarum ex his solum imaginibus cognitio acquiri posse videatur, plus enim quandoque praestat memoriae inspectio solum alicuius picturae quam diuturna lectio multarum paginarumâ.
In his A.A.A. NumismatÏn Antiquorum ÎιαÏÎºÎµÏ Î Strada refers repeatedly to various goldsmiths owning prize specimens of coin-types he described; see Jansen 1993a, pp. 219â220 and annex 1b, pp. 231â232.
Quiccheberg 1565, p. D ii r.: âOptimates in his colligendis decebit habere homines ingeniosos quos ad diversas regiones mittant, inquirendarum rerum miraculosarum gratia <...>â.
Caesar 1575, p. * 4-r.: âMissus sum ab hinc annis 20. in Italiam, Romam, Venetias ac aliò ad numismata auro, argento, ac aere afformata, vetustateque insignia marmora comparanda, quae ego magna vi pecuniarum expensa Augustam, nobilissimis spoliis exuta Italia, advexi. Sunt inter ea quà m plurima Imperatorum ac Imperatricum capita, multae insuper integrae marmoreae statuae, alià que opera non minimi precii et pervetustaâ.
âI am still quite satisfied with those [= antiquities] he bought for me in Rome several years agoâ: Fugger to Stopio, 6 December 1567, BHStA-LA 4852, fol. 103v, as quoted in Von Busch 1973, p. 112; cf. below, Ch. 12.3.
Too little appears to remain at Taufkirchen from Hans Jakobâs period to corroborate this supposition. On Taufkirchen, see Gsedl / Heilmaier / Kemper 2008.
One of the portals is dated 1546. On Donauwörth and the Stübchen, see lieb 1958, 2, pp. 223â240; Hitchcock 1981, pp. 124â125.
It cannot be excluded that Strada, whose close relationship to Serlio is documented for Lyon in the 1550s, had already met the master earlier in Italy or even in France and had had access to his work long before he acquired it for his own collection and publishing programme.
Doc. 1568-11-13: Hans Jakob Fugger to Strada, Taufkirchen, 13 November 1568. If the Donauwörth Stübchen and portals were designed by Strada, than so were at least some of the ceilings in the Fugger castle at Babenhausen, which are stylistically very close (lieb 1958, Figs. 209â210).
For more detailed information on Stradaâs activities as a publisher, see Jansen 2004; and below, Ch. 14.
On the Italian presence in Lyon, see Lyon et Lâitalie 1958; Lyon 16e 1993, p. 207 (bibliography). Willibald Imhoff was often in Lyon himself; his visit from 3 September until 23 December 1550 possibly overlapped with Stradaâs presence, that lasting from mid September 1552 until 7 January 1553 certainly did [Jante 1985, p. 21].
Docs. 1552-07-26 and 1552-07-30.
As indicated in the colophon of the book.
Margolin 1974, using the second edition of Visagierâs collection: Ioannis Vulteii Remensis Epigrammatum libri iv, Lyon (Michel Parmentier) 1537. The existence of such a group of friends is documented elsewhere, as in Nicolas Bourbon De amicis lugdunensibus (1533).
On Lyonsâs cosmopolitan society, see Renucci 1943; Romier 1949; Humanisme Lyonnais 1974; Rinascimento a Lione 1988; Lyon 16e 1993 (with extensive bibliography by Maria Teresa Arizzoli Clementel on pp. 203â217); and Sebastiano Serlio a Lyon 2004. On Landi, see: Hartig 1917<a>, p. 217; Maasen 1922, p. 84; Grendler 1969, pp. 21â38; Costanzo Landi, conte di Compianoâa member of one of the leading families of Piacenza, he was no relation of Ortensioâwould publish a learned numismatic treatise in Lyon in 1560 (Landi 1560).
For a general review of printing at Lyon in the sixteenth century, see Davis 1983 and Sebastiano Serlio a Lyon 2004.
The device is habitually considered as Guérinâs mark; but though Guérin did occasionally use a similar device of a smaller size in other books, he generally used another device with a palm tree, whereas in the books Strada published in Rome in 1557 (Panvinio 1557<a> and Panvinio 1557<b>) and in Frankfurt in 1575 (Serlio 1575; Caesar 1575) he used both the actual block of the device used for the Lyon Epitome <â¦> and a variant version of the same size in a slightly different ornamental frame.
Doc 1553-07-11; it was included at the back of the volume (Strada 1553).
Bruyère 1993, pp. 100â102, 115; Cooper 1988, p. 161; on antiquarian studies at Lyon in the sixteenth century in general, see Varille 1923; Cooper 1988; Cooper 1990; Bruyère 1993; Guillemain 1993.
On Sala, see Renucci 1943; Sala 1958, pp. 9â10; Grünberg Dröge 1993; on antiquarian studies at Lyon in the sixteenth century in general, see Varille 1923; Cooper 1988; Cooper 1990; Bruyère 1993; Guillemain 1993.
Bruyère 1993, p. 100; Cooper 1988, pp. 168â169; Rabelais published an edition of Marlianiâs Topographia antiquae Romae, printed by Gryphius in Lyon in 1534.
On Rouilléâs Promptuaire des médalles des plus renommées personnes qui ont esté depuis le commencement du monde, Lyon 1553, see Dimier 1924â1926, i, pp. 84 ff.; Clain-Stefanelli 1965, p. 17; Rave 1959; Haskell 1993, pp. 30â32 and passim; its text was compiled by the Lyon humanist Charles Fontaine and its illustrations provided by Georges Reverdy. On Rouillé as a publisher, see Davis 1978<b>. On his numismatic work, see Haskell 1993, pp. 30â32; Cunnally 1999, pp. 96â104, 206.
For a good account of numismatic studies and collections of coins and medals in Lyon, see Guillemain 1993.
On Du Choul, see: Copley Christie 1880, pp. 25â30; Cooper 1988, pp. 170â173; Bruyère 1993, pp. 91 and 109â110; Guillemain 2003; Guillemain 2008; Margolin 1974, p. 182, gives a translation of Visagierâs Latin epigram on Du Choul, which well illustrates the range of his interests and the renown of his works: âToi qui, au prix dâun immense labeur, ne laisses pas mourir la Rome antique ni les monuments anciens, révélant à nos yeux théatres, jeux et statues, images ciselées, forums, portiques et colonnes, monnaies et triomphes des Césars, les diverses factions politiques, les rites des pontifes, les honneurs sacrés de la Cité, ses charges, ses liberalités, ses dépenses, ses délices, ses ressources, les palestres, ses splendeurs, les généalogies et les faisceaux de puissants consuls, autels de dieux et de déesses, spectacles, superbes demeures, peintures, sculptures, effigies, urnes, cendres, trophées et cirques, collèges et confréries, thermes et bains publics, actions de grâces; bref, toi qui désires préserver de la mort tout ce qui est antique et qui veux que renaisse la Rome ancienne, tout ce qui est exposé à la ruine, tu le perpétues pour lâéternité, Duchoul. Pour un tel labeur, quelle récompense obtiendras-tu?â [from Ioannis Vulteii Remensis Epigrammatum libri iv, Lyon 1537, iv, p. 248]. Du Choulâs most important books are his De la religion des anciens Romains (Lyon 1547) and his Discours sur la Castramétation et discipline militaire des Romains (Lyon 1555), both of which were quickly and repeatedly reprinted in several languages. A splendid illustrated presentation manuscript Des antiquités romaines premier livre, with beautiful drawings, dedicated to Francis i and preserved in the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, can be considered as the first volume of a lost twelve-volume encyclopaedia of the history of the Roman Empire, Antiquitez de Rome, that Du Choul was preparing.
Strada 1553<b>, p. bbv.
Stradaâs reconstructions were included in Du Choul 1556, pp. 20â21 and 40â41; on Serlioâs drawings, see Jansen 1989 and Jansen 2004; Serlio 1994, p. 5, n. 3.
See Guillemain 1993, pp. 46â48. Guillemain gives a detailed account of the collectors of coins in Lyon in the sixteenth century, and discusses the names of the collectors given in Hubertus Goltziusâ edition of Caesar (Bruges 1563) (pp. 41 ff.). Goltzius had stayed in Lyon for ten days in August 1560, but had updated his information.
Strada described actually only a few coins from Calestanoâs cabinet which he had seen at Lyon, where Calestano lived for some time in the 1550s. He later settled in Milan, and in 1567 Strada attempted to acquire an inventory of his studio, the acquisition of which he proposed to Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria.
Bruyère 1993, p. 110.
â<â¦> deux mille [monnaies antiques] tant de cuivre que dâor et dâargent, avec infinies singularitez de statues, graveures et autres antiquitez quâon pouvoit estimer son cabinet un trésor pour une antiquitéâ, anonymus notes in a copy of Guillaume Paradin, Mémoires de lâhistoire de Lyon (Lyon 1573) in the Bibliothèque municipale at Lyon, quoted in Bruyère 1993, p. 112.
On sixteenth century collectors of antiquities in Lyon, see now Bruyère 1993 and Guillemain 1993. Sartino probably was a member of a Florentine merchant family whose presence in Lyon (under the names of Sertini or Seratini) goes back at least to 1502 (Gascon 1971, pp. 846 and 907). On Stradaâs possible contact with Du Bellay, see below.
On p. 219. The book was reprinted in 1561; an Italian translation, Le sententiose imprese, was published likewise in Lyon in 1560 (p. 11). On this motif, see Deonna 1954 and JuÅen 1988, p. 21 and Fig. 3. Symeoni was a close associate of Du Choul, whose works he translated into Italian. Strada used two well-known images connected to the device Festina lente device (which he quotes in Greek, rather than in Latin), combining the crab-and-butterfly with the dolphin-and-anchor familiar from Aldus Manutiusâ printerâs mark.
Du Choul 1556, p. 32: âMonsieur le Tresorier Grolier, amateur singulier de lâantiquité entre les mains duquel sont les plus beaux medaillons, que pour le iourdâhuy se puissent trouuer en nostre Gaulleâ; cf. Bruyère 1993, p. 111. On Grolier and his collection, see Portalis / Le Roux de Lincy 1907; Austin 1971, in particular its introductory chapter by Colin Eisler, âJean Grolier and the Renaissanceâ; Hobson 1975.
Austin 1971, pp. 31â32. Grolierâs interest in classical coins helps explain his pioneering use of stamps based on antique coins in the bindings made for some of his books.
Strada 1553<b>, p. bb-v.
Bruyère 1993, Fig. 1 (reconstruction of a âPalatium de Lugdunumâ, engraving; Fig. 7: drawing by Gabriele Symeoni of the âReliquie del Palagio maggiore <â¦> sotto la vigna del Sagrestano di Forvieraâ; and see Philibert De lâOrme Lyonnais 1993, pp. 31â32.
Philibert De lâOrme Lyonnais 1993, pp. 32â33. On the Vitruvian Accademia della Virtù, see below. It is likely that Strada, who was De lâOrmeâs exact contemporary and lived in Rome for a considerable time in the 1530s and shared his interests, had known him well.
On the editions of Serlioâs works, see Dinsmoor 1942; Fontaine Verwey 1976; Bury 1989; Sebastiano Serlio a Lyon 2004.
On Serlioâs religious views, see Tafuri 1989; Carpo 1993b, and below, Ch. 11.4.
Serlio 1575, fol. a iii-v.âa iv-r.
On Stradaâs acquisitions from Serlio and his edition of the Settimo libro dâarchitettura, printed in Frankfurt in 1575, see Jansen 1989; Serlio/ Fiore/ Carrunchio 1994; Jansen 2004.
Serlio 1575, fol. a iv-r.
DâAmico 1983.
A general review of antiquarian studies in sixteenth century Italy in Cochrane 1981, Chapter 15, pp. 423â444. Daly Davis 1989 and 1994, pp. 11â20, discuss the Vitruvian Academy, and analyse its programme as outlined in a letter by Claudio Tolomei printed in 1547: Tolomei 1547; modern edition and comment in Barocchi 1977, iii, pp. 3037â3046; see also: Pagliara 1984â1986, pp. 67â74; Kulawik 2002, pp. 119â127.
bsb-hs, Cod. Ital. 37; a critical edition in Fontana/Morachiello 1975; contrary to these editorsâ assumption, Calvoâs translation was not among the books acquired by King Ludwig i from the heirs of Piero Vettori: not only does it lack the mark of ownership that identifies the Vetttori codices in Munich, but it is in fact mentioned in the Inventory of the Munich Kunstkammer drawn up by Johann Baptist Fickler in 1598 (fol. 8v, nr. 109: âVitruvius de Architectura, in welsche sprach transferiert, und von der hand geschriben, in ein alt copert eingebundenâ) and in another, even earlier list of architectural books in Munich. The most obvious explanation is that it was included in the material from Raphaelâs estate acquired by Strada from Perino del Vaga and Giulio Romano; cf. Diemer/ Diemer/ Sauerländer 2008, vol. 1, pt. 1, cat.nr. 112, pp. 39â40, and vol. 3, pp. 230, 241, 252 and 491.
On the Codex Coburgensis, see Wrede/ Harprath 1986 and Harprath/ Wrede 1989.
Dâamico 1983, p. 52. I am grateful to Gigliola Fragnito-Margiotta Broglio for having first drawn my attention to Cortesi (and for many suggestions and fruitful discussions).
The first volume of the Annales ecclesiasticae, the Catholic refutation of the Magdeburg Centuries edited by Cesare Baronio, appeared in 1588; some of the greatest classical scholars of the time, such as Onofrio Panvinio, Carlo Sigonio, Roberto Bellarmino and Alonso Chacón, were, with St Peter Canisius, engaged in its preparation. See Orella y Unzue 1976; Cochrane 1981, pp. 457â463.
Waetzold 1964.
On AgustÃn, see Crawford 1993; on the Cardinal of Augsburg, see Overbeeke 1994; Wüst 1999.
AgustÃnâs correspondence published in AgustÃn 1980.
Tommaso Garzoni, La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, Venice 1588, discorso 148, pp. 900â903: âDeâ professori di medaglie, et dâaltre anticaglie, Antiquiarij dettiâ, and cf. p. 670.
On these collections, see below. The Massimi family traced their lineage from Quintus Fabius Maximus; I am told that even today the Pio da Carpi family, whose ancestor Rodolfo Pio Cardinal da Carpi brought together one of the most important collections of antiquities of the mid-Cinquecento, still are aware of their presumed descent from Antoninus Pius.
Nova 1988.
Venice 1558; Mauroâs book had already appeared in an earlier edition (Venice 1556).
Bober/Rubinstein 1986, pp. 467, 455, 461.
Bober/Rubinstein 1986, p. 454; Gallo 1992.
McCrory 1980, McCrory 1987; Jones 1990.
Themis Dea seu de lege divina, printed by Plantin in Antwerp in 1568, with a dedication to Cardinal Granvelle; reprinted in J. Gronovius, Thesaurus Graecarum antiquitatum, ix, Venice, 1737, sp. 1139â1184. On Pighius, see Jongkees 1954; Gunter Schweikhart and Hilde Hiller in Harprath/Wrede 1989, resp. pp. 157â166 and 167â184; Daly Davis 1989, p. 197; on Morrillon: Wrede 1993 and Crawford 1998.
In his De regimenti publici de la città , Venice 1554, quoted by Daly Davis 1989, p. 189.
Vasari/ Milanesi 1878â1885, 7, p. 106.
Mandowsky/Mitchell 1963, pp. 30â34.
A manuscript illustrated version of the first book of Doniâs treatise, dated 1559 and entitled La villa Fucchara is preserved in the bsb-hs, Cod. Ital. 36; cf. Bauer-Eberhardt 2007, pp. 97â115
Doc. 1555-03-18. On the honorary citizenship of Rome, see Gregorovius 1877; Goltzius was created a Roman citizen on 7 May 1567, with explicit reference to his merits for the Roman âres publicaâ [Rome, Archivio Capitolino, Camera Capitolina, credenza 1a, tomo 1o, fol. 91v.]. Pirro Ligorio, himself a Neapolitan nobleman, doubtless far better known in Rome and better respected as an antiquary, and who could easily have found the necessary sponsors, was accorded the citizenship only in 1560 (Gregorovius 1877, p. 29). The grant to Strada probably reflects his financial means and the stature of his patron (Fugger) as much, or more, than his own prestige as an antiquary.
Stradaâs Preface to Panvinio 1557<b>.
Stradaâs Preface to Panvinio 1557<a>. On Alessandro Farneseâs patronage, see Nolhac 1887; specifically on artistic patronage see Robertson 1992.
Armenini 1587, p. 65: â<â¦> un mercante Mantovano, che fù lâanno 1556. con il quale io dimorava allhora <â¦â.
Stradaâs preface to Panvinio 1557<a>.
For the publishing history of these books, see below, Part 2, Chapter 3.
Letters dated Roma, 27 November 1557 and 8 January 1558: âio vi mando <â¦> la fede del contratto con Strada <â¦â, in Agustìn 1980, pp. 281, 286.
On Fulvio Orsini, see Nolhac 1887.
On the ÎιαÏÎºÎµÏ Î, see Jansen 1993<b>.
It is for instance revealing that the Papal collections are not mentioned at all, and only a few incidental items from the holdings of the Farnese. A list based on an examination of the first five volumes included in Jansen 1993<a>, pp. 231â232.
Most of the collections visited by Strada are listed in the survey of Roman collections of antiquities of the sixteenth century given in Bober-Rubinstein 1986, pp. 471â480; for the Maffei collection, see p. 476, which also illustrates Maarten van Heemskerckâs drawing of the cortile of the Maffei house in the Via della Pigna; see now also the survey of owners mentioned by Enea Vico in Missere Fontana 1994.
Little is known about these various shops: see McCrory 1987. Strada does not mention two other well-known dealers, Vincenzo and Gian Antonio Stampa, who purveyed antiquities to the Florentine court.
In a letter to Maximilian ii, doc. 1559-06-06; published in Jansen 1993<a>, pp. 233â235.
Strada referred to Ligorio in his letter to Maximilian ii, ibidem.
AgustÃn 1587; Italian translations by Dionigi Ottaviano Sada and by Ascanio Donangeli, both published in Rome in 1592: AgustÃn 1592<a>; AgustÃn 1592<b>.
Authors translation of AgustÃn 1587, pp. 131â132. A freer translation in Mandowsky/ Mitchell 1963, pp. 31â32, which has more negative connotations: âFrom their works you might imagine they had read all the Latin and Greek books ever written, whereas all they did was to utilize the learning of others. The value of their work lies not in what they wrote but in the excellence of their drawingsâ. The full passage is discussed below, Ch. 15.1.
Both affairs discussed in Von Busch 1973, pp. 197â198, and 199â201, and Jansen 1993<a>, pp. 220â221; cf. below, chs. 4.2 and 14.4.2â3.
Doc. 1559-06-06; see Jansen 1993<a>, pp. 223â226; its identification with the Codex Coburgensis suggested by Wrede 1997, but doubted by Crawford 1998, pp. 100â102.
Tolomeiâs letter published in De le lettere di M. Claudio Tolomei libri sette, Venezia (Gioliti) 1547; it is reprinted and commented in Barocchi 1971â1977, iii, pp. 3037â3047. The programme of the Vitruvian Academy commented in Daly Davis 1989 and Daly Davis 1994, pp. 11â20.
Stradaâs preface to his edition of Caesar 1575; cf. below, Ch. 12.3.
Von Busch, pp. 111â113. At least two statues in the Antiquarium are documented in Stradaâs ms. Antiquarum Statuarum in Vienna, but these were among the acquisitions Strada made for Albrecht v in Venice in 1567â1568.
Armenini 1587, p. 65. Armenini mixes up Anversa (Antwerp) and Augusta (Augsburg): though the Fugger firm did have a branch at Antwerp, there is no reason to doubt that the books of drawings were sent immediately to Hans Jakob in Augsburg.
Armenini 1587, p. 180. Stradaâs identification with the âmercante Mantoanaâ and the âagenteâ of Fugger is certain; cf. Davidson 1983, p. 589; and by Edward J. Olszewski in Armenini 1977, p. 134, note 14.
önb-hs, Cod. min. 33.
Vienna, Albertina, inv.nr. 15.462; Birke/Kertész 1992â1997, 4, pp. 2104â2105. In view of its close resemblance to the Loggia drawingsânote for instance the realistic detail of the tears in the waxed paper filling the window framesâand its present location, it may have been among Stradaâs commissions; the topic is discussed in greater detail below, Ch. 13.8.1.
Giovanni Antonio Dosioâs sketchbook preserved in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin; fol. 8v contains a note âtutti quegli che avran[n]o u[na +] per contrasegno so fatti [per messer]. Iacopo Strada. Lo fo a causa [di non] pigliar erroreâ; the codex is published in Huelsen 1933, 6â7, no. 21, fol. 8v.; cf. Tedeschi Grisanti 1983, p. 70; Casamassima/Rubinstein 1993, p. xii.; Rubinstein 1989, p. 204; cf. below, Ch. 11.4.
Greppi 1977, pp. 45â52, especially letters nrs 1â3; but it should be noted that Scultori prepared these in Mantua from copiesâby Marcello Venustiâhe had at his disposal; cf. Lincoln 1997. The series is kept at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid; Giovan Battistaâs son Adamo engraved a series of Ignudi of the Sistine ceiling which was published around 1550; cf. Bellini/Salzi 1991, pp. 64â104; Strada refers to Scultori and the work he had done in a letter to the Duke of Mantua of 1577 (Doc 1577-10-04 A).
Series Imp<eratorum> Ro<manorum>, Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, Ms. A 1243a and Series Romanorum ac Graecorum ac Germanorum imperatorum, önb-hs, Cod. 9413â9518. Though the approach is comparable to some extent, the hands of the draughtsmen differ (f.i. use of hatching for the background of the relief is similar, but the manner in which this is doneâhorizontal vs verticalâdiffers). On the draughtsman of the Codex Coburgensis (Veste Coburg, Cod. HZii), see Richard Harprath, âZeichentechnik und künstlerische Persönlichkeit des Meister des Codex Coburgensisâ, in Harprath/Wrede 1989, pp. 127â140.
According to Armenini Strada paid royally (ârealmenteâ) for the documentation of the Vatican Loggia. When acquiring antiquities in Venice in the 1560s Strada was likewise reputed to have paid high prices (below, Ch. 12).
Serlio 1575, fol. a iii i-r. Since Caterina Penni probably had earlier been pressed to sell or give away some of the drawings in her possession, in particular as regards Raphaelâs drawings, Stradaâs acquisition may not really have included all the effects left at Perinoâs death almost ten years earlier; Armeniniâs reference to âallâ the drawings purchased by Strada could refer to all those left at Perinoâs death, or to all those left in Caterinaâs possession by 1556. The fact that Strada paid well and in cash may have been an aditional motivation for Caterina to sell the drawings to him, rather than to someone else.
Armenini 1587, pp. 64â65.
Serlio 1575, fol. a iiii-r.
Armenini 1587. p. 65.
Vasari/ Milanesi 1878â1885, 5, pp. 552â553.
Such material was used in the Libri di disegni produced in Stradaâs workshop; some of his acquisitions figure in the list of illustrated publications Strada intended to publish (below, Ch. 14).
Imagines omnium numismatum antiquorum, quae ex auro, argento et aere à Romulus usque ad C. Iulium Caes. Romae signata sunt. Summa diligentia cum uniusqcuiusque notis à Iacobo Strada Mantuano depictae, Romae ex Musaeo Iacobi Stradae Mantuani mdliiii, Paris, Bibliothèque de lâArsenal, ms. 1019. In view of Armeniniâs testimony, the claim that these drawings all are autographs should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt. The volume may not have been made in response to a specific commission, but kept to be offered to a promising patron, when a separate dedication could have been easily added.
AgustÃn to Panvinio, Roma 2 october 1557: â<â¦> quanto alle dedicationi di libri. tra quelli duoi principi pigliaria quel che hora è piu sublime, et piu amico di uostro patron, idest il Re di Spagna. ben che lâaltro sia piu propinquo al imperio. ma sara un Re di scachi senza lâagiuto del suo nepoteâ, printed in AgustÃn 1980, nr. 191, p. 277. The illuminated titlepage of Stradaâs De consularibus numismata [önb, ms 9411] depicted Charles vâs device, the Pillars of Hercules, which was pasted over with a strip of marbled paper before Strada presented it to Ferdinand i.
Stradaâs preface to Serlio 1575.
If Strada did visit Florence on this occasion, he remained too briefly to study the Medici medagliere and other collections: in the ÎιαÏÎºÎµÏ Î no Florentine provenances are given, except for one or two coins from the Medici collection, which he may well have known from correspondence or copies. Though Strada personally knew Jacopo Dani, a secretary of Cosimo i with whom he would correspond later in his career, he probably first met him only when Dani acted as secretary to the Tuscan embassy at the Imperial court.
Panvinio 1557<a>: Fasti et triumphi Romanorum a Romulo Rege usque ad Carolum v <â¦>, sive epitome regum, consulum, dictatorum, magistratorum <â¦> ex antiquitatum monumentis maxima cum fide ac diligentia desumpta, Venezia 1557 and Panvinio 1557<b>: Epitome pontificum romanorum a S. Petro usque ad Paulum iii gestorum <â¦>, Venezia 1557. The engraving would take less time than one would think: the Epitome pontificum was illustrated only by the coats of arms of the Popes and the principal cardinals they had created. The frames of the shield could and were printed from a limited number of blocks; the arms of families such the Orsini who provided many Popes and cardinals could be used repeatedly; and the arms of many Popes were not known, the framed shield remaining empty. The Fasti et Triumphi were illustrated by medal portraits for which the blocks of Stradaâs Lyon Epitome thesauri antiquitatum were reused. See below, Ch. 14.4.