Page - 21 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

21The Image—Or from Whom (Not?) to Buy a Second-Hand Car 0.7 Romance: Josef Svátek and the Rudolfine Legend Before we turn to contemporary scholarly interest in Jacopo Strada, however, it is necessary to turn back for a moment to magic Prague of the nineteenth cen- tury, and to Josef Svátek (1835–1897), a Czech autor who happily and rather un- scrupulously combined the vocations of journalist, novelist and historian. He was absolutely fascinated by the history of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, and published more than twenty historical novels, most of which were set in this period. This implies that he possessed a fertile imagination, which he drew upon perhaps even when he intended his writings to be factual history, rather than fiction. Certainly the long article on the Strada family at court in Vienna and Prague he contributed in 1883 to Sborník historický, a new review published by a young professor at the Czech university of Prague, was presented as a careful investigation of source material.38 It is clear that Svátek not only used the source publications available at the time, but had himself consulted both the archives in Prague and Vienna and had studied much of the manuscript material from Strada’s studio that had been preserved in the Imperial Library and collections.39 Unfortunately he did not provide exact references, so it is difficult to be certain of his contentions when no other indications are available—some of which are unlikely, and others demonstrably false. In particular the big claims he makes for the components of the tasks of Jacopo and of Ottavio Strada as Imperial antiquaries—he sees them as principal curators of the celebrat- ed Kunstkammer of Rudolf ii—are difficult to corroborate: in fact there are few indications that Jacopo played any role at court after Rudolf’s accession, rather the contrary.40 It is even more difficult to believe that Svátek did not 38 Svátek 1883; I am very grateful to Dagmar Stiebral to have read and summarized the article for me. Earlier Strada had been discussed in the chapter ‘Die Rudolfinische Kunstkammer in Prag’, in a volume of essays, Culturhistorische Bilder aus Böhmen (Prague 1879) (Svátek 1879, pp. 227–272). 39 He discusses not only the numismatic volumes dedicated to Ferdinand i and Maximilian ii mentioned by Lambeck and later authors, but also some of Strada’s other libri di disegni in Vienna that have never been published. 40 Svátek followed Schlager’s interpretation of the term ‘Antiquarius’ (cited above): ‘In 1565 treffen wir ihn [= Strada] zum erste Male am Wiener Hofe, wo er, wie die Hofacten be- weisen, als Hofbaumeister, doch schon im nächsten Jahre als “Antiquarius” des Kaisers Maximilian ii erscheint. Diese neu creirte Stelle eines Aufsehers über die kaiserliche Kun- stkammer war mit dem jährlichen Solde von 100 fl. dotirt, eine Summe, die es erklärlich macht, dass Strada auch in dieser Stellung seinem früheren einträglichen Geschäfte oblag’ (Svátek 1879, pp. 232).