Page - 26 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Introduction26 the creation of the Munich Antiquarium.50 The Epitome is likewise discussed, in relation to the Titian portrait and Strada’s career, in John Cunnally’s Images of the Illustrious: The Numismatic Presence in the Renaissance of 1999.51 Francis Haskell and John Cunnally are both examples of art historians inter- ested as much in the context of a work of art as in the object itself. It is obvious that Jacopo Strada appeals more to this type of cultural historian than to the connoisseur: after all very few of Strada’s own works have been identified, and most of these are copied or derived from other works of art—and this holds notably for his most typical work, his numismatic drawings. These show him to have been a competent draughtsman. The very few original inventions that can be securely attributed to him, though demonstrating a similar competence and a thorough comprehension of the artistic language of his time, can hardly be reckoned great works of art. So it is not surprising that modern scholarship on Strada generally has originated as a by-product of specialized research into various topics of the history of art and architecture of the sixteenth century, in which he figures in a subordinate role. Only two or three authors have at- tempted an overall survey of his career, and even then he appears always in the context of research into a theme where his role happened to have been relatively important. In the following a selection of publications discussing or referring to Strada will be briefly reviewed. They will be grouped by theme rather than chronologically. 0.9.2 Contemporary Scholarship: Drawings and Designs for  Goldsmith  Work One of the themes that have attracted most interest are the designs for gold- smith’s work after Giulio Romano and other Italian masters that are found in several albums from the studio of Jacopo and Ottavio Strada. These were most- ly based on the huge collection of drawings by Italian masters in Jacopo’s pos- session. As mentioned above, they were known in Vienna and Prague through the 1869 facsimile edition of Ottavio Strada’s drawings in the album in the Di- etrichstein collection, and the presence of the manuscript, first mentioned by Cyril Straka, in the monastery of Strahov at Prague. The Strahov album con- tains both original drawings by Giulio Romano and copies in the hand of the Stradas and/or their copyists. It has been carefully studied by Beket Bukovin- ská, Elišká Fučíková and Lubomir Konečný. They published an exhaustive cata- logue of these drawings in the Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorische Sammlungen of 1984, which is the fundamental publication on this subject. On the basis of her 50 Haskell 1993, pp. 14–16; 36–39. 51 Cunnally 1999, pp. 26–33, 208–209 and passim.