Page - 35 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

35The Image—Or from Whom (Not?) to Buy a Second-Hand Car ii. It was only in 1995 that Karl Rudolf published a detailed study of such Kun- stbestrebungen at the Imperial court before Rudolf ii’s accession, presenting many unknown sources and making an illuminating comparison with simi- lar activities at the court of Maximilian ii’s cousin and brother-in-law, King Philip ii of Spain. Strada is discussed in particular in his role as a numismatic expert.85 Rudolf does not explicitly question Schlager’s characterization of Strada as an ‘Aufseher auf die Kunstkammer’, but he might well have done so, since he concludes, probably correctly, that at the time a more or less formal, centrally organized Kunstkammer as could be found at Munich, Ambras and later at Prague, as yet had not come into existence in Vienna.86 In his Rudolf ii and his world of 1973, Robert Evans mentions several of Stra- da’s activities in connection with the general intellectual milieu of the Imperi- al court during the second half of the sixteenth century. Of course Strada often briefly figures in monographs on other figures at that court, such as Augerius Busbequius and Joannes Sambucus.87 But he is rarely given more than passing attention in studies of the intellectual milieu of the period. Whereas Nicolette Mout, in her dissertation on the relations between Bohemia and the Nether- lands in the sixteenth century, briefly sketches Jacopo and Ottavio’s career, and is the first to mention Strada’s attempt to have Christophe Plantin print his books, Strada is hardly mentioned in Paula Fichtner’s predominantly politi- cal biographies of Ferdinand i and Maximilian ii.88 A collection of essays on Maximilian ii and his period edited by Friedrich Edelmayer and Alfred Kohler included an essay by the present author which attempted to clarify his formal position at the Imperial court.89 One aspect of his tasks at court was discussed in Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann’s 1978 dissertation, Variations on the Imperial Theme in the Age of Maximilian ii and Rudolf ii, in which he was the first to dis- cuss Strada’s costume designs for various court festivities, and placed them in the larger intellectual and iconographical context at court.90 That Strada had 85 Rudolf 1995, pp. 172–173, covering independently material published by the present au- thor (Jansen 1993(a); pp. 195–196, p. 198). 86 Ibidem, p. 225; Rudolf doubts that Strada made designs for the Neugebäude (p. 177), and does pay no further attention to Strada’s role as an architect; cf. below, Ch. 9.4. 87 Evans 1973,pp. 128–129; 185, 187; Martels 1989, passim. 88 Mout 1975, pp. 64–65, 166; cf. also Mout 2000, pp. 55–57; Fichtner 1982; Fichtner 2001, pp. 81, 97. 89 Jansen 1992, a revised version of an Italian paper read at a conference on royal and aristo- cratic households in the Renaissance (Jansen 1989(c)); it was drawn upon for Chapter 4 of the present book. 90 Kaufmann 1978(a), pp. 61–64 and passim; modified in Kaufmann 2009, pp. 78–80 and Kaufmann 2010. Some of the drawings were engraved by Jost Amman, whose prints and