Page - 38 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Introduction38 Kunsthistorisches Museum and whose approach is necessarily more object- oriented than that of cultural or intellectual historians. However, Karl Rudolf’s study on the artistic patronage of Maximilian ii cited above has shown that the dearth of available sources might be remedied by more extensive and system- atic archival research.95 This material doubtless contributed to the revaluation of the court of Maximilian ii that is evident in the catalogue of the 2007–2008 exhibitions in Paris and Vienna dedicated to his court-painter Giuseppe Arcim- boldo. There at least some attention was paid also to Strada’s role at court.96 It is particularly odd that the materials from Strada’s studio preserved in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek and in the University Library of Vien- na have hardly attracted any scholarly attention since Zimmermann.97 Even two contemporary lists of manuscripts and books from Strada’s library that are probably of considerable value for the history of the early holdings of the Hofbibliothek—the list of printed books is an offer of sale, and the items listed were probably sold to Rudolf ii by Strada or his heirs—has incited no interest; this in contrast with similar lists relating to acquisitions by or from contem- poraries such as Joannes Sambucus and Hugo Blotius.98 In general very little attention has been paid to Strada’s place in the history of the book, considering his close connection with two of the greatest libraries of the sixteenth century and his activities in the book trade in general. Doubtless this is largely due 95 Rudolf 1995; it should be noted that only the minutest part of Maximilian’s correspon- dence has been published. 96 Karl Schütz, ‘Art and Culture at the Court of Emperor Maximilian ii’, pp. 73–79 in Arcim- boldo 1526–1593 2007, pp. 76–77. 97 The material is referred to by Renate von Busch, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Hilda Lietzmann and Howard Louthan. It should be noted that the most illustrious of Viennese art historians, the late Ernst Gombrich, did study the Strada material in Vienna in the course of the preparation of his dissertation on Giulio Romano, and still remembered these in great detail fifty years later (oral communication, 1982) but he never published these findings. His dissertation was published only in 1984 in Italian, filling the first is- sue of the periodical Quaderni di Palazzo Te (Gombrich 1984b), but makes no mention of Strada. 98 Vienna, önb-hs cod. 10101: a copy of the Index sive catalogus (a list of manuscripts Strada planned to publish) is followed by a list of 153 volumes of manuscripts, many contain- ing several independent works; önb-hs, cod. 9038, fols. 99 ff. is headed ‘Index venalis: Catalogus ex bibliotheca Stradae’, and lists a huge number of printed books, indicating format, short title, place of publication and price or estimate. To my knowledge these lists have never been compared to the present holdings of the Nationalbibliothek: unless later rebound, the manuscript volumes ought to be readily identifiable, and a comparison of bindings, ex-libris and/or shelf marks and annotations might possibly indicate a common provenance for some of the printed titles, which would confirm that Strada had also pur- veyed printed books to the Emperor.