Page - 66 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter �66 erudite officials as Giovanni Giacomo Calandra; it is best exemplified in the figure of Baldassare Castiglione.48 While the latter provided Strada—and so many of his contemporaries—with an outstanding model of courtly deport- ment and learned urbanity, all these examples taught him how to apply the erudition he achieved to practical purposes. Thanks to the presence of Giulio Romano, however, the antiquarian passion that permeated almost every cul- tural activity in the Mantua of the Renaissance exerted the most profound in- fluence on the young Jacopo, who thus was schooled in the style and intellec- tual prejudices of Renaissance Rome at first hand before he ever set foot there. The young Strada must, moreover, have been greatly impressed by the ample variety of artistic activities that were practised in Mantua, and in particular by Giulio’s organizing talent and his superb mastery and taste in combining these various arts to serve a common goal: that is a courtly environ- ment of great visual elegance and refinement. It was an environment which, because of the ceremonial and theatrical sensitivity of the dynasty’s members and the contributions expected from their courtiers and from the human- ists, poets, musicians and artists they employed, can almost be regarded as a Gesamtkunstwerk in itself. Strada’s taste for, and understanding of the role of such a Gesamtkunstwerk within the society of a dynastic state was schooled at Mantua, and it was this that would prepare him later to fulfil functions at the Imperial court that were—to some extent, and at a more modest level— similar to those of Giulio at the court of the Gonzaga.49 48 on Paride da Ceresara, see De’ Angelis 1979; on Mario Equicola, see P. Cherchi, ‘Equicola, Mario’, in dbi 43, pp. 34–40; on Lampridio, see Talvacchia 1988, pp. 240–242; Calandra was castellano and later, as chancellor, one of the most prominent members of the Gonzaga court; he played an important role in the cultural life of the state and kept in contact with many authors both in Mantua and elsewhere (including Castiglione, Paolo Giovio, Bandello, Ariosto and Aretino). He was also closely involved in the organizing of the con- struction and the decoration of the Palazzo del Te, and more in general in the dynasty’s dealings with the artists they employed, including Giulio Romano and Titian, cf. Zapperi 1973. 49 On Strada’s relationship to Giulio, see also Jansen 1989.