Page - 74 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 274 well have considered—and with justification!—that the project as executed was surely sufficiently advanced for its location. Moreover, the function of the Stadtresidenz, as the Duke’s principal dwelling, would in any case have allowed less artistic licence than was admitted in the stately pleasure dome decreed by Federico ii. Whereas for the architecture of the Landshut Stadtresidenz the example of the Palazzo del Te must therefore be invoked with caution, the dependence of its splendid and sumptuous interior decoration from Giulio’s grandest creation is unmistakable. Not only is the type of decoration in general clearly derived from the Palazzo del Te, but in many details—lay-out of the compartmented ceilings, stucco ornaments etc.—and even in its iconographical programme, the Mantuan model is closely followed. It comes as no surprise that the doc- uments show that at least part of this decoration was executed by the same stucco workers that had worked in the Te a few years earlier. The painted deco- ration, on the other hand, was entrusted to the local painters Ludwig Refinger and Hans Bocksberger the elder, and to the Dutchman Herman Posthumus, who appears already to have entered Ludwig’s service before he made his doc- umented trip to Rome and Mantua.17 What is striking about Landshut is—except for the manner of the painted decoration—the totally Italian spirit which infuses the palace into its small- est details: examples are the purely Venetian chimneys on the low-pitched roof, and—even more significant—the lantern of the chapel, which can only be seen from some back-windows [Fig. 2.4]. Can this Italian spirit still be ex- plained by the fact that the Stadtresidenz appears to have been constructed and decorated almost exclusively by Italian artisans, its unity of conception 17 Sarzi 1988, pp. 131–133. Figures 2.2–2.3 Landshut, Stadtresidenz, Loggia of the Italienische Bau (1537–1540).