Page - 85 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

85Travel—Wenzel Jamnitzer his most serious opponent, Charles v, who invested him with the marquisate of Marignano, and subsequently made grateful use of his military experience. The Marquis conducted the Imperial armies in France, Flanders, Hungary and Germany, and crowned his career—in the year of his death—with the con- quest of Siena on behalf of his Florentine namesake, Cosimo i, who in con- sequence allowed the Milanese Medici to assume the arms of the Florentine dynasty. Their version of the Medici palle was, like its Florentine counterpart, crowned with the tiara, when in 1559 Marignano’s saintly brother Giovanni An- gelo was elected to the Chair of St. Peter’s, taking the name Pius iv. Unfortunately, not much is known of Marignano as a patron of the arts, though it is not impossible that he shared some of the tastes of his erudite and intelligent brother: Pius iv commissioned Leone Leoni to execute Mari- gnano’s tomb in the Duomo in Milan, reconstructed the family palace in the Via di Brera, and as a patron is best known for the refined and elegant Casino that Pirro Ligorio built for him in the Vatican Gardens.41 Marignano’s decision to commission an ambitious piece of representative silverware at this rather 41 The modest extensions added to the Marignano country residence at Induno Olona cer- tainly do not presuppose tremendous patronage; see ‘Induno Olona, Frascarolo: Villa Medici di Marignano’, in Langé / Vitali 1984, pp. 134–143. On Marignano, see: Bignami 1925; Ravegnani Morosini 1984, pp. 308–309; Giannini 2009. On the Casino Pio, see Fagiolo / Madonna 1972(a) and Fagiolo / Madonna 1972(b); Smith 1977; Smith 1988; on Leoni’s proj- ect for the tomb of the Marquis of Marignano, which—according to Vasari—was based Figure 2.9 Gian Giacomo de’ Medici, Marquis of Marignano, the statue of his tomb by Leone Leoni commissioned by his brother, Pope Pius iv; Milan, Cathedral. Figures 2.10–2.11 Wenzel Jamnitzer, The so-called ‘Merkelsche Tafelaufsatz’ and its case, ca. 1548–1549; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.