Page - 109 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

109In Hans Jakob Fugger’s Service terest in classical studies; and his interest included the material remains of Antiquity as much as its literary monuments. In this he followed the example of his father, who had brought together a small collection of antiquities and had funded the publication of the first corpus of inscriptions ever printed.3 A  parallel—though less intense—interest in and understanding of the arts of his own time was only to be expected from someone whose father and uncles had commissioned Giulio Romano to execute the altarpiece of their family chapel in Santa Maria dell’Anima in Rome [Fig. 3.2] and had received Titian in their own house.4 Fugger retained such fond memories of his studies in Bologna that when, more than thirty years later, he revisited the town as pre- ceptor and Maggiordomo of the young Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria, the first thing he showed his pupil was the Archiginnasio, ‘die Schuel oder das Colle- gium, darin man list’: ‘the School or College, where the lectures are given’. Fugger’s nostalgia may have been particularly poignant because, in conse- quence of his father’s sudden death, he had been obliged to break off his stud- ies prematurely. Although Hans Jakob should have taken his father’s place in the company, his uncle Anton [Fig. 3.3] thought him, probably rightly, still too young for this: so, again according to the family tradition, he was sent to gain some practical experience, first in the Antwerp branch of the firm, and then in several others. During this period he perfected his extraordinary command of foreign languages: according to the Fuggerchronik, he fluently spoke Italian, French, Dutch, Latin and Greek, and he also appears to have been well-versed in Czech and Polish and to have known some Hungarian, which was his moth- er’s native tongue. Fugger’s unusual command of the modern languages may have been one of the talents that recommended him to Ferdinand i, and it appears that Fug- ger spent some time at Ferdinand’s court in Innsbruck and in Vienna, where a number of young nobleman were educated together with the young Archdukes. Fugger would always remain on excellent terms with the young Archdukes and their sisters, and in particular with the eldest, Maximilian, who shared so 3 Cf. below; an incident in Bourges both demonstrates Fugger’s interest in classical, particular historical studies, as well as the advantage of being rich and having the international network of a great firm at one’s disposal: Fugger had lent Alciati his copy of the new, 1531, edition of Livy’s Histories—the first which contained the recently rediscovered books of the Fifth Decade—which he had just received. It so fascinated Alciati that he forgot to turn up for his course (Maasen 1922, p. 6). On Raymund Fugger’s collection, see Von Busch 1973, pp. 85–90. He funded the publication of Apianus/Amantius 1534, which included the inscriptions from his own collection. 4 On the Sacra Conversazione commissioned for the Fugger Chapel, see Sylvia Ferino Pagden in Giulio Romano 1989, p. 77, 262.