Page - 167 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

167In Hans Jakob Fugger’s Service among these was that illustrious prelate, Alessandro Cardinal Farnese, whose splendid court cultivated outstanding talent in any field, and wel- comed and stimulated outstanding votaries of all the fine arts and sci- ences. Apart from many noblemen of the oldest and purest lineage, one would also meet there theologians, philosophers, astronomers, math- ematicians, historians, poets, doctors, lawyers, philologists, architects, engravers [‘sculptores’], painters, sculptors [‘statuarios’], antiquaries, gem-cutters, goldsmiths, and soldiers: in short, people proficient in all the useful and fine arts. Even I, unworthy, was desired by their common patron to join these remarkable men, which obviously did not displease me; for apart from his liberality towards me, he introduced me into this erudite academy, from which, besides great enjoyment, I derived no little profit.105 Elsewhere Strada specifically names Alessandro Farnese his patronus, but it is unlikely that Strada actually was in the Cardinal’s service. More probably he was made welcome to his collections, and was occasionally invited to partici- pate in the discussions of the more or less informal academy meeting in the Palazzo Farnese.106 The latter option appears more likely also because Strada had brought his young family and had established an independent household which, apart from his personal servants, included at least one of the artists he employed.107 Strada was particularly interested in the history and customs of Ancient Rome, in so far as these could be reconstructed from its wreckage still floating about by the historians and antiquaries he met there: ‘Though these monuments be mute, they can instruct those who are well versed in Roman history’, he says in the preface to his edition of Panvinio’s Fasti et Triumphi, and then went on to heap laurels on the heads of a number of scholars he had met in the Palazzo Farnese: There we find live oracles, who by both discussing the things that have come down to us, and by restoring in their learned commentaries what has been lost through the injuries of time, can give an exact interpreta- tion of what once was, as anyone can witness who has heard discourse Antonio Agustín, Padre Ottavio [= Pantagato], Gentile Delfini, Achille 105 Strada’s Preface to Panvinio 1557<b>. 106 Strada’s Preface to Panvinio 1557<a>. On Alessandro Farnese’s patronage, see Nolhac 1887; specifically on artistic patronage see Robertson 1992. 107 Armenini 1587, p. 65: ‘<…> un mercante Mantovano, che fù l’anno 1556. con il quale io dimorava allhora <…’.