Page - 200 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 4200 On this visit Ferdinand was accompanied by one of his most trusted advis- ers, Otto Truchsess von Waldburg, Cardinal and Prince-Bishop of Augsburg [Fig.  1.19]. This scion of an illustrious German military dynasty, the epitome of the German knight, was very conscious of the high duties imposed by the sacred office for which his rank and education had destined him. A feared adversary of the Protestants, he introduced many religious reforms in his diocese. He had had an outstanding education—like Hans Jakob Fugger he had sat at Alciati’s feet at Bologna—which expressed itself in his intellectual concerns: he found- ed a university and a printing-press at his residence at Dillingen, both of which he made available to the Jesuits, and he used his frequent sojourns in Rome to build up an important collection of antiquities and contemporary works of art. His library at Dillingen was explicitly commended by Antonio Agustín, who visited it on his short trip as Papal nuncio to the Emperor in the spring of 1558.19 So his commendation of Strada’s collection would be quite valuable. 4.2 The Controversy with Wolfgang Lazius 4.2.1 The Catalogue of the Imperial Coin Collection Ferdinand’s visit had impressed him sufficiently to summon Strada in person. During the audience he gave him two gatherings of the text and some proof- sheets of the engravings of an illustrated catalogue of his own coin-collection.20 This catalogue had been first planned as far back as 1550 and was intended to document all of the Emperor’s circa seven thousand ancient coins. It was prepared by Leopold Heyperger, one of Ferdinand’s chamberlains particularly charged with the care of the works of art, who had provided the inventory, and the engraver Hans Sebald Lautensack, who as ‘Kaiserlicher Maj<estät> Antiquitetenabconterfetter’—i.e. ‘draftsman of antiquities of his Majesty the Emperor’—provided the illustrations. The Imperial Historiographer, Dr Wolf- gang Lazius, was responsible for the scholarly commentary and supervised the project. The final responsibility of the project probably rested with Ferdinand’s Oberstkammerer, Martin de Guzmán.21 19 On Truchseß, see Overbeeke 1994. Agustín’s report to Panvinio on the German libraries he had seen in Agustín 1980, p. 290–291. 20 This and the following based on the letter Strada presented in person to Ferdinand i dur- ing his visit to Nuremberg [DOCS. 1558-02-12; see appendix 3a] and his letters to Ferdinand [DOC. 1558-02-21<a>] and to his Oberstkammerer Martín de Guzman [1558-02-21<b>, see appendix 3a]. 21 Some of the relevant documentation summarized in Kenner 1902.