Page - 204 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 4204 I should not omit telling you that in Vienna I found Strada already there, having a row with Volfango Lazio about that book of the medals of the Emperor, and he had brought his wife and household with him.26 4.2.3 Wolfgang Lazius It is not surprising that Strada was at loggerheads with Wolfgang Lazius. Lazius (1514–1565) [Fig. 4.8 and 4.10] was a respected doctor who belonged to a prominent Vienna family: his mother was a sister of the Vienna Bürgermeis- ter and Imperial Bausuperintendent Hermes Schallautzer. Already at the age of twenty-two he had been lecturing at Vienna University, where he was appointed professor of medicine in 1541. But his principal interest was regional history: his first publication in this field was a history of his native city, published by Opori- nus in 1546.27 In 1547 Ferdinand appointed him Imperial Historiographer, and provided the means to conduct research into the history of the Domus Austriae and its territories, and to collect written sources for this. Lazius had already been hunting for manuscripts before this commission; now he undertook extensive travels to obtain materials, first in Austria proper, later also in Switzerland, Bavaria and in Vorderösterreich, the Habsburg possessions in south- western Germany and Alsace. He published a catalogue of his finds, which included seventy-one unknown manuscript sources, forty-three of which would find their way into the second volume of Conrad Gesner’s Bibliotheca Universalis. He drew upon these sources for his own research, which resulted in no less than twenty-five publications printed between 1546 and 1564.28 These included editions of some of the texts he had found and an important book on the mi- gration of the Germanic peoples in the late Roman Empire, as well as several maps of the Austrian territories. Lazius’ intellectual standing was recognized by his colleagues, who elected him repeatedly as Dean and as Rector of Vienna University, and his political acumen was sufficiently esteemed by his Imperial patron to earn him membership of the Reichshofrat, the Imperial Aulic Coun- cil. His high standing was reflected in the house belonging to his family, the Lazenhof, which is still standing more or less as he rebuilt it, and which housed his library and collection [Fig. 4.9]. It is perfectly understandable that such a prominent scholar did not take kindly to criticism from someone like Strada, criticism the more painful 26 DOC. 1558-06-11. 27 Vienna Austriae: Rerum Viennensium Commentarii in quatuor libros distincti, Basel (Opo- rinus) 1546. On Lazius, see Horawitz 1883; Mayr 1894; on his controversy with Strada, see Von Busch 1973, pp. 199–201; Louthan 1997, pp. 27–42. 28 Stummvoll 1968, p. 65–66.