Page - 208 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 4208 <…>better to learn in time what I have, with the grace of God and with great effort and expense, been able to master in the field of marble antiquities and medals; and neither does he [= Lazius] realize that, thinking to do me an injury, in fact he does me an outstanding favour, demon- strating in his writings to Your Majesty and to all the world, how much I know and am capable of in my profession; in which I have not only con- tented myself with identifying the names and recognizing the portraits of the people of Antiquity, but also have succeeded with my efforts over time, to be able not only to draw them on paper, but also to model them both in gold and [other] metals, and to carve them in marble. Moreover Strada slyly suggests that, if Lazius really considered as demeaning the craft and the expertise of the goldsmith, it was hardly consistent with ei- ther the duty he owed his Imperial patrons or with common civility, to indi- cate Strada, ‘known to the world as a servant of both His Imperial and of Your Majesties as Jacomo Strada Antiquario’, with that term, for ‘everyone knows that the honour and shame of the servant reflect in equal measure upon the honour and shame of his master’. Strada’s letter to Maximilian was an effective act of revenge, since he could tell Fugger that: His Majesty the King was quite annoyed that the said Lazio had accused me in this manner, and I believe that it has gained him little credit with His Majesty; and neither with many other learned men, not having been able to defend himself, or even having known how to; because against reason [mere] excuses have no value. Maximilian had in fact commissioned one of his courtiers, one ‘Signor Piller’, to mediate between the contestants, and Lazius had retracted by stating that he had intended no offence, and that he was willing to have his pamphlet re- printed (doubtless meaning without the offending passage). But Strada told Fugger that he was not ready to forgive Lazius, ‘o per tardo o per tempo’, and that he rather hoped that the latter would publish the original version, so that he would have an excuse to respond publicly. ‘Mon Signor d’ Agria’—a new friend, the learned Croatian-Hungarian diplomat prelate Antun Vrančić (Anto- nius Verantius, Antal Verancsics; 1504–1573), at the time Bishop of Eger/ Erlau and Imperial Legate to the Council of Trent—had advised Strada not to ap- ply to the King, but to respond publicly by printing an apology ‘or rather an invective, and have it printed just as he had printed that broadsheet against