Page - 213 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

213Tasks at the Imperial Court arcades, prepared by yet another of the Imperial Baumeister, Benedikt Kölbl, which was discussed and approved by this ad hoc committee.44 In the first half of July 1559 Schallautzer again asked Strada and Ferrabosco to give advice, this time on the planned decoration of the ceiling of the great hall of the Hofburg at Innsbruck, a project which will be discussed in some detail below. On the 27th of April of the following year, Schallautzer asked him again to participate in a similar meeting: with Ferrabosco and the Italian sculptor Natale Veneziano Strada was to discuss the plans for the funeral monument of Emperor Maximilian i in the Hofkirche at Innsbruck, which was specially built to receive it. The committee was to prepare a Gutachten, an advice, on the shape of the tomb proper, which was to be placed at the centre of the group of over life-size bronze statues of Habsburg ‘gesibt [und] freundschaft’—ancestors and allies—which had first been commissioned, fifty years earlier, by Maximil- ian himself. Its deliberations likewise will be discussed below.45 The tomb was the principal and most prestigious dynastic commission un- dertaken by Ferdinand i; so Strada’s participation in the committee demon- strates considerable confidence in his artistic expertise. It is this confidence that, on 31 January of 1560, had motivated Ferdinand to formally appoint Stra- da as one of his architects, specifically for the projects under construction in Vienna: Graciously considering the experience and competence we have ob- served our faithful and dear Jacob Strada to possess in the matter of building, we have graciously appointed him as an architect for our build- ings here [= in Vienna].46 Strada’s activities as such are attested by the presence of his name in a docu- ment of 1562 listing the names of the architects involved in restructuring the Hofburg, but no information on his share in the work has been preserved.47 44 Grün 2014, p. 242, n. 1172; on the Hofspital, see below, Ch. 6.1. 45 Ch. 6.2.; the memorial referred to was communicated to Ferdinand by his architect, Hermes Schallautzer, doubtless also present at the meeting; it is printed in Schönherr 1890, p. 265–266. 46 DOC. 1560-01-31 [HKA, Gedenkbuch Nr. 86, fol. 44 verso; Lietzmann 1987 p. 113, note 73]. 47 DOC. 1560-01-31; but he had in fact already been awarded a first payment of his annual sal- ary over 1559 (DOC. 1559-12-20), and in a note to the Emperor Benedikt Kölbl had referred to him and Ferrabosco as ‘Ihrer Majestäts Baumeister’ (HKA, NÖHA W 61/C59, fol 172 r, cited in Lietzmann 1987, p 113, n 71). The list of architects cited in Kühnel 1959 p. 320 (HKA, NÖHA, W 61/A2, fol 304 v; cited Lietzmann 1987, p. 113, n. 73).