Page - 218 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 4218 This appears the more surprising because the dynasty’s patronage in Inns- bruck is quite well documented, in particular the construction, under Ferdi- nand i and Maximilian ii, of the Hofkirche and the mausoleum for Maximilian i, and the restructuring of Ambras castle for Archduke Ferdinand ii of Tirol. Doubtless this is partly due to the professional organization of the Landesr- egierung at Innsbruck, the government of Tirol, which was often involved (and had to pay); its archive has been well preserved. But it is also due to the frequent absence of its princes: the Emperor resided in Vienna, and though Archduke Ferdinand always had a great affection for the Tirol and was its des- ignate ruler, for sixteen years he served as his father’s and brother’s governor of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Every decision of any importance was therefore resolved upon only after epistolary consultation with either the Emperor or with the Archduke himself. For Vienna, as probably for the whole of Lower Austria, such consultation doubtless likewise took place, but in most cases decisions were referred to the Emperor in person, either by those involved themselves or through the media- tion of courtiers or agents. Any minutes of such conversation or written notes of instructions would not have the status of official correspondence, so they would not be registered in the chancery, and the originals, being directed at the individuals concerned rather than to a government office, would not be preserved. This means that crucial information about the genesis of the artistic projects at court, such as the motif for their commission, the considerations determining their iconography and well as those influencing their form and style, and the selection of suitable artists, is almost non-existent.60 The very fact that Strada’s activities at court are so scantily documented strongly suggests that his services belonged to this consultative category. The 60 Only when immediate financial consequences were involved, agreements or decisions would be recorded in writing. Since the Imperial administration—involving a great many authorities—was still far from perfect, such records as preserved are far from complete. The selected excerpts from the sources as published in the Jahrbuch der Kun- sthistorische Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses (JdKS) are a monument of nineteenth-century scholarship. Yet they remain a selection, and many sources have not been taken into consideration: the daunting task of publishing the correspondence of Ferdinand i and Maximilian ii, for instance, has never been undertaken (except for two volumes of Maximilian’s letters to other members of the dynasty, covering less than four years). Publications such as Walter Pass’s Musik und Musiker am Hof Maximilian’s ii. (1980), Hilda Lietzmann’s painstaking monograph on the Neugebäude (1987), Zweder von Martels’s biography of the Imperial envoy Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq (1989) and Karl Rudolf’s comparison between the patronage at the courts of Vienna and Madrid (1995) have shown that detailed research in the Vienna archives can add considerably to our knowledge.