Page - 228 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 4228 of Archduke Rudolf as King of Hungary.74 The reference is in a letter of 3 Sep- tember 1572 written by the Mantuan envoy, Emilio Stanghellino, to Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. Stanghellino had referred to the preparations for this festival in earlier letters, recording that Maximilian had sent Francesco Gabrino or Caprino, his ‘mozzo da camera’ or groom of the chamber, to Milan to acquire precious fabrics for the costumes. Now he told the Duke that: Our own Strada from Mantua, as antiquary, has been given the charge to have made the costumes, sashes [‘girelli’] and surcoats for the jousts of the most serene princes, which will be made after the model of ancient armour, but they will result to be quite beautiful and rich, the fabrics be- ing fine [cloth of] gold and silver, with very little silk; and they will be trimmed with most beautiful embroidery and gold fringes.75 The splendour of this particular entertainment is documented elsewhere, for instance in Stephanus Pighius’ Hercules prodicius of 1587: a memorial for his pupil, Maximilian ii’s nephew, Prince Karl Friedrich of Cleves, who had par- ticipated in the festival and won several of its prizes. The prince’s entry into the running at the ring of 27 September was singled out by Stanghellino: The prince of Cleves was armed in the manner of the ancient Romans [‘armata all’antica romana’] with costumes so rich in brocades, cloth of gold, embroidery, and with a company of horse completely covered in cloth of gold and silver, and the horsemen dressed so pleasantly and with such elegance, that he rightly obtained the prize. Karl Friedrich and the members of his suite (‘comitatus’) were not the only participants who dressed themselves in classical style. In the same letter Stang- hellino relates the entry of two other of Maximilian’s nephews, the princes Wilhelm and Ferdinand of Bavaria, who presented themselves and their suite in ‘a livery in crimson and white, of brocade and velvet, superbly ornamented and very well accompanied’, under the Ovidian motto Tempus edax rerum: ‘Time, the devourer of all things’. In his description Pighius related that: <…>each and every person’s costume was matched so elegantly to him with colours, symbols and appropriate emblems on shields, taken from 74 An overview of the sources of this festival in Lietzmann 1992, pp. 84–101; contemporary printed description in Solennissime Feste 1572 and Pighius 1587, pp. 183–189; see Lindell 1988; Kaufmann 2010, pp. 180–185. 75 DOC. 1572-09-26 / Venturini 2002, p. 221, no. 102.