Page - 266 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 5266 25 Rudolf 1995. It was preceded in 1992 the Vienna dissertation of Katharina Podewils, Kaiser  Maximilian ii. (1564–1576) als Mäzen der bildenden Künste und der Goldschmie- dekunst, which collected and systematically presented a huge quantity of source material on Maximilian’s patronage of the visual arts, but has remained unpublished. I am grateful to the author to have made a copy available to me. 26 Crato 1577, p.27: ‘<…> extruere suburbanas quasdam domos et hortos, in quibus sua manu arbores posteritati profuturas inserere et disponere solebat <…>’, as quoted in Lippmann 2006–07, p. 148. 27 Discussed in detail in Lietzmann 1987, pp. 166–168; Gelder 2011. Of particular relevance was the illuminating overview of Maximilian’s pa- tronage of the visual arts and his collecting activities presented by Karl Rudolf in 1995.25 Based on a careful reading of the available sources and a comparison of Maximilian’s activities with those of his cousin, Philip ii, this provides a valuable synthesis of the field. Yet a real understanding of Maximilian’s patron- age will only be possible when a much more complete biography, using the mass of his as yet unpublished correspondence, has thrown more light upon his personal interests and tastes, and has placed these in the context of his time and his very cosmopolitan environment. Until then it is only possible to voice intuitions as to the possible significance of the disparate individual in- stances of patronage we know of. The first serious attempt to get some grip on the architectural activity at the Imperial court at the time of Maximilian ii was made by Hilda Lietzmann in her invaluable monograph on the Neugebäude of 1987. Though the lack of sufficient and sufficiently coherent documented facts makes it very difficult to come to definitive conclusions, Maximilian’s patronage of architecture was sufficiently important to merit specific mention in Crato’s funeral oration. Significantly Crato mentions it literally in one breath with his interest in the laying out of gardens and the practice of horticulture: <…> he had built certain houses and gardens in the outskirts of town, in which for the good of posterity he used to dispose and plant the trees with his own hands.26 Maximilian’s passion for gardening, for plants, for botany, and more in general for natural history is well-known, and is best exemplified by the preferential treatment given to Carolus Clusius, whom he commissioned to organize a bo- tanical garden.27 Maximilian’s interest extended beyond the vegetable world, since the wildlife in his gardens and parks was deemed as important as its veg- etation, including aviaries, fishponds, and even cages or ‘Zwinger’ for exotic and ferocious animals, including lions and the celebrated elephant, named