Page - 320 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 5320 116 These architects discussed in Kühnel 1958 and Kühnel 1959. On Landshut, see above, Ch. 2.3; the identification of De Preda with the supervising master at Landshut was first pro- posed in Sarzi 1988. 117 Renaissance in Böhmen 1985, p. 207. these among the architects and master-masons regularly employed at court. Some of these had been working for his father and great-grandfather since de- cades, such as the learned and versatile Moravian Hans Tscherte/ (Jan Čert; † 1552), the friend of Dürer and father-in-law of the painter Jakob Seisenegger, who had settled in Vienna in 1509, or the master-mason Benedikt Kölbl († after 1569). Kölbl must have been a very competent master-builder, if he was allowed to succeed Tscherte as chief architect in Vienna in the face of the criticism that he could neither read nor write. Among the Italian masters we find Sigis- mund de Preda (from Pisa, died probably ca 1549), who is first documented in Vienna in 1543, and is possibly identical with the ‘Maister Sigmund’ who had supervised the building of the Stadtresidenz at Landshut for Duke Ludwig x of Bavaria, shortly before; and the Milanese Francesco da Pozzo (ca. 1501/2– after 1558) who had entered Ferdinand’s service in 1538.116 In Prague some oth- er masters were working, such as Paolo della Stella, the architect and possibly the designer of the model for the Belvedere, the summer palace Ferdinand had built for his consort, Queen Anna, in the gardens of the Hradčany. His two as- sistants Giovanni Battista and Giovanni Maria Aostalli were members of one of the dynasties of masons from Northern Italy that would remain so typical for the history of architecture in Central Europe. They were responsible for the completion of Ferdinand’s Belvedere, and—with Giovanni Lucchesi—for the construction of Hvězda, Archduke Ferdinand’s star-shaped hunting-lodge mentioned earlier.117 A central position was occupied by Hermes Schallautzer (1503–1561), a member of an old patrician family with a strong political position in Vienna. After the 1529 siege of Vienna he was put in charge of the new fortifications and in 1544–1545 functioned as Proviantmeister, responsible for the provision- ing of the troops fighting the Turks in Hungary. Doubtless he demonstrated his talents in logistics, management and organisation, for a year later he became a member of Ferdinand’s Council and was subsequently appointed Bausuper- intendent, bearing the final executive responsibility for the ‘landesfürstlichen Gebäude’ in Vienna, that is both the fortifications and all other construction work undertaken by command of Ferdinand, such as the extensions of the Hofburg. This was a position which had not existed before, and would not be renewed after Schallautzer’s death. It was primarily a managing and coordinat- ing task: it included the recruitment of suitable masons and the acquisition of building materials for, as well as the financial administration of the current