Page - 322 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 5322 122 Or isn’t it? The actual records refer to payments for painting the coat of arms and the ceiling of the passage of the Schweizertor. In view of the strictly correct classical order of the portal itself, I am tempted to attribute its design to Bonifaz Wolmut. Results of recent structural investigations have been published in Holzschuh-Hofer/ Beseler, 2008; Holzschuh-Hofer 2014, pp. 111–122. 123 Kühnel 1958, pp. 272–276; Krčalová 1969; Lietzmann 1987, pp. 107–110. On Wolmut, see Erich Hubala, ‘Palast- und Schlossbau, Villa- und Gartenarchitektur in Prag und Böhmen’, in: Renaissance in Böhmen 1985, pp., 27–114, in particular pp. 105–110. that after his travels with Count Salm, Ferdinand ‘mi diede il carico della fab- rica di Posonia, di Ebersdorff et finalmente del castello qui in Vienna’: though this does not necessarily mean that he was the only architect employed on these projects, it does suggest that he was the most important one, and that in the preceding decade he had been acting supervisor of the building activities at the Vienna Hofburg, the Imperial residence at Pressburg and the castle of Kaiserebersdorf just outside Vienna. The best preserved example of his work is probably the Schweizertor of the Vienna Hofburg of 1552 [Figs. 5.81–5.82].122 In the 1560s he would moreover be employed in inspecting and designing fortifications both in Vienna itself and in Hungary, and supervising their construction. His contribution to the Imperial projects was quite considerable, and he was probably the leading architect at the Imperial court and one of the few to be employed both in Vienna and in Prague. Already in 1556 he was ennobled by Ferdinand i and his services continued to be highly regarded, if Rudolf ii granted him, two months after Maximilian ii’s death, no less than two thousand Thaler in order to buy himself a house.123 Figure 5.81 Vienna, Hofburg: the Schweizertor, 1552. Figure 5.82 Pietro Ferrabosco, ceiling decorations of the Schweizertor.