Page - 349 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

349Projects for Emperor Ferdinand i comparable to the resemblance between the latter and the supporting female in the Visierung for Jamnitzer’s Merkelsche Tafelaufsatz discussed in Chapter 2.5 [Fig. 2.26]. Thus a drawing after the Flora Farnese (Naples) [Figs. 6.7] might have inspired one of Abel’s Cardinal Virtues [Figs. 6.8], in particular because this statue at the time was also interpreted as Spes, or Hope, as is evident from the engraving of the same statue in Giovan Battista de’ Cavallieri’s print se- ries Antiquarum Statuarum Urbis Romae Liber Primus, the earliest version of which is dated 1555–1561 [Figs. 6.9]. Even if this engraving, rather than Strada’s drawing, was Abel’s source, Strada’s collection was still the most likely place for him to have found it.17 But more than antique precept these caryatides suggest the influence of contemporary mannerist examples, in particular French ones such as the caryatides of Goujon’s famous musician’s balcony in the Louvre of 1551 [Fig. 6.10]. Strada’s own interest and expertise and his recent stay in France indicate him as the most likely channel through which such motifs reached the Imperial court. 17 Strada’s drawing in his Antiquarum Statuarum, Vienna, önb-hs, Cod. Min. 21,1, fol.12. On Cavallieri’s print, see the relevant entry in the database Monumenta Rari- ora of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa: http://mora.sns.it/_portale/scheda_fonte .asp?Lang=ITA&GroupId=1&id_txt=2792. Figures 6.7–6.9 Jacopo Strada, drawing after the Flora Farnese (Vienna, Österreichsiche Nationalbibliothek) (6.7) and Giovan Battista Cavallieri’s engraving of the same statue (as Spes) (6.9), compared to the caryatid personifying Hope in Florian Abel’s design for the tomb of Maximilian i (6.8; detail of Fig. 6.3). Figure 6.�0 Jean Goujon, one of the Caryatides of his Tribune des musiciens in the Louvre, Paris 1551.