Page - 350 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 6350 On the other hand the design as a whole seems antithetical to Strada’s ap- proach: it seems pasted together of unrelated bits, its proportions and its ar- chitectural detail are old-fashioned, and seem Northern rather than Italian, in particular the puny lesenes separating the historical scenes [Fig. 6.3] which Colin later so rightly replaced by more substantial pilasters [Fig. 6.4]. But even if Strada did not contribute to the actual design of the tomb, as a member of the committee he may nevertheless have influenced the result. The decision to opt for marble rather than for bronze reliefs must have been chiefly due to him, as an acknowledged expert of classical antiquities, includ- ing sculpture. Being Italian, and having travelled widely in his country, he was moreover well equipped to contribute to the detailed instructions given to Ar- nold Abel where to look for the right sort of marble: eventually it would be imported from Carrara.18 6.3 Interior Decoration In deliberations such as those about the tomb for Maximilian i Strada doubt- less illustrated his point of view by means of the graphic material he had brought together. It is quite tempting to see an example of such influence in the design of the ceiling of the grosse Taflstube already mentioned above, which must have been realized shortly before 1560. In Chapter 5 we have seen that Strada was closely involved in the conception of the ceiling of the Goldene Saal in the Hofburg at Innsbruck, which was put together and painted by the painter Domenico da Pozzo in the second half of 1559. It can be assumed that Strada would have played a similar role in the cre- ation of the ceiling of the Vienna Taflstube, which was probably realized at about this same time [Fig. 6.13]. It is interesting to compare this ceiling with what we know of that of the Goldene Saal and with the slightly earlier similar ceiling in the ‘Ritterstube’ in the Vienna Hofburg, dating from ca 1550–1551 and possibly designed by Ferrabosco, who was paid for painting it [Fig. 6.11]. In these two cases the actual beams and wooden floors of the chambers above were already in situ, and the ‘poden’ had to be attached to the underside of the beams: it therefore consisted of a relatively shallow system of geometri- cally arranged wooden ribs framing polygonal compartments, the whole se- cured onto a surface of wooden boards fastened to the underside of the beams. An impression of technique and appearance of such ceilings is provided by a 18 Schönherr 1890, pp. 207–208.