Page - 355 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

355Projects for Emperor Ferdinand i 6.5 The Stallburg By the time the Tanzhaus was constructed Strada had already demonstrated his knowledge and competence as an architect, reason why Ferdinand instructed the Hofkammer on 31 January 1560 that he had formally assumed him as ‘ainem paumaister, bey unnsern gebewen alhier’, at an annual salary of 2oo Gulden. So Strada was particularly expected to contribute to the Emperor’s projects in Vienna, chiefly the Hofburg, and this is confirmed by his appearance in a list of architects engaged on the Hofburg of 1562.25 Since Strada’s salary was similar to that of other architects active in Vienna, Hilda Lietzmann concluded ratio- nally that his task will not have remained limited to such occasional advice. She is the first to explicitly attribute to Strada the design of the Vienna Stall- burg, the biggest single commission realized for the Emperor in the 1560s.26 Though it was an Imperial commission, it appears that Ferdinand delegated its supervision to his eldest son, King Maximilian, for whose use the building was intended. So it should be considered among Maximilian’s earliest architectural commissions, as it certainly is the best preserved one, and it is of particular relevance for a better understanding of his patronage.27 25 DOCS. 1560-31-01 and 1562-00-00. 26 Lietzmann 1987, pp. 113–114. 27 Holzschuh-Hofer/Grün 2014 gives a complete survey of the building history of the Stallburg and an interpretation of its architecture. That Maximilian took the principal Figures 6.�7–6.�8 Detail of Fig. 6.17, compared to a Corinthian capital from the triumphal arch at Pola (Dalmatia), woodcut from Serlio’s Terzo Libro, Venice 1544.