Page - 356 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 6356 The construction of a new residential complex was very necessary, since the Hofburg proper offered far too little space to house the various mem- bers of Ferdinand’s family and their households according to their rank. One solution was the acquisition, in 1559, of the house of Count Salm, opposite the Lustgarten, on the location of the present Palais Pallavicini on the Josefsplatz, as a residence for the Emperor’s youngest son, Archduke Charles. A more rig- orous solution, the construction of a completely new building, was decided upon to house Ferdinand’s successor, King Maximilian, or more particularly, to house his horses: as we have seen, his own apartment was located in the so called Kindertrakt, immediately adjoining his father’s chambers. The use of the ground floor to house the Imperial stables gave the new building its name ‘Stallburg’, which it still bears today, just as it still functions as the principal stable for the beautiful white Lipizaner horses of the Spanische Hofreitschule, Vienna’s justly famous Spanish Riding School. But it also housed various other facilities—such as a kitchen, a coach house, the court’s upholsterer’s workshop—as well as commodious lodgings, which were probably reserved for higher-ranking members of the Imperial household and for important guests. In fact Hans Wincklmair, the secretary of Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria, complained that ‘it is such a lordly dwelling, that many say that it is a pity that His Majesty has it called like that’. So it does not surprise that the Duke asked to be housed in it, when he came to Vienna in 1571 to attend the wedding of his daughter Maria to Archduke Charles.28 The new building was constructed on a site between the Salm House and the church of St Michael, immediately opposite the Lustgarten. This site was cleared for the purpose, which made it possible to realize a huge residential building—its surface is about as large as the Hofburg proper—and to give this a regular appearance [Fig. 6.19].29 Compared with other sections of the Hof- burg complex, it has preserved its original structure more or less intact. It is a huge, regular building, consisting of three residential wings around a rectan- gular courtyard, surrounded by arcaded loggias on each floor, of seven bays on the short side, and nine bays on the long sides. The fourth wing, closing off the courtyard towards the former Lustgarten, is only as deep as the loggia initiative is clear from an undated letter to his confidant Adam von Dietrichstein ( cited p. 295). In view of the lack of concrete archival documents, Holzschuh-Hofer does not accept Lietzmann’s attribution to Strada, but neither does she credit the executive architects, Pietro Ferrabosco and Antonio Continelli, with the actual design (p. 304, and n. 1608). 28 ‘ain so schöne herrliche hausung ist, dos vil sprechen, sei schad, das Jr Mt also nennen lassen’; cited in Holzschuh-Hofer/Grün 2014, pp. 302–303. 29 Ibid., pp. 294–295; Kühnel 1956, p. 259. It was while digging the foundations Schallautzer found the Roman inscriptions which were published by Wolfgang Lazius.