Page - 365 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

365Projects for Emperor Ferdinand i decide whether he provided a fully worked-out set of drawings to his patrons, who had them more or less faithfully executed by one of their professional ‘Baumaister’ such as Ferrabosco, or whether he merely helped a local archi- tect to develop a more up-to-date design, providing sketches, making available his documentation and commenting on this, and coaching him in the actual design process. In view of the collective effort documented for other projects at court, to my mind the most likely scenario is that Strada did provide a basic concept for the building and detailed designs for the architectural and orna- mental details, and perhaps even a three-dimensional model. These were then discussed in one or more consultations with his patron and his immediate col- leagues, and subsequently modified according to his patron’s wishes and to suit the technical and practical requirements posited by the Bausuperintendent and the Baumaister who were to execute it. Precedents for such a collective procedure are the various committees deciding on the ceiling of the Goldene Saal and the tomb of Maximilian i in Innsbruck, and the Hofspital in Vienna, discussed above.41 Its practical function obscures the fact that the Stallburg was the largest and most splendid residential building the Habsburgs had constructed ex novo within the walls of Vienna in the sixteenth century. It seems likely that the plans gestating for this new building in the late 1550s provided the principal 41 Cf. above, Ch. 4.3.3.; 6.1. and 6.2. The use of models is documented for the Hofspital as well as for the Porcia Schloss. Figure 6.35 Giuliano da Sangallo, cortile of the Palazzo Scala, Florence, mid 1470s. Figure 6.36 Attributed to Giovanni Battista Bertani, facade of the house house at Via Carlo Poma 22, Mantua, ca 1560.