Page - 408 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 8408 for the treatment of both long and short walls, but which doubles as a section through the width of the hall showing its proposed vaulting system. Any inter- pretation of the drawing should take this into account. A comparison with the relevant section of the ground plan [Fig. 8.21] shows how precisely the interior elevation conforms to the ground plan. It also makes clear that the piers articulating the walls and carrying the vault consist of coupled, disengaged Doric columns, rather than engaged columns or pilasters. These columns carry a full entablature which is continued within the window niches. Its frieze includes circular and semi-circular decorative elements pos- sibly intended as an abbreviated reference to the metopes of the Doric order, but more likely to be read as medallions, to be executed as plaques in semi- precious stones or intended to contain small stucco reliefs.40 The piers serve as supports for the vault, which is of a quite conventional Italian type, the best known example of which is doubtless the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It consists of a slightly depressed or elliptical barrel vault, cut into at right angles by lower and narrower purely semi-circular savoury vaults or ‘Stichkappe’. These vaults create the window niches topped by correspond- ingly semi-circular lunettes over each window bay, which implies that the in- terior facades can be read as arcades. It is more than likely that the end-walls 40 A comparable use of precious stones is found in in the Palazzo Grimani, but it is any case a conventional type of decoration in Lombardy and the Veneto; an execution as portrait medallions based on coin-types is unlikely, because most of the plaques are in fact semi- circular, but they might be intended to contain small stucco reliefs as in similar medal- lions in the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, for instance in the Loggia dei Marmi, and in the Loggia di Davide of the Palazzo del Te (cf above, Figs. 8.7–8.8 and 8.22). Figure 8.20 Jacopo Strada, design for the Munich Antiquarium, interior eleva- tion; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung.