Page - 446 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 9446 labyrinth may have looked something like the one illustrated by Hans Vrede- man de Vries [Fig. 9.20] and it was particularly noted by early visitors.24 The outer garden was divided in two sections separated by a moat or canal of three to four paces wide, which at the time of Bongars’ visit still was to be lined 24 An eleven-year old Czech noble, Ladislav Velen z Žerotína, visited the garden with his tutor on 13 July 1590, and described it in his diary, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Cod. Regin. Lat. 613, fol. 6r–7 r, as cited in Lietzmann 1987, p. 44 and n. 12: ‘There are most beautiful buildings, long and high courtyards [“atria”] adorned with most high columns of white stone; an ample stable underground and some fishponds within the walls; foun- tains constructed of precious English alabaster; towers covered in copper and adorned with various paintings and statues. In one of the towers is a very deep well, from which water is carried in some hundres of buckets, attached to a long chain, up to a very high place, built to be used for baths, and is there poured into a big cistern similar to a well. In the gardens the arms [“insignia”] of his Imperial Majesty, of all the Electors and of the first Princes [of the Holy Roman Empire] are depicted in all their colours by means of various flowers. There is also a maze [“Labyrinthus”] which it is not easy to get out of without making mistakes. From a storeroom [“cella”] an underground corridor [“cuniculus”] leads into the Castle [“in Arcem”] in Vienna [= the Hofburg], which is a whole mile away <…> At lunch we went to Ebersdorf, half a mile under beautiful trees; there we saw the castle, lions, some other bears of stupendous size, and two tigers’. Figure 9.22 Johann Adam Delsenbach, Das Neugebäude: Ein Kayserl: Lust-Haus, bird’s-eye view from the north-east; engraving after a design by Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach, 1715.