Page - 472 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 9472 Split had a huge influence on the development of the Neoclassical style in the eighteenth century, thanks to the splendid, very detailed documentation that was prepared by the English architect Robert Adam and published in 1764 [Figs. 9.42–9.43; 9.49–9.52, 9.54]. But we know surprisingly little about how far it was known to and perhaps studied by the architects and antiquaries of the Renaissance. However, John White’s suggestion that the Palace inspired the background architecture in Giotto’s frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua is convincing. Two detailed measured drawings dating from middle of the six- teenth century traditionally attributed to Andrea Palladio, providing a plan of Diocletian’s mausoleum and an elevation of its doorway, indicate that its significance was known by that time [Figs. 9.53 and 9.46].65 Serlio illustrated other monuments in Dalmatia, such as the triumphal arch in Pola/Pula. If he also owned material documenting Split, this passed into Strada’s hands with his other manuscript material.66 Apart from the Strada/Serlio connection there are two further ways in which knowledge of Split could have reached Maximilian’s court. In 1553 the 65 Adam 1764; White 1973, pp. 443–445. 66 That holds as well for the copies of Marco Grimani’s drawings in Serlio’s possession re- ferred to above. In view of both Grimani’s and Serlio’s own classical erudition the sugges- tion in Dinsmoor 1942(a), p. 90, that Serlio’s reference to ‘Dacia’ was his own or his scribe’s spelling mistake for ‘Dalmacia’, and that Grimani’s drawings in fact documented Split, rather than any hypothetical Roman ruin in Transylvania, seems unlikely, but it cannot completely be discarded. The mistake might have been the printer’s: the description fits Split like a glove. Figure 9.44 Martino Rota, detail of a map of Spalato (Split) and its countryside, 1570. Figure 9.46 Anonymous draughtsman (Andrea Palladio?), design of a doorway in Diocle- tian’s palace at Split, mid-sixteenth century (London, riba). Figure 9.45 Martino Rota, engraved portrait of Antun Vrančić, Imperial Ambassador in Constantinople, afterwards Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate of Hungary; ca 1570.