Page - 488 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 9488 the Peristylium at Split, their capitals carry blocks of an (abbreviated) entab- lature, consisting of frieze and cornice. These arcades are the closest antique parallels to the Neugebäude’s colonnade of coupled columns carrying arches. 9.9.3 Serlio: The Tomb of the Kings of Jerusalem Finally there is one more possible ancient—though perhaps not antique— source of inspiration for the Neugebäude, and for one of its most extraordinary features, the immense grotto in the basement of the western pavilion of the main building [Figs. 9.76–9.79]. Maximilian was certainly aware of the grot- toes constructed in Italian gardens, and he had obtained drawings and even three-dimensional models of a few of these. But the plan of a subterraneous tomb in Jerusalem, which Serlio included in his Third Book [Fig. 9.75], is suf- ficiently close to suggest that it may have influenced Maximilian’s concept as well [Fig. 9.76 and 9.77]. It is a not very regularly shaped room consisting of a central space the roof of which is carried by heavy piers in solid rock left stand- ing. This is surrounded by exedra-like spaces the walls of which are pierced by shallow niches or capellette which were ‘places where they buried the Kings of Jerusalem, as was told me by the Patriarch of Aquileia’. So again Serlio based his design on a drawing by Marco Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia, who, perhaps repeating a local tradition, interpreted it as the tomb where a number of the Kings of Jerusalem had been buried. From Serlio’s description it is not clear whether he understood this as the Jewish, Biblical Kings of Judah or Israel, or the Crusader Kings of Jerusalem.87 87 ‘e queste capellette erano luoghi, dove si sepellivano i Re di Gierusalemme, per quanto mi disse il Patriarca di Aquileia’. The passage is discussed by Daly Davis 2011, who interprets Figure 9.77 The central cupola of the grotto in the west pavilion of the Neugebäude. Figure 9.75 Sebastiano Serlio, plan of a tomb of the Kings of Jerusalem, from the Terzo Libro, 1544. Figure 9.76 Plan of the grotto in the west pavilion of the Neugebäude, reconstruction Man- fred Wehdorn.