Page - 502 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 9502 That was certainly the case at the private garden laid out for Maximilian ii’s sister Anna, by her husband Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria in about 1560. Here a quite similar open gallery carried on red marble columns was flanked on one side by a similar Lusthaus. On its first floor this contained a huge and richly decorated banqueting and dancing hall which held up to four hundred people, and which gave access to a promenade on top of the arcade. Its ceiling was painted with mythological scenes by Melchior Bocksberger; adjoining spaces were also richly decorated with inlaid wooden ceilings, and doubtless con- tained some works of art; at a later date its small chapel was provided with an altarpiece by Hans von Aachen.106 It were such models that Maximilian had in mind when planning the Neugebäude. Coupled columns … carrying arches So in themselves the various galleries of the Neugebäude are by no means exceptional. What is exceptional, apart from its huge scale, is the concept of a gallery consisting of arcades carried on freestanding coupled columns [Fig. 9.96]: this can be considered the single most distinctive feature of the Neuge- bäude. The most likely source of inspiration for this is the Loggia di Davide, the central feature of—again—the garden facade of the Palazzo del Te [Fig. 9.95]. Though the rhythmic placement of columns such as in Bramante’s Belve- dere courtyard, and in the serliana derived from it, was quite common in Re- naissance architecture, the use of coupled columns—that is, two columns (or pilasters) placed as close together as possible—was quite rare. The motif was 106 Except for the gallery the complex was demolished early in the nineteenth century, but measured plans and descriptions survive: see Hartig 1933(a), pp. 190–198. Figures 9.95–9.96 The Loggia di Davide of the Palazzo del Te, detail of Fig. 9.90, compared to the arcade of the Neugebäude in situ, drawing by Anton de Moys, 1601.