Page - 524 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 10524 10.4 Jan Šembera Černohorský z Boskovic and Bučovice Castle Just as Strada had business dealings—’Kundschaft’—with Vilém z Rožmberk he had business dealings with one of the principal noblemen in Moravia, Jan Šembera Černohorský z Boskovic (1543–1597). Strada spent several months at the end of 1583 and the beginning of 1584 at the latter’s newly built country seat at Bučovice, near Slavkov (Austerlitz) not far from the Moravian capital Brno, ‘meiner geschäffte halben’—that is, for business reasons.14 On the basis of the notes of an archivist of the early nineteenth century, it has been assumed that a first estimate of the cost—and thus probably also a plan or design for this building—had already been made in 1567 by Pietro Ferrabosco; if so, that plan was executed by the Brno architect Pietro Gabri only in the 1570s, whereas the last section, the south wing, was only begun in 1579, after a change in plan doubtless due to lack of funds [Figs. 10.12–10.13; 10.21].15 The west wing carries a stone with the date 1581, and by the time Strada was at Bučovice the windows were being glazed. As Lietzmann has pointed out, this strongly suggests that Strada was advis- ing Jan Šembera z Boskovic on its interior decoration. The ground floor of the west wing includes a suite of five modestly-sized but quite sumptuous rooms decorated with painted panels, partly painted on wooden panels, partly onto the plaster, set within stucco frames surrounded by painted grotesques, the 14 We only know of this long visit because Strada was taken dangerously ill, and had himself carried to Brno for medical attention, where he drafted the first version of his will in April of 1584: Docs. 1584-1584-04-30; the definitive version of the will made up in Vienna on July 1st of the same year, Doc. 184-07-01. Cf. Jansen 1987, pp. 16 and 21, n. 71; Lietzmann 1987, pp.  133–134. 15 On Bučovice, see Krčalová 1969; Krčalová 1979; Vacková 1979; Hubala 1983; Hubala 1983; Renaissance in Böhmen, pp. 154–163; Lietzmann 1987, pp. 133–134 and 156–160. Figures 10.12–10.13 The castle at Bučovice: west- or garden front and courtyard.