Page - 528 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 10528 whose links with Bučovice are questionable in any case.19 At first sight this is an attractive proposition: Bučovice is one of the most carefully designed Italianate mansions in the Habsburg dominions [Figs. 10.12–10.13 and 10.21]. Its lay-out clearly represents an early version of the ‘palazzo in fortezza’, that is a manor house designed on a plan or protected by outworks that imitate modern, Italianate fortification, such as those planned by Antonio da Sangallo around the Farnese villa at Caprarola and illustrated in various versions in Ser- lio’s Sesto Libro.20 It had already inspired other castles in Bohemia, notably Nelahozeves (Mühlhausen), built from 1553 onward on the banks of the Vltava north of Prague for Florian Griespek von Griespach (1509–1588), secretary of the Bohemian Chamber.21 At Nelahozeves the corner towers of the house it- self are shaped as bastions, that is, the castle itself was planned as a fortress; in other versions, such as Bučovice and, slightly later, at ViIém z Rožmberk’s country house Kratochvíle [Fig. 10.11], a more straightforward manor house and its garden is set within an enclosure protected by a curtain wall and bas- tions at the corners and surrounded by a moat. 19 It is not clear whether the lost documents reported by the Liechtenstein archivist actu- ally mentioned Ferrabosco’s name. 1567, when Jan Šembera was only twenty-four years old, seems rather early for the huge project as was finally realized: (copies of) documents recording building activities from 1575 and 1579 have been preserved, and its main fabric seems only to have been finished by 1583. It is perhaps more likely that Bučovice was built according to plans made after 1572, when Jan Šembera’s elder brother Albrecht died with- out issue, and he became the head of his illustrious family (of which he also would be the last male representative). Krčalová 1969, pp. 183–188, sums up Ferrabosco’s documented activities, exclusively imperial commissions, in which he was very strenuously occupied (both in military and civil architecture; in 1566 and 1567, when he would have made the plans for Bučovice, he was chiefly occupied with fortifications in Hungary ). One wonders whether he would have time and occasion to work for private patrons. 20 On the palazzo in fortezza, see Frommel 1999. The citadel of Jülich was one of the earli- est versions north of the Alps, though it is perhaps not quite representative of the type, since here the citadel is a very serious, complete and very up to date fortress. Serlio’s relevant projects in the Munich ms. of the Sesto Libro, bsb-hs, Cod. Icon. 189, ff. 16v–18r: ‘Della casa del principe illustre a modo di fortezza’ (an Italianate version of his design for Ancy-le-Franc); idem, ff. 18v–19r; ff. 25v–27r: ‘Della casa del principe illustrissimo per fare alla campagna’; ff. 27v–29r.: ‘Della casa del principe Tiranno per far fuori alla campagna’; ff. 29v.–31r.: ‘Della casa del principe tiranno di un altra forma’ (a variation on the Villa Farnese at Caprarola). Even more or less cosmetic fortifications such as that at Bučovice did have a practical defensive function, witness the fact that sometime during the Thirty Years’ War the house withstood a siege by a marauding Protestant army (which burnt the village instead). 21 Griespek was a very avant-garde patron of architecture, on his two beautiful creations at Kaceřov and Nelahozeves, cf. Erich Hubala, ‘Die Schloßbauten des Florian Griespeck in Katzerow und Mühlhausen’, in Renaissance in Böhmen 1985, pp. 63–105.