Page - 553 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

553Strada’s Circle Hofburg and the Landhaus, the proud new building erected for the Estates of Lower Austria, this quarter soon became the most exclusive residential quarter of town. One of the earliest of the new aristocratic dwellings, in a situation that made it quite conspicuous to anyone walking along the top of the city wall, and built in an exclusive, avant-garde style, Strada’s own house must have excited his neighbours’ interest. Even had Strada not been as eager to show off his prized possessions as Titian’s portrait suggest, he would never have refused hospitality to the higher-ranking courtiers, who could so easily influence his own position at court. That some of these high functionaries indeed shared Strada’s interests and patronised his work is documented in the cases of the Hofkammerpräsident Reichard Strein von Schwarzenau and the Imperial Gen- eral Lazarus von Schwendi, both intellectuals and erudite authors as well as men of action [Figs. 10.33 and 11.14].10 The same would be true for some of the visitors to the court—an example is the Milanese nobleman Prospero Visconti, himself a learned and assiduous collector, and active as agent and advisor on artistic matters of the Bavarian court. He visited Strada’s house when he came to Vienna in attendance on Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria during the wedding 10 In 1573 Strein promoted Strada’s attempt to obtain funding for some of his publications [Doc. 1573-00-00]; in 1577 Strada offered the Grand Duke of Tuscany coloured images from a book with imperial portraits commissioned by Schwendi, to which he was granted ac- cess—probably because he had himself produced it, which he may have found politic not to tell the Grand Duke [Docs. 1577-10-04/C and 1577-10-04/D]. Figure 11.12 Juraj Drašković, Archbishop of Kalocsa and Chancellor of Hungary, lived in Strada’s house. Figure 11.13 Wilhelm iv, Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel, received Strada in Kassel. Figure 11.14 Lazarus von Schwendi, a famous general serving Ferdinand i and Maximilian ii, shared some of Strada’s interests.