Page - 555 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

555Strada’s Circle Chancellor of the Kingdom of Hungary. This Lord is Juraj Drašković, who was Legate at the Council of Trent. He lodges in my house, in the rooms on the upper floor, and also in my house is the Chancery of the Kingdom of Hungary. I also wanted to invite two friars of the Dominican convent, the Lecturer of the University, and the preacher Cittardo, which are all most learned men, in order that the gentleman would have conversation with most learned men, which, besides speaking Italian, are most con- summate in all sciences and branches of study. I believe he would have been most satisfied [with his visit], and that he would have well spent that day.13 We have already met Drašković above [Fig. 11.12; cf. Ch. 7]; the others are more difficult to identify, because it is not clear whether Strada invited two Domini- can friars in addition to the ‘Lettor del Studio’ and the ‘Predicator Cittardo’ or, more likely, that he adds these functions and names merely to specify the two Dominicans. In either case the second certainly was not Ferdinand’s and Maxi- milian’s sympathetic court preacher, Matthias Cithardus, who had died in 1566, but probably the Dominican Konrad Zittardus, who died in 1606 as Provincial superior of his order in South Germany and Austria.14 This is a rare documented instance of the type of entertainment Strada of- fered his educated upper class visitors. Though it records a visit that had not actually taken place, it is valuable in sketching Strada’s own aspirations of his house as a haven of educated discourse, learning, and erudite entertainment, and a place where people from different walks of life could meet for a pleasant and fruitful exchange of ideas. Strada probably cast himself as their generous host, whose urbanity served to put his guests at their ease, and whose wide range of knowledge and interests enabled him to set fruitful topics of conversa- tion, which could moreover be enlivened and illustrated by the inspection of the various materials in his Musaeum. In this he must have been successful, if the letter in which Hubert Languet recommended him to the Elector August of Saxony is to be believed.15 13 Doc. 1581-11-02 (transcription in Appendix A). 14 On Matthias Cithardus, adb, 34, 1892, pp. 423–424, s.v. ‘Sittard, Matthias’; on Konrad, ibi- dem, 45, 1900, pp. 368–369, s.v. ‘Zittardus, Konrad’. It is interesting that Strada, in trouble with the Inquisition led by Dominicans during his visit to Mantua in 1567 (his image and that of his son Paolo had been burnt in effigie in Mantua, ‘come eretici confirmati’ just a few months before the date of this letter), should in Vienna consort with members of the same order. 15 Doc. 1576-09-07: ‘Est iudicio omnium praeclare versatus in iis artibus quas profitetur, ad quod accedit, quod potest sua manu elegantissime exprimere quicquid libet, cuius rei poterit V.C.do facere periculum.’