Page - 565 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

565Strada’s Circle This survey of people with whom Strada was in contact and who visited his house is an arbitrary survey, its entries randomly selected by the vicissitudes of time: it should be handled with caution. But given the fact that it is only a minimal selection, the tip of the proverbial iceberg, it provides sufficient evi- dence to conclude that at least during Maximilian’s reign Strada’s house and Musaeum functioned as a meeting point for members of and visitors to the Imperial court who shared some of Strada’s manifold intellectual and artistic interests. Next to the court itself, it provided one of the places suitable to the informal exchange of information and opinions and the occasional relaxation necessary to the efficient dispatch of affairs. To some extent Strada’s ambiguous status must have facilitated this func- tion of his Musaeum: he cannot be easily allocated to any one group of court- iers, diplomats, noblemen, officials, clerics, scholars or artists, though he belonged to most of these to some extent. He was Italian, but also at the same time fully rooted in Germany, through long experience, through his marriage and his contacts. Because of his considerable wealth he was relatively inde- pendent. Though he does occasionally intercede for his contacts, he did not represent any outside interest (except perhaps Hans Jakob Fugger’s) and his faithful service to his Imperial patrons, in particular for Maximilian ii, cannot be doubted. It was his rigorous impartiality and careful treading in the politi- cal and confessional fields that made him fit so well into court life during the reigns of Ferdinand i and Maximilian ii. Figure 11.30 The neo-Latin poet and Imperial diplomat Paulus Melissus, engraving from Boissard’s Icones Quinquaginta Virorum illustrium. Figures 11.31–11.32 Paulus Melissus, Schediasmata poetica, Paris 1586: title page and encomium on Jacopo Strada.