Page - 595 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

595The Musaeum: Its Contents Figure ��.�4 Friedrich Sustris and Carlo Pallago, Decoration of a room in the Fugger- haus, Augsburg (1569–1573). Figure ��.�5 Bust of Marcus Aurelius, Imperial Chamber, Bučovice castle (ca 1583). Signore of Guastalla and Duke of Amalfi.45 We know from Stopio’s correspon- dence with Hans Jakob Fugger that Strada had these made to be placed ‘over the doors and in niches’ in his own house, which was ‘being built in the Italian manner’. This strongly suggests that Strada planned to decorate one or more rooms of his studio or Musaeum in a manner reminiscent of the room in the Fugger house in Augsburg that was commissioned at about this time by Hans Fugger, Hans Jakob’s nephew, and executed after designs by Friedrich Sustris and Carlo Pallago [Fig. 12.14]. A similar use was made of stucco busts in the Imperial Chamber at Bučovice, which can be attributed to Strada, as argued in chapter 10.4, and can be considered as a—probably more sumptuous— reflection of his own studiolo [Figs. 12.15 and above, Figs. 10.17–10.20]. Though not originals, in being high quality casts of the best available Ro- man portrait sculpture, these busts made a strong impression on Strada’s guests and served as inspiration for the artists employed in his projects. They were quite well-known and were coveted by several other collectors: thus at one time Hans Jakob Fugger had expressed his wish to acquire them, and in 1574 his nephew Hans Fugger would make an attempt to buy them, in order to have them cast in bronze to fit inside the niches of his splendid new room. By that time Strada was ready to sell them to Duke Albrecht, who earlier had expressed his interest in them, and Strada thought they could well serve to 45 On Cesare Gonzaga (1536–1575) and his exquisite collection of antiquities, described in Vasari/Milanesi, 6, pp. 489–490, see Brown/Lorenzoni 1984 and Brown/Lorenzoni 1993.