Page - 599 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

599The Musaeum: Its Contents 12.5 Acquisitions of Other Materials in Venice 12.5.1 Miscellanea Apart from the antiques from the Zeno and Bembo collections, a quantity of coins of undefined provenance and his incidental expenses, the final account that Strada presented to Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria mentions a further quan- tity of miscellaneous, non-antique items that he had provided.51 Most of these objects were of relatively minor importance, as can be inferred from their prices, and they are never mentioned in the correspondence. It is possible that Strada had been given carte blanche for acquisitions of this type, but it is more probable that—well aware of the Duke’s and Fugger’s taste and preferences— he bought this type of items on his own account: when his patrons had made their choice after his return to Munich, he would not have found it too difficult to dispose of the remainder elsewhere. Few of these objects are of interest in themselves, but their variety gives an indication of the range of Strada’s competence. They included a number of independent works of art, which we would class among the fine, rather than among the decorative arts: four metal statuettes—probably small bronzes— representing a Victoria, a Jupiter, an unidentified female figure and a rear- ing horse, and some paintings of little value: a Hercules and the portraits of ‘Pope Julius’ and of ‘a Greek woman’. Moreover Strada listed an enigmatic item of no less than three hundred and sixty ducats which he had paid to a mer- chant in Mantua, Guidoto Garotto. This consisted partly of fifty ducats worth of ‘other stones’—perhaps pietre dure or rather antique gems or sculpture fragments—and partly of ‘several paintings’: though unspecified, at three hun- dred and ten ducats these must have been of some importance, and I will come back to them below.52 possible to reconstitute it to a large extent, which would allow a more precise analysis of Strada’s collecting habits and his numismatic practice, and compare them to those of his contemporaries. 51 BHStA-LA 4853, fols. 11–21. The incidental expenses included restoration, packing, storage and transport of the objects, some clothing for Strada and his son Ottavio, who func- tioned as his assistant, and even one ducat ‘<…> den Saal im Palast und zu St. Marco und das Arsenal zu sehen’, i.e. to see (the state rooms of) the Palazzo Ducale, San Marco and the Arsenal (Stockbauer 1874, p. 35). 52 BHStA-LA 4853, fols. 11–21; Stockbauer 1874, p. 33: ‘1 Gemälde mit einem Hercules v.2’. <…> ‘1 Bild Victoria’ <…> ‘1 Bild Jovis’ <…> ‘1 Frauenbild’ <…> ‘1 springendes Pferd’ (all in metal and together priced at 30 ducats); p. 34.: ‘1 Papst Julii Contrefait v 7 f 3 st 10’. <…> ‘1 Gemäl- de einer griechischen Frau v 5’. <…> ‘So habe ich zu Mantua dem Guidoto Garoto, einem Kaufmanne allda, die übrigen Steine bis zu 50 und etliche Gemälde zu bezahlen v 360’.