Page - 616 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter ��6�6 Vittoria and the painters Tintoretto and Titian—it is very unlikely that he would not also have had some contact with the third member of Venice paint- erly triumvirate, Paolo Veronese. Though a direct connection between Strada and Veronese is not docu- mented, a list of works of art that Strada at some point in time offered to the Bavarian court included a set of two huge allegories with an Imperial theme attributed to that master. Their inscriptions, mentioned in the text, allow the identification of these two paintings with Veronese’s Wisdom and Strength and The Choice between Virtue and Vice, both now in the Frick Collection in New York, which suggests that these two paintings may have been commissioned by Strada, either for himself, or on behalf of some more exalted patron [Figs.  12.33 and 12.34].90 To date this list, preserved in the Munich Libri Antiquitatum, has been chief- ly discussed by scholars studying Veronese’s two Frick allegories.91 It is not in Strada’s hand, but since it appears to be written in the hand of a secretary also 90 I am very grateful to Duncan Bull to have drawn my attention to this and to have provided me with the relevant documentation, as well as made me profit from his expertise in the field. Bull has treated the issue in his recent catalogue entry of the Titian portrait (Bull 2009a, pp. 211–213). 91 Conveniently summarized in Salomon 2006, pp. 20–24; in particular notes 85–89. Figures ��.33–��.34 Paolo Veronese, Wisdom and Strength and The Choice between Virtue and Vice; New York, Frick Collection.