Page - 636 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 13636 Belisario Vinta, secretary of Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, informing him of his father’s decease a few weeks earlier, and then offering to present some of the effects he had left to the Grand Duke: a numismatic manuscript, dozens of ‘belissime Medaglioni’ and other objects, and he also promises a gift to Vinta himself. Almost as an afterthought, he then continues: We also still have beautiful drawings by the hands of Michel Angelo, Rafael Urbino, Pirin del Vaga, Francesco Parmesano, Julio Romano etc., that my father considered his [greatest] treasure; and to us they are use- less, whereas over there [in Tuscany] they would be prized; and my father had the opportunity to buy them, being in Italy at that time, when these excellent men [‘valenthuomini’] were living.17 There was no immediate response to this offer, and Ottavio did not pursue the matter. But by August 1589, when he had come to Vienna, he claimed to have obtained access to his father’s studio, one item of which he now offers to the Grand Duke: Some months ago Signor Curtio da Picchena asked me to help him find designs by Alberto Durero, for which he had a commission from Duke Vir- ginio [= Virginio Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, nephew of the Grand Duke]; for His Excellency wished to bring together a book of such designs.<…> Now if I knew that His Highness [= the Grand Duke] would be interested to have a similar book, I now possess one, which I inherited from the stu- dio of my father, who considered it a jewel and has never wanted to part with it, and in the said book there are the most beautiful and best printed designs that the said Alberto Durero ever made.18 was resolved in some sort of settlement, referred to in a note on the copy of Strada’s will in the Vienna Nationalbibliothek. 17 asf, Medici del Principato 810, fol. 129: ‘ce ne ritroviamo ancora de belissimi disegni fatti a mano d’ Michel Angelo, Rafael Urbino, Pirin del Vaga, Francesco Parmesano, Julio Ro- mano etc., che mio padre [ebbe?] per il suo Thesoro; et a noi non serve niente, et costì sarebbano in stimatione; et mio padre hebbe commodità a comprarli, trovandosi in quelli tempi in Italia, quando vivevano tali valenthuomini’. 18 asf, Medici del Principato 807, fol. 275, Ottavio Strada to Belisario Vinta, Vienna,28 August 1589: ‘essendo alcuni mesi, che’l S[igno]r Curtio da Picchena mi pregò che volessi aiutar di cercare disegni del Alberto Durero, che sua sig[noria] haveva commissione di del S[igno] re Duca Virginio, che Sua Ex[cellen]za voleva meterci un libro insieme di tali disegni<…> Hora se io sapessi che Sua Al[tez]za suo padrone havesse desiderio di haver un simil libro, io me ne ritrovo hora uno, che hereditai del studio di mio padre, el qual teneva per un gioia e mai senel ha volsuto privarsene, et sonno gli piu belli et ben stampati disegni in