Page - 637 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

637Visual Documentation There is no evidence that the Grand Duke reacted to this proposal, but he did remember Ottavio’s earlier offer of the drawings by Italian masters, as is clear from a letter to Vinta from Niccolò Gaddi, dated ‘in Villa’ the 13th October fol- lowing. Gaddi was himself a noted collector and connoisseur with a particular interest in drawings, as his acquisition of Vasari’s ‘Libro di disegni’ indicates. He was one of the principal artistic consultants of the Florentine court, and in this capacity he had been asked to give an appraisal of the manuscripts that Ottavio had sent. After responding to this request, he continues: The most Serene Grand Duke some days ago told me that he [= Ottavio Strada] also had a quantity of drawings by the hand of excellent painters and sculptors, and that he was willing to send these; if one let them come, and be told the price, having seen what they were, one could give him an answer.19 This advice was taken, so in January following (1590) Ottavio sent a parcel of two hundred and forty drawings of various sizes to Florence. These were the drawings he had with him in Prague: the greater part of the collection, ‘<…>fra li quali sono molti belle Historiae et inventione<…>’ was still in Vienna, where he hoped to go the coming summer. In case this might please the Grand Duke, he would also send ‘qualche cosa de bella’ from there. In his covering letter to the Grand Duke himself Ottavio courteously refused to mention a price for the drawings he sent: ‘tutto quello che me darà, accetarò in gratia, et cusì gli fo un presente’; but in his letter to Vinta of the same date he was more business-like, and valued them at one hundred gold scudi at least. He further offered to send a series of drawings by Giulio Romano, bound in an album <…>in which there is nothing else but extravagant inventions to grace the sideboard of a great Prince, a thing quite wonderful to see.20 esso libro, che detto Alberto Durero ha fatto’. A day later Ottavio wrote a letter to Duke Virginio himself proposing the Dürer album to him in almost the same terms, adding ‘io so che in tutta Italia non sene trovara un simil libro, che è ben conservato et gli disegni tanto politi che ben stampati che è una gioia a vedere<…>’ (Rome, Archivio Capitolino, Archivio Orsini, serie i, vol. 124, nr. 198); I am grateful to Robert Lindell who found this let- ter and communicated it to me. 19 asf, Medici del Principato 822, ii, fol. 876: ‘Il Serenissimo Granduca più giorni fa mi dette che [Ottavio Strada] haveva ancora una quantità di disegni a mano di valenthomini pit- tori e scultori, et che li voleva mandare; quando si facessino venire, et si intendesse il prezzo, visti che fussino, se li potrebbe rispondere’. 20 asf, Medici del Principato 813, f. 110: Ottavio Strada to Ferdinando, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Prague 15 January 1590: ‘Mi ritrovo un libro di mano di Julio Romano, dove in esso non c’