Page - 643 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

643Visual Documentation We have no concrete information on other prints in Strada’s collection, but it is clear that these two volumes represent only a small—though perhaps the most prestigious—part of his graphic possessions. Through his trips and his regular contacts with the international book trade he could easily obtain the products of famous publishing houses such as those of Salamanca in Rome and Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp. Just like his old acquaintance Samuel Quic- cheberg, who explicitly stressed the importance of prints in his 1565 treatise, Inscriptiones vel tituli theatri amplissmi, which provides a blueprint for the ide- al, universal museum, Strada valued them not only for their artistic qualities, but also—and perhaps more—for their function as bearers of information.26 13.4.2 The Drawings It is clear that the volumes of drawings mentioned in Ottavio’s correspondence likewise comprised only a part—though possibly the most prestigious—of Jacopo’s collection of drawings: the architectural drawings, for instance, to which Strada explicitly refers in his preface to Serlio’s Settimo Libro, are not in- cluded. Presumably these were kept in separate volumes, such as that contain- ing Giulio’s vase designs offered to the Grand Duke. At present it is not possible to determine of what separate sections Strada’s collection was constituted, but a closer examination of the problem of the ‘copies’ Ottavio sent to Florence, provides some additional information relative to the actual contents of some of these sections. At first sight this problem appears to defy solution. Should one accept that the drawings sent to Florence had been in fact, as Ottavio Strada claimed, the autographs of some of the most famous artists of the Renaissance, one would have to admit that such Florentine connoisseurs as Niccolò Gaddi would not have recognized them as such, which is a rather unlikely supposition. Suppos- ing on the other hand that the drawings had been copies or even forgeries of original autograph drawings, one would have to suppose either that Strada himself was fooled when he acquired the drawings, or that he or his son had executed these copies or forgeries himself. In view of Strada’s artistic train- ing and general erudition, and of the fact that he bought most of the mate- rial immediately from the heirs of Perino and Giulio, both of whom he had well known personally, the first proposition is extremely improbable. Though the second proposition may seem less unlikely—autograph drawings of the most famous masters already were coveted collector’s items, and occasionally very deceptive copies or interpretations are found, such as the famous Pseudo- Leonardo at the Albertina [Fig. 13.11]—it is questionable whether deliberate 26 On Quiccheberg, see Quiccheberg/Roth, 2000; and earlier Belsiger 1971; Falguières 1992; Jansen 1993.