Page - 649 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

649Visual Documentation Giulio’s own designs for elaborate goldsmith work that since have been dis- persed, and have found their way to half a dozen print rooms across Europe and the United States.38 13.6 Drawings Preserved in a Context Linking Them with Strada By the early seventeenth century collectors and perhaps dealers in drawings began to use collector’s marks, written initials or symbols, or little stamps placed on each sheet. Unfortunately in Strada’s day this admirable custom had not yet been thought of, and since he did only rarely scribble any attributions, explanations or remarks onto the sheets in his possession, it is possible to iden- tify individual sheets that passed through his hands in only a few cases. Strada’s collection of drawings was almost entirely dispersed in the decades after his death, and may have furnished material for the cabinets of many famous col- lectors of the seventeenth century, such as Paul von Praun, the Earl of Arundel and Everard Jabach.39 In the process most of the albums containing his collec- tion of original drawings were cut up, but fortunately two volumes survived more or less in their original form, both in Prague, and provide at least some concrete information about the contents of the Musaeum. 13.6.1 The Strahov Album The codex preserved in the library of the Strahov Monastery is the most impor- tant of these. A cut-out engraving of Ottavio Strada’s coat-of-arms pasted onto its title-page functions as an ex-libris, and demonstrates its provenance from Strada’s Musaeum.40 The binding in white leather is decorated with impressed portraits of Charles V and the Elector of Saxony, and appears to date from the 1570s. The codex itself consists of about eighty-five sheets of a paper pro- duced in Prague. Since these sheets where unmarked when they were bound, 38 Cf. Ugo Bazzotti in Giulio Romano 1989, pp. 454–457. 39 Later references in archival sources provide tantalizing hints about the possible later fate both of the volumes in Rudolf’s collection and of other graphic material from Strada’s Musaeum. 40 Prague, Strahov Monastery, Library, dl iii 3, Selectarum inventionum collectanum ex di- versis auctoribus; a cut-out of Ottavio Strada’s coat of arms pasted onto the title page con- firms its provenance from the Stradas’ workshop. This discussion is based on the splendid, integral edition of the codex by Beket Bukovinská, Eliška Fučíková and Lubomír Konečný (Bukovinská/ Fučíková/ Konečný 1984). Apart from this fundamental work, their personal interest, their hospitality and counsel during several visits to Prague have been invaluable for my research.