Page - 651 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

651Visual Documentation autographs variant versions and/or workshop copies exist—or were deemed of insufficient quality to be included in the better organized volumes consist- ing exclusively of first-rate sheets that made up Strada’s Musaeum, and that for that very reason have since been cut up and dispersed. Nonetheless the Strahov codex contains the largest body of autograph draw- ings by Giulio Romano we possess; it is of the utmost importance for our un- derstanding of his style as a designer of decorative objects, in the first place of vases and other objects of goldsmith work, but also of several chimneypieces [Fig. 13.16], a princely cradle [Fig. 13.17] and two beds (fols. 49 and 52), and a wall tomb or monument [Fig. 13.18]. In view of Strada’s involvement with the tombs of the Emperor Maximilian i in Innsbruck and of Ferdinand i in Prague, a beautiful design for the tomb of Francesco ii Gonzaga is particularly inter- esting [Fig. 13.19], though its attribution to Giulio is problematical.42 Over all 42 The tomb Federico Gonzaga planned to erect for his father was an important project ini- tiated in 1519 by a design by Raphael; a later, simplified version was probably designed by Giulio; its execution was entrusted to Alfonso Lombardi Cittadella, at whose death the project had hardly been begun; in the end it was never realized. The Strahov codex includes two further copies of variant designs for this tomb (fol. 142/250 and 152/260), the former a copy of the drawing in the Louvre (Cabinet des Dessins inv.nr. 3576). Another variant is preserved in Munich (Staatliche Gaphische Sammlung, inv.nr. 5006); Bukov- inská c.s. attribute none of these designs to Giulio, whereas Amedeo Belluzi, ‘Il progetto per il monumento a Francesco ii Gonzaga’, in Giulio Romano 1989, pp. 558–560, does give them to Giulio. Figure 13.15 Strahov codex, fol. 1/1: Giulo Romano or workshop, design for a saltcellar. Figure 13.16 Strahov codex, fol. 29/38: Workshop of Giulio Romano, design for a chimneypiece. Figure 13.17 Strahov codex, fol. 2/2: Giulio Romano, design for a princely cradle.