Page - 652 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 13652 the Strahov codex well demonstrates the interest that Giulio’s works aroused among his own contemporaries. At the end of the volume some material is included that had nothing do with Giulio: a number of ground plans of Italian churches, the plan of a palace and a plan and section of what is probably (a reconstruction of) an ancient Roman building [fol. 157/266; Fig. 13.20]. Its carefully executed hatchings show it to be a design prepared for the (wood)engraver—the sheet is squared for transfer—which relates this latter drawing to the Serlio treatise, perhaps even to that master himself. On the other hand the partly lost annotation in the right corner seems a later addition: the handwriting suggest that it is Strada himself who noted how much of this reconstructed Roman ruin was still actu- ally standing: ‘from the outside<…>all ruined’.43 The other four architectural drawings seem all later, and appear to be drawn in the same hand. They represent the plans of a Renaissance palace [fol. 159/268; Fig. 13.21] and of three churches, the cathedrals of Pisa [fol. 155/264; Fig. 13.22] and of Florence [fol. 158/267; Fig. 13.23], and Brunelleschi’s church of San Lorenzo in the latter city [fol. 156/265; Fig. 13.24]. These plans are simple 43 Bukovinská/Fučíková/Konečný 1984, p. 182, cat. nr. 157/266 (as ‘Querschnitt und Grundriß einer Kirche’): ‘di fuori si fà [word cut off] / tutto ruinato’. It is conceivable that during his 1554–55 visit to Rome Strada would have compared his newly acquired documentation of Roman monuments with their remains. I have not yet identified the building; which looks like a section of a thermal complex or a residential palace, rather than a temple. Its image is not included in the published Serlio volumes. Figure 13.18 Strahov codex, fol. 30/39: Giulio Romano, design for a wall tomb. Figure 13.19 Strahov codex, fol. 25/30: after Giulio Romano?, design for the tomb of Francesco II Gonzaga.