Page - 714 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 13714 of Caesar’s Commentaries, which was published in the same year. It was ac- companied by exhaustive annotation and comments by four different schol- ars, some additional texts and the transcriptions of hundreds of inscriptions from Spain. Its most distinguishing feature, however, are the careful images of Caesar’s battles and sieges, derived from a study of the text and other literature on ancient Roman warfare [below, Figs. 14.23–14.27]. As Ottavio Strada pointed out in a letter to his father shortly before publication, these images are very different from those supplied by Andrea Palladio in his edition of Caesar that was to come out in the same year.138 Strada had obtained the originals or cop- ies of these images from his patron Cesare Gonzaga, lord of Guastalla, whose father Ferrante had commissioned an ‘outstanding architect’, seconded by a ‘most learned mathematician’, to record and reconstruct the battle locations on the spot.139 In addition to the books Strada succeeded in printing, most of the works de- scribed in his Index sive catalogus were also intended to be illustrated, sometimes profusely. Though it also included objects which were proposed for immediate purchase, this Index is basically an outline of Strada’s publication programme. He sent it to possible sponsors and paraphrased it in his letter to the Antwerp printer Christophe Plantin.140 Obviously the numismatic material takes pride of place, and several other archaeological and artistic projects have been re- ferred to earlier in this chapter. But the index also describes illustrated treatises or series of images on other themes. Doubtless reflecting his Imperial patrons’ interests, these include no less than five works on various aspects of Ottoman warfare [nrs 8, 9, 10, 11 and 39] as well as some compilations of Habsburg and Ottoman genealogy; but also a documentation of ancient (in this case medi- eval) weapons and war instruments preserved in Berne in Switzerland, which Strada had drawn himself (nr 15). Strada’s ideas about the value of illustration are best deduced from the very first item of the Index. This is a huge polyglot dictionary in eleven languag- es, on which he had had learned men working for over twenty-five years.141 Strada’s excessive encyclopaedic ambition transpires from the fact that after 138 Doc. 1574-12-5, full transcription in Appendix A; cf. Jansen 2004, pp. 188–191. 139 Caesar 1575 (verso of title page): ‘Adiunctae sunt hisce quadraginta Figurarum tabulae, an- tehac nusquam visae<…>Hae tabulae quondam maximo labore et studio, sumptibusq; in- gentibus comparatae sunt per Illustriss. D. Ferdinandum Gonzagam Proregem Siciliae<…> qui omnia praedicta loca tabulis Geographicis ad vivum delineari curavit opera et studio Architecti cuiusdam insignis: adiuncto illi simul Philosopho Mathematico viros doctis- simo, istorumq; locorum omnium cum maritimorum, tùm terrestrium peritissimo<…>’. 140 The Index sive catalogus is given in its entirety in Appendix D. 141 Index sive catalogus, Appendix D, nr. 1.