Page - 726 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 14726 hirnhauben’—ornamented helmets—which was doubtless similar or identical to the album Galearum antiquarum discussed above [Ch. 4.3.5, Figs. 4.26–4.31]. The commercial nature of such contacts is clear: Fugger subsequently wrote to an agent in Vienna to enquire, but cautioned him to dissimulate his interest, fearing that ‘should he know that I would like to have it, he would make me pay dearly for it’.18 By that time the affairs in which Jacopo employed Ottavio were mostly re- lated to his publishing project, as is evident from a long report Ottavio wrote in the late autumn of 1574, in response to a lost letter from his father, detailing his activities in Frankfurt and Nuremberg. This interesting document provides some information about Ottavio’s character, showing him in a not very favour- able light, for instance in his description of the treatment he meted out to a drunken servant and in his comment on the engraver Martino Rota’s wayward- ness.19 But it also provides some more general idea of the Stradas’ business interests, and of Ottavio’s role in his father’s concerns. 18 Hans Fugger to Hans Gärtner in Vienna, 29 April 1573: ‘Unnder ander gemalten büechern, so obgemelter Octavian Strada mir gezaigt, ist ainer, darin lautter Citata oder hirnhauben gemacht. Da ichs khündt umb ain billiges bekhummen, wollt ich mich mit im einlassen, ir müget mit geschicklichkhait solliches bei im anbringen. Er ist gar ein heelkonz, und da er merckhen solte, das ich das buech gern hett, wuerd er mirs theuer salzen’; quoted in Lehmann 1956–1960, i, pp. 264–265. 19 ‘Del mio servidor, lo caciarò al bordello, perchè non val nulla; io li ò basimato pareche volte, ma non iova niente. Io ne scrissi in Augusta per un ragazo fidato; costui non lasserebe se l’Imperatore lo vietasse di imbriecarsi, et quando lo imbriaco, vole bravar; in Francoforte ero sforzato di rumperli la testa in 3 lochi. Quando mi partirò de qui lo cac- Figures 14.3–14.4 Titlepage and dedication to Vilém z Rožmberka of Strada’s edition of Sebastiano Serlio, Settimo libro d’Architettura, Frankfurt 1575. Figure 14.5 Martino Rota, portrait of Ottavio Strada at the time he was overseeing the printing of the Settimo Libro, engraving, 1574; Windsor, Royal Library.