Page - 727 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

727Ambitions as a Publisher Ottavio’s principal task was overseeing the printing of Sebastiano Serlio’s Settimo libro d’Architettura. This implied preparing the definitive manuscript of the text for the typesetters, and included dealing with an anonymous ‘Do- tor Mantuano’—according to Ottavio the only learned Italian present in Frankfurt—who was to correct the Italian text, and with the printer-publish- er, Andreas Wechel, who had agreed to print the book. It also implied the acquisition of the paper, which involved him in negotiations with the other notable Frankfurt printer, Sigmund Feyerabend, who reassured him about the quality of the paper he had acquired. Feyerabend also was instrumental in finding a translator for a planned German edition of the book. For the Settimo Libro Ottavio did not need to commission the illustrations, which the elder Strada had had engraved in Venice, though a part of the woodblocks unfor- tunately had been damaged in the transport to Frankfurt.20 Ottavio did, how- ever, commission a new woodcut with the coat of arms of Vilém z Rožmberk, to whom his father had decided to dedicate the edition. Moreover he was engaged in the preparation of several other projects, likewise trying to find a translator for the texts and commissioning the designs and overseeing the execution of the woodcuts or engravings for these. He also bought a quan- tity of books from Feyerabend, a few of which he thought to retain for the Musaeum, but most of which he intended to use to pay the engravers in kind, or which he suggests his father could use to barter against other books. At the same time he was expected to maintain the network his father had built up ciarò via’ and ‘Del Martino non è pacato, se ben è povero homo e superbo; Voi vedrete che Dio lo castigar Et se lui non vi vole render quelli danari che li prestai bisogno far conto che li abbia per ‘l mio ritratto. Quando havera fame ‘l vera a lavorare, et fate lavorare in la Series se’l vora lavorar; più presto ci daria di più quache [sic] coseta per rame, acciò che andasi inanti’. His profiting from Sigmund Feyeraend’s discomfiture by acquiring at half its value a fur-lined chamber cloak, which the printer was not allowed to wear because of the Frankfurt sumptuary laws, shows that he knew how to drive a hard bargain: ‘Io comprai una veste di notte di lui per 20 Fl.; sapiate che li è costato a lui più che 40, quella di tomascho fodrata davanti con mar[tora?] largo un palmo, et l`è bella nova; lui non la pole portare perchè li signori li anno vietato, et lui non à portato 3 volte. S’avesse fatto far una solum di Mochardo [? a type of fabric?] me havera costato quel danaro, et li pago in due Fiera, hogni Fiera 10 Fl., et se non havesse trovato questa ventura, saria stato sforzato di farmene una. Perchè la notte mi levo et lavoro, et la stufa è freda, mi bisogno provedere d’una, se non havessi havuta questa<…>’ (Doc. 1574-12-05, Appendix A); the letter is dis- cussed in detail in Jansen 2004, pp. 192–193). 20 In the published book the defects in the illustrations Strada signalled (‘per conto che sonno mal stampate, et che non venghino ben negri’ are not really noticeable; though the black fields filling the window frames are not always black through and through, I find it difficult to imagine how this could have been the result of the damage caused by faulty packing mentioned by Ottavio. Perhaps Strada had the damaged ones recut?