Page - 730 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 14730 circle, including one of the first systematic bibliographers, the famous natural historian Conrad Gesner. Practical experience of the printing house Strada obtained at the latest in 1553, when he supervised the printing of the Latin and French editions of his numismatic treatise in Lyon, but it seems likely that through his sojourn in Germany he had a long-standing acquaintance with the trade as practiced in Nuremberg, where he had settled in the early 1540s, and in Frankfurt and Augsburg. That Strada intended to set up as a publisher himself, rather than just as an author, is already evident on the title page of his Lyon Epitome thesauri antiquitatum: though the colophon gives the name of the printer, Jean de Tournes, the title page gives as publisher’s address ‘Lugduni: Apud Jacobum de Strada et Thomam Guerinum’, and shows a printer’s mark which is Strada’s own [cf. above, Fig. 3.18]. The book, the printing of which was finished on the sixth of November 1553, was provided with a copyright privilege conceded by the French King Henry ii to ‘nos bien aymez Iacques de Strada Mantouan et Thomas Guerin Marchand Libraire demourant à Lyon’. That Guerin is mentioned as a marchand-libraire suggests that he was the partner who contributed the practical know-how and contacts; yet in view of the use of Strada’s device on the title page there can be little doubt that he must be considered the senior partner, who not only contributed the content of the book, but also provided the major investment for its production. That he could do so doubtless was due to financial support accorded by Hans Jakob Fugger, to whom both editions of the book were dedicated [cf. above, Fig. 3.19]. In the following a chronological review will be given of Strada’s largely unsuc- cessful attempts to set up as a publisher on a grand scale. That this was a serious ambition and that Strada had prepared it well is al- ready clear from his first production. The Epitome thesauri antiquitatum was a beautiful book, printed with large margins on high-quality paper and illus- trated by a huge number of specially prepared woodcut illustrations of which Strada, according to his preface, was quite proud [Figs. 14.6–14.9]. Even more significantly, the book was simultaneously printed in a Latin and a French edition: Strada must have gone to some lengths to find and to remunerate a sufficiently learned translator. He spotted the talent of the Orléans human- ist Jean Louveau, who after having translated the Epitome du Thrésor, would build up a modest reputation as a translator of various Greek (Eustathius), Latin (Apuleius, Erasmus) and Italian texts published by Lyon printers such as De Tournes, Granjon and Rouillé.23 The book was a success, doubtless 23 Rigoley de Juvigny, Les Bibliothèques françoises de La Croix du Maine et de Du Verdier, sieur de Vauprivas, Nouvelle édition, iv, Paris 1773, p. 453.