Page - 736 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 14736 that mirrors and complements Strada’s Epitome thesauri antiquitatum, which presented similar abridged lives of the Emperors.31 So it is doubtless no coin- cidence that Strada published Panvinio’s book under the title Epitome pontifi- cum romanorum. The copyright privilege mentions two other works which were never pub- lished, but which in future would loom ever larger in Strada’s publishing projects. In fact it was Strada’s increasing ambition for these projects and the megalomaniac size they assumed over the course of the years that prevented their realization. The first is a ‘universal’ dictionary in the three classical lan- guages, Greek, Latin and Hebrew, explaining all words and concepts, both an- cient and contemporary, in these three languages.32 This was something which had been attempted before. What was exceptional was Strada’s intention to illustrate the entries not only with text passages, but also with ‘figures’ (here: tables and schemes) and ‘images’ drawn from his collection of ancient and modern sources. The use of appropriate images to illustrate the argument was also intended in the last book mentioned in the privilege, a corrected Latin translation of Leandro Alberti’s 1550 Descrittione di tutta Italia.33 14.4.3 The Two Books Actually Published: The Fasti et Triumphi and Epitome Pontificum Of the five titles mentioned in the copyright privilege of January 1556 only two, the books compiled by Onofrio Panvinio, were ever published. These were printed in Venice at Strada’s expense, as is explicitly stated on the title pages and confirmed by the bookplate, which is a variant of that used for the Lyon Epitome thesauri antiquitatum [Figs. 14.14 and 14.18]. Perhaps Strada may have been aware that the Lyon Epitome was being pirated by a Swiss printer at this very time, which may have been the reason why he took the trouble to ob- tain additional copyright privileges from Ferdinand i, King of the Romans, and from Lorenzo Priuli, Doge of Venice, included with that obtained from Charles 31 Doc. 1556-01-08: ‘Brevis pontificum Romanorum descriptio a sancto Petro apostolo usque ad Paulum IIII. Caraffa Neapolitanum, cum singulorum conclavi et electione, item cardi- nalium creationes, tituli, legationes, patria, insignia et obitus, Onophrio Panvino, Vero- nense, Augustiniano authore, ex museo Jacobi de Strada, Mantuani antiquarii’. 32 Doc. 1556-01-08: ‘Ingens thesaurus seu universale dictionarium rerum et verborum omni- umque tam antiquitatum quam novitatum, non solum Latine, Grece et Hebraice explica- tis, verum etiam figuris et imaginibus tam ex vetustis monumentis quam novis excerptis expressarum ex museo Jacobi de Strada, Mantuani antiquarii’. 33 Doc. 1556-01-08: ‘Descriptio totius Italiae, antehac a F. Leandro Alberto, Bononiense, in Italo sermone scripta, nunc vero in Latinum sermonem conversa et a multis erroribus vindicata, preterea iconibus aliisque rebus scitu dignis expolita, ex museo ut supra<…>’.