Page - 738 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 14738 Strada’s editions of his works: he almost immediately brought out his own, more correct editions of both: Romani pontifices et cardinales S.R.E. ab eisdam a Leone ix ad Paulum papam iv per quingentos annos posteriores a Christi natali annos creati (Venice, M. Tremezzino, 1557) and Fastorum libri V a Romulo rege usque ad Imp. Caes. Carolum V Austrium (Venice, V. Valgrisi, 1558). As on his own Epitome thesauri antiquitatum, on the title page of his edi- tions of Panvinio’s works Strada proudly marks their provenance ‘Ex Musaeo Jacobi Stradae, Mantuanae, Civis Romani, Antiquarij’. This probably implies that he had acquired the manuscript copies, but it is clear that his purchase had been made with the express intent to publish them. This is clear from Agustín’s advising Panvinio that he was allowed to have his own versions print- ed if he wished, but that he ought to wait with actually selling copies of the titles he had sold to Strada until a decent time span had passed, say three to four years.37 So Panvinio had actually been paid for his work, which then as now was not always the case with authors of scholarly works. Moreover Strada had attempted to do Panvinio proud: the splendid execution of the Fasti et triumphi must have required a quite considerable investment. Panvinio under- standably was more concerned with scholarly correctness than with splendid type and unnecessary imperial portraits, and certainly Strada’s carelessness in not correcting the mistake in the Fasti cannot be condoned. Yet Panvinio’s subsequent discrediting of Strada’s editions—he actually accused Strada of having printed the Epitome pontificum without his consent—probably caused Strada the loss of almost the whole of his investment. Strada sold his volumes of both titles to Pietro Perna, the well-known Italian printer and bookseller from Basle, who was to market them, and would pay Strada in instalments, but even in 1564 Strada had not yet received anything at all.38 So it is not surprising of course to have been reprinted entirely; even worse, he did not indicate what had hap- pened, so that unsuspecting users would never notice the discrepancy. I am grateful to William McCuaig for having explained the nature of the mistake to me, published in his discussion of the Fasti editions (McCuaig 1991, pp. 153–154). 37 Doc. 1557-11-27, Agustín to Panvinio: ‘Quanto alle cose del Strada mi rincresce assai che la sua stampa riesca così male come ditte; et essendo tanto differenza, potrete stam- par il Vostro libro senza pericolo, presertim con tante altre cose che fanno non esser il medesimo libro; et fatte prima sopra questo diligenza con quelli che costì se ne inten- dono, perchè mi par cosa chiara poter Voi provar non esser quel libro suo questo Vostro. Quanto al patto farò io fede di quanto mi ricordo; di privilegi non potro farla, ma si bene che Vi fossi lecito stampar Voi i Vostri libri, ma non vender quello che vendesti a lui infra un certo tempo, mi par di tre o quatro anni. Poi che ogni sabbato mi potete scriver, et io rispondervi avisateme di quanto accade et occorre’. 38 In 1564 Strada asked Maximilian ii for a letter of recommendation to the City Council of Frankfurt, to help him obtain his outstanding dues from Perna. One suspects that Perna’s unwillingness to pay may have been partly or wholly due to a failure to actually sell the volumes (Doc 1564-00-00). On Perna, see Perini 2002, who does not mention Strada.