Page - 739 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

739Ambitions as a Publisher that in April 1558 Agustín reported to Panvinio: ‘In Frankfurt I spoke to Strada, who appeared not to be very friendly disposed towards you’.39 14.5 The Musaeum as an Editorial Office? 14.5.1 The Copyright Privileges As we have seen in Chapter 4.2, Strada used the dedications of the Panvinio volumes as a ploy to gain access to the Imperial court, dedicating the Epitome pontificum to Emperor Ferdinand i, and the Fasti et triumphi to his son and heir presumptive, Maximilian, King of Bohemia. This strategy was success- ful, leading to Strada’s appointment as architect and later also as antiquary to Ferdinand i and Maximilian ii. One assumes that his new tasks left him less time to spend on his editorial ambitions. And it is true that the first concrete bit of evidence relating to a planned publication dates only from December of 1572, when Strada obtained a copyright privilege from King Charles ix of France for an edition of Julius Caesar’s Commentaries.40 Yet it would be a mis- take to conclude that Strada had shelved his plans for the time being: there are several indications that even during the second half of the 1560s, when he was strenuously occupied with his commissions from the Duke of Bavaria and— presumably—Maximilian ii, while at the same time building his own house in Vienna, he regularly paid attention to his editorial projects. Certainly 39 Doc. 1558-04-11: ‘In Francafort parlai col Strada, mostra non vi esser tropo amico …’. Prob- ably with some good will on both sides the problem might have been solved in a more elegant way, perhaps with a separately printed erratum; but Panvinio appears to have been as much a hothead as Strada himself, managing even to exasperate Agustín, the most sympathetic and friendly of men, and Panvinio’ s most assiduous friend and patron: cf. Doc. 1558-07-09, Antonio Agustín to Onofrio Panvinio, Rome, 9 juli 1558: ‘Non so qual furia vi faccia dir quel tanto male di quel amico, ne manco per qual demerito mio ditte di me due cose ladre et peggio!, che io habbia dato al Strada le arme di Cardinali, et che voglia scoprir a Mr. Paolo [= Manuzio] tutti i vostri secreti di iure Latii <…> La Cosa del Strada sta come sempre vi ho detto; che non vide, ne hebbe da me quelle arme, et che me importava, ne importa confessarlo?’ There is no substance to Panvinio’s suspicion that Strada was plagiarizing his collection of ecclesiastical coats of arms, since Strada had been collecting these himself for many years on behalf of Fugger, for whom he prepared no less than fifteen huge folio volumes with splendidly illuminated coats of arms of the Popes and of the princes, prelates and noble families of Italy; cf. above, Ch. 3.3. Though after the Fasti et triumphi debacle Strada was not ‘very friendly’ with Panvinio, he seems not to have discredited him with Fugger, who employed Panvinio in the 1560 as an infor- mant in Rome and commissioned various manuscript works from him; cf. Hartig 1917(b); Maasen 1922, pp. 75, 76, 77; a selection of Fugger’s letters to Panvinio published ibidem, pp. vi–viii and appendices 4 and 6–51, pp. 96–126. 40 Doc. 1572-12-25, printed in Strada’s edition, Frankfurt 1575, discussed below.