Page - 742 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 14742 At present in my house is being written a Dictionary of 11 languages; that is an effort of mine that I have begun eighteen years ago, and for which I have always kept people in my service to write it. The languages are these: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Spanish, French, German, and Italian; in which at the appropriate places I will insert the medals, marble statues, tombs, in short everything which can be shown in images.46 Already two years earlier he had described the project in detail to Adam von Dietrichstein, hoping that he would use his influence as Imperial ambassador in Spain to move Philip ii to provide some financial support: Since your departure here from Vienna, I have put together all the indices of this Dictionary, which take up eighteen volumes, similar to that of the letter A which Your Honour once saw in my studio. Now the first volume, the letter A, is being written; it is certainly quite delightful to see, both be- cause of the many languages presented together, which are all written in their own characters, and for the images of the coins, the ancient statues, the funerary monuments in sculptured marble, the antique inscriptions and tablets, and everything whatever which can be shown by figures, and other things that I have brought together from all over the world, not without great expense. Every individual thing will have its explanation, which will be written in all of the languages mentioned<…>’.47 Apart from demonstrating one of the uses to which Strada intended to put the material he had brought together in his Musaeum, these passages also show that he functioned as the editor-in-chief or the publisher, rather than as the author, of the Dictionary: he had worked out its concept, and had taken care to bring together in his library the sources necessary for the work, and the images that were to illustrate it, and now was carefully coordinating the production of the texts. Some of these he may have written himself, but most of the ac- tual work was probably done by scholars and scribes he employed to this end. Some of these may actually have worked on a daily basis in Strada’s Musaeum, but there is a good chance that many of the texts were requested and delivered by mail, especially when more recondite expertise was demanded. The work was actively supported by Maximilian ii, who in the 1570s would recommend Strada’s efforts to raise funds for the completion of the project, and facilitated 46 Doc. 1568-12-28. 47 Doc. 1566-03-01.