Page - 748 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 14748 In his letter to his father of November 1574 Ottavio Strada repeatedly refers to such a book of ‘mascare’, which he thought would sell well, but the book was never published in the form envisaged, though a number of woodcuts by Jost Amman for its illustrations were in fact executed and printed, some of which at least based on Jacopo’s own designs [above, Figs. 4.23–4.25].57 The last two works mentioned in the privilege were dedicated to numismat- ics: nr vi. presented a series of coins of all Roman, Byzantine and German Em- perors and their various family members, and to which Strada added those of the Ravenna Exarchs and the Lombard kings of Italy. It was basically intended as a conventional though relatively complete ‘Bildnisvitenbuch’, a picture book in which the images of each personage were accompanied by only the briefest potted biographies or ‘elogii’.58 Nr vii., on the other hand, was a much more ambitious work: probably an evolution of the numismatic corpus described in Strada’s 1556 privilege, it provided full biographies of all these same Emperors, their relatives, usurping tyrants, exarchs and so on, each of which was to be followed by a complete survey of the coins struck during their reigns.59 These illustrations were based on the numismatic material Strada had collected during his travels, which he had had carefully engraved in copperplate, rather than in woodcuts as in his 57 Cf. above, Ch. 4.3.5. 58 Doc. 1574-04-30: ‘vi. Series imperatorum Romanorum ac Graecorum et Germanorum a Caio Julio, Cai filio, Cai ne pote, caesare usque ad Maximilianum ii. caesarem pium felicem augustum una cum liberis patrinis atque matrinis ex aureis, argenteis, aereis numismatibus quam fidelissime delineatis; inservimus etiam iuxta tempora exarchos et Longhobardorum reges omnesque cum ipsorum elogiis breviter descripsimus’. 59 Ibid.: ‘vii. Vitae imperatorum Romanorum, item Contantinopolitanorum et Germanorum omnium, qui fuerunt a Caio Julio, Cai filio, Cai nepote, Caesare usque ad Maximilianum ii. Imperatorem, Caesarem Pium Felicem Augustum, cum omnibus eorundem uxorum, filiorum et consanguineorum historiis. Attulimus quoque vitas universorum eorum tyrannorum, qui diversis in mundi partibus Romanum imperium vi vel fraudibus sibipsis subiicere conati fuere. Insuper ad illustrationem horum omnium vitas etiam eorum exar- charum posuimus, qui sedes atque habitationes suas Ravennae, urbe nobilissima Italiae, habuerunt. Tomi viii. Posuimus in cuiuslibet imperatoris vitae fine numismata ea, quae de illo passim per hunc orbem terrarum nos videre atque invenire potuerimus quaeque vel in Italia vel in aliis similibus provinciis tum etiam in Graecia ex auro, argento, aere excussae fuere, ita nimirum, ut ea primo quidem summa fidelitate, imitatione et diligen- tia ad unguem et ad similitudinem verorum antiquorum delineanda, deinde autem in tabulis aereis pulchre excidenda typoque demandanda curaverimus, item in fine harum tabularum cuiuslibet etiam numismatis descriptionem anneximus. Tandem finitis hisce omnibus habes quoque fastos et annales consulatuum cuiuslibet imperatoris, ut nimirum sie, quid quilibet imperator, quolibet anno et tempore patraverit, tanto rectius cognoscere queas, ubi tamen maioris doctrinae et testimoninii gratia similiter et inscriptiones anti- quas, quae in marmoribus et tabulis aeneis incisae et sub nominibus eorundem impera- torum appositae fuerunt, diligenter adiunximus etc’.