Page - 799 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the prevailing cc-by-nc-nd License. ©  dirk jacob jansen, ���9  |  doi:�0.��63/9789004359499_0�7 Chapter 15 Le Cose dell’Antichità: Strada as a Student of Antiquity 15.1 Profession: Antiquarius The foregoing chapters have attempted to provide an overview of what is known at present about the life and the career of Jacopo Strada. Some aspects which deserve more detailed consideration have only been touched upon in passing. For instance, an inventory and study of the libri di disegni on various subjects which Strada and his workshop provided to his patrons, a practice assiduously continued by his son Ottavio, would contribute to a better under- standing of these interesting objects themselves, on the practice and functions of drawing, and on the intellectual aspects of encyclopaedic collecting in the later sixteenth century. An investigation of Strada’s approach to numismatic method would throw light on the early history of classical scholarship and on the use of visual classical sources in the art of his period.1 A comparison of his career with that of similar personalities—in particular with other self- styled ‘antiquaries’, but also with other agents, brokers, dealers and ‘expert advisors’—would add to our knowledge of the dynamics of production, dis- semination and reception of ideas, fashions and trends as well as of concrete cultural products. Such a comparison, however, can only be fruitful when the results of empirical research into the activities of a sufficient number of such professionals are available. The present study attempts to provide this for at least one such individual, Jacopo Strada. The question remains whether at the time the varied group of professionals assuming or being indicated by the term ‘antiquarius’ was generally consid- ered to belong to one single and established ‘profession’. As a hypothesis this is doubtful, given that no commonly accepted, unequivocal term exists for repre- sentatives of such a profession. In his groundbreaking essay on the role of the antiquary in the study of ancient history, Arnaldo Momigliano complained: 1 This is the object of a research project at the Forschungszentrum Gotha, aimed at the digiti- zation and the examination in context of Strada’s numismatic corpus, the Magnum ac novum opus, preserved in the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha (cf. above, Ch. 3.3, and below, passim). The project is undertaken by Dr Volker Heenes and the author, with financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/dfg.