Page - 807 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

807Student of Antiquity 15.2 Strada’s Qualities as an Antiquary The passage in Agustín’s Dialogo delle medaglie quoted above shows that in his own time Strada enjoyed a wide reputation as a learned antiquary, at least among the general public. As already indicated in the first chapter, this reputa- tion did not survive the seventeenth century, if so long. His publications were not sufficiently reliable and precise to be of any use to later archaeologists. Moreover, it is clear that, though he recognized and emphasized the value of the artefacts he studied for the history of Antiquity, his use of them was rather limited. In the first place he was only really expert in ancient numismatics, and even then considered the ancient coins primarily for the iconographic information they provided, that is, the features of the historical personalities depicted in their obverses, and the symbolic, emblematic images adorning their reverses. He obviously was aware of the value of such visual material to aid the historical imagination, stressing in a letter to Jacopo Dani that for his Series he had selected the most beautiful and rare large medals, and ‘quelli che portano la historia con essi’.16 16 Strada to Jacopo Dani, 17 June 1573 (Doc. 1573-06-17): ‘Ora Vostra Signoria sappia che dop- po ch’io son vivo, non ò mai fatto altro che accumular medaglie e coppie di esse, et la mia Figures 15.3–15.4 Enea Vico, the pages showing the obverse and the reverses of the coins of Augustus, in his Omnium Caesarum verissimae imagines ex antiquis numismatis desumptae, s.l. 1554.