Page - 813 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

813Student of Antiquity Strada did try—or at least pretended—to present historically valid images, based on existing coins or—when these were lacking—on seals or other material sources. This distinguishes both the contents and the readership of his book from those of more fanciful bestsellers such as Guillaume Rouil- lé’s Promptuarium. It is useful to compare Strada’s Epitome also with a more serious competitor such as Enea Vico’s Le immagini con tutti i riversi trovati et le vite de gli imperatori, printed in Venice in 1558. The latter is more elegant and shows the images of many reverses, but it is limited to the first twelve Emperors. Strada’s treatise is far more comprehensive: it provides a repertory of all those individuals who had attained or pretended to the purple and their dependents. Moreover, Strada’s compilations of their biographies, though emi- nently readable, are more serious and far more detailed. The apparatus which Strada’s adds to his volume corroborates its intended function as a work of reference. Only the first of the three indices has a tru- ly numismatic function: this is a list of the inscriptions of all those coins he included which had not been published earlier [Fig. 15.15]. The other two are a chronological index of all personages included and a very comprehensive al- phabetical index, including references both to these personages again (printed in capitals) and to events and objects discussed (printed in italics) [Fig. 15.16– 15.17]. This section closes with a page listing ‘Errata sic corrigito’.23 15.3 Strada’s Method In addition to these indices, Strada also included a family tree clarifying the genealogy of the Julio-Claudian dynasty into the Epitome. Though it cannot compare in splendour and detail with Enea Vico’s huge print of 1555 show- ing the genealogical ramifications of the first twelve Emperors with surprising precision, Strada’s scheme shows that he was well aware of the use of such up-to-date graphical aids to quick comprehension [Fig. 15.18].24 Strada owed such systematic rigour to his close connections with Hans Ja- kob Fugger and the very learned men of his circle, such as the zoologist and bibliographer Conrad Gesner and the Greek scholar Hieronymus Wolf, who served as Fugger’s librarian and who developed the intricate and efficient shelving system which was later adapted for use in the library of Duke Albrecht 23 Strada 1553(a), fol. B3r.–C3r.: ‘Index numismatum quae nusquam antea in lucem sunt edita’; fol. Cv.–E3r.: ‘Index imperatorum seu caesarum, eo ipso ordine, quo sibi ipsis invicem successerunt’; fol. E3v.–L3r.: ‘Index rerum, vocum et sententiarum maxime insig- nium, ordine alphabetico digestus’. 24 I am grateful to Dr Ulrike Peter to have drawn my attention to the Vico print, on which see Peter/Rubach 2011; Strada’s genealogy mentioned and illustrated on pp. 90–91.