Page - 822 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 15822 reinterpretations of the ancient model is found in the Index sive catalogus, in which his set of drawings of Giulio Romano’s frieze in the Camera degli Stucchi in the Palazzo del Te was proposed for publication in the same terms as those of the spiral friezes of the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, and was presented as similar and equivalent as a source of information on the military prowess of the Roman Empire.29 15.4 Strada’s Aims Altogether, it appears that Strada attempted to unite three different, not always easily compatible aims: – he wished to collect, document and study the remains of the past, and thus to contribute to a better understanding and appreciation of its glories, in particular of the Roman Empire; – he wished to disseminate the material he collected to a wider interested public, at first through the drawings he made for Hans Jakob Fugger’s library, but soon also in print, as has been related in Chapter 14. This ambition was not limited to purely historical and antiquarian sub- jects, but soon became encyclopaedic in character, as is clear from Strada’s editorial projects discussed in that chapter: – in addition to the advancement of learning about the glorious past, it was also Strada’s ambition to exploit—and to help his patrons and readers ex- ploit—its greatest achievements: he wished to further the use of Antiquity and of the works of its Italian emulators as examples for contemporary projects. 15.4.1 The Glories of Antiquity There can be no doubt that Strada was deeply interested in the actual, authentic material relics of the past; he went literally out of his way to find rare authentic pieces, as the list of collections he visited makes clear. His practice of including empty circles in his Epitome, in lieu of the coins of those rulers of whom he had not (yet) found a reliable numismatic image, indicates his ambition to provide authentic sources. As such he must be taken more seri- ously as a scholarly antiquary than at least some of his colleagues: he certainly did not invent quantities of images wholesale, as did Guillaume Rouillé in his Promptuarium. 29 Above, Ch. 14.7.3.