Page - 827 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

827Student of Antiquity 15.4.3 Examples to Emulate: Antiquity in Contemporary Dress Strada owed his admiration for the ancients and for the works of art they cre- ated directly to his apprenticeship in the studio of Giulio Romano, and indi- rectly to Giulio’s teacher Raphael. Their example showed him not only how to document and interpret the material remains of a venerated Antiquity, but also how to translate that experience towards new, original works of art. Considering the splendour, the elegance, the profound understanding of the classical precept that characterizes the work of these two masters, especially in architecture and decoration, it is not surprising that their practice would become a paradigm of excellence for a young, ambitious artist such as Jacopo Strada. The designs of the buildings with which he himself can be associated, such as the Stallburg, his own house and the Neugebäude in Vienna, and his design for the Munich Antiquarium show that he had taken their example to heart. But Strada did not limit his efforts to propagating their legacy and to tac- itly following their example in his own works. As discussed in Chapter 13.8, he also commissioned splendid sets of documentary drawings of their principal works, which he intended to publish. It is important to realize that this project is closely connected to Strada’s ef- forts to publish authentic antique remains. The manner in which he describes Giulio’s frieze in the Camera degli Stucchi in the Palazzo del Te, presenting it as the equivalent of the frieze of the Trajanic column, shows that for Strada the emulation of the classical example was not only a possibility but a self-evident artistic necessity. That conviction is reflected not only in his reconstructions of ancient monuments in his numismatic drawings shown above, but also in the mannerist designs for festival costumes and sumptuous gold and silver table- ware collected in his libri de’ disegni, which were explicitly presented as ‘in the antique manner’. The title of the Vienna album of helmets and related head- dresses stresses its—not exclusively—antique origins: Ancient crested helmets such as in the past were used by the Greeks and the Romans and by other peoples both in spectacles and public games, and in the wars; the forms and images whereof have been derived from bronze and marble statues, as well as from bronze, silver and gold coins, and most precisely and exquisitely drawn.34 34 Vienna, önb-hs, Cod. min. 21,1: Galearum antiquarum cristatarum quibus olim Graeci et Romani atque alii etiam populi tam in spectaculis et in ludis publicis, quam in bellis usi sunt, formae atque imagines ex aeneis atque marmoreis statuis tum etiam ex aeneis, argenteis au- reis que numismatibus desumptae, et elegantissimae aptissimaeque delineatae. Ex Musaeo Jacobi de Stradae. Mantvani. Caess. Antiquarii civis Romani. The same holds for the title of the Dresden album of festival designs (above, Ch. 4.3.5.).