Page - 828 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 15828 Whereas in fact they are largely derived from designs for fanciful costumes made for contemporary festivities—a supposition borne out not only by the style of the designs, but also by the inclusion of Turkish turbans and medieval helmets, reminding one of the many tournaments based on the tales of Ariosto and Tasso and on Amadis de Gaule, for which the originals that Strada copied had been designed [Fig. 15.39–15.40 and above, Figs. 4.26–4.31]. The same holds for the various sets of drawings after ornamental vases that can be attributed to Strada and his workshop, some of which explicitly pose as antiques. Several of these carry inscriptions—not necessarily in Strada’s own hand—identifying the alleged finding spots of these vases, or rather more often of ‘a similar vase’ or ‘such a vase’. Instances are ‘A vase such as this was found outside of Naples in a vinyeard, it was of silver, and was brought to Rome to Cardinal della Valla” [Fig. 15.41] and ‘Such a vase as this was found in the Forum of Trajan, and was of gold; a work never seen again in our time, and it was destroyed during the Sack of Rome’ [Fig. 15.42].35 Notwithstanding such 35 Two drawings from a set of 61 drawings from an album of at least 66 that was at a later date incorporated in an album in the collections of the Princes Waldburg-Wolfegg. They Figures 15.39–15.40 Workshop of Jacopo Strada, design for a helmet in the ‘antique’ style and for a turban ; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. min. 21,1, fols. 14 and 61.