Page - 832 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 16832 of the Munich Antiquarium shows clearly that this stage could include not just personal consultation and perhaps some preliminary sketches, but also carefully worked-out designs. Formal responsibility for the negotiations with the architects, master masons or contractors who were to execute the projects remained with other court-officials, such as the Bausuperintendent, but it is likely that Strada occasionally advised the patron on their selection, and af- terwards coached them as to the aspects of his own expertise. These included the correct use of the orders as well as practical problems: thus for the An- tiquarium Strada advised about the form and the technical possibilities (in stone or wood) for the window frames and about the ideal material for the plaques for the inscriptions and where to obtain it. He derived his author- ity to informally supervise the executive architects and the various artisans employed from his own formal status as Imperial Architect, his specific, unri- valled expertise, and the fact that he acted as a representative or an agent of the patron himself. 16.1.2 Designs for Festivals and Decorative Ensembles—and Their Production The information about the organisation of the execution of decorative en- sembles in the Imperial residences, and for the ephemeral decorations and costumes for festivities, pageants and ceremonies, is as scanty as that about the architectural projects. We know that Strada was involved in an unspecified role in the genesis of the tombs of the Emperors Maximilian i in Innsbruck and Ferdinand i in Prague: here he doubtless contributed advice on imperial ico- nography, his own antiquarian specialism, but he was probably also consulted on the artistic aspects of these important dynastic commissions. In the designs Figures 16.1–16.2 Jacopo Strada, Diana, design for a costume for a festival at court, compared with the image of Charles v in the decoration of the Imperial Chamber at Bučovice, Moravia.