Page - 839 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

839Agent of Change: Imperial Antiquary and Architect 16.2.2 Double Agent… Or Rather Single-minded? A further quality such agents shared, was a high degree of versatility or adapt- ability to sometimes quite divergent tasks: tasks for which they were not neces- sarily formally qualified, but in which they could be employed all the same. It is in this sense, as well as in the more current one, that such agents often were ‘double’ agents: thus secretaries, merchants, artists and soldiers doubled as po- litical informers (or even as outright spies), while academics and diplomats chased after books, antiquities, works of arts and doubled as talent spotters as well. Tasks they were expected to shoulder, not necessarily because they were the right man for the job, but rather because they happened to be in the right place at the right time: that is, they were seldom employed because of their proper specialism.11 Strada disposed of a wide field of interest and certainly was versatile and adaptable: doubtless, he occasionally will have served his patrons in fields be- yond his own expertise. He must have passed on much information he heard on his travels to his patrons in Munich and Vienna, or to the relevant officials at their courts. Occasionally he may have carried confidential dispatches to the rulers of places he was scheduled to visit. However, any trusted courtier de- parting on, or returning from a voyage would have done as much, so this does not set Strada apart. In any case there are only two documented instances in which Strada was explicitly asked for a service unconnected with his own spe- cialist expertise. In the autumn of 1565 he lobbied with the Vizereichskanzler Johann Baptist Weber on behalf of Carlo Maffei, ‘maestro di camera’ of Gug- lielmo Gonzaga, presenting a letter of recommendation from the Duke and explaining Maffei’s business.12 In December 1569 he provided Duke Guglielmo of Mantua with information about grain prices in Munich, which he must have obtained from correspondents in that town, probably from Fugger himself.13 Neither instance is representative, because Strada was not in Duke Guglielmo’s employ. He rendered his service both in return for patronage received earlier— the Duke’s help in Strada’s Mantuan projects and the benefice conferred on his 11 Ibidem, p. 11. 12 Docs. 1565-10-15 and 1565-10-23. It is obvious that one hand washed the other, because in return Maffei lobbied with the Duke to concede a benefice in Mantua cathedral to Strada’s son Paolo. 13 Doc. 1569-11-05; The Mantuan ambassador had asked for this information, but Strada preferred to communicate it directly to the Duke in person. Unfortunately the published version (JdKS 16, 1895, ii, Regest nr. 13998) leaves out the actual information Strada had obtained; I have not been able to find the original document, which is not included in Venturini 2002. In at least five letters to Duke Guglielmo—and only to him—does Strada indicate himself as the Duke’s ‘efitionatissimo servidore et vasallo’ (cf. above, Ch. 13.8.2, n. 125).