Page - 846 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 16846 his being approached for (and refusing) a substantial loan to the Papal Nuncio; his confident dealing when acquiring the huge collection of sculpture for the Duke of Bavaria in Rome and Venice in the late 1560s; finally his disposing of his own ‘Gewölb’, or storeroom cum shop at the Frankfurt book fair—all this neatly fits into this supposition. Yet if Strada was a merchant, he may not have been a very common type. It is clear that presenting himself as a scholar, a nobleman and a courtier, in his self-representation he would not have stressed the commercial side of his activities. In any case it seems that Strada’s was a rather specialized trade, spe- cialized both as to the commodities involved, and as to the markets targeted. 16.4.3 Luxury Goods: Antiquities and Works of Art and Craftsmanship As discussed in chapter 12, the actual goods Strada seems to have dealt in were primarily luxury goods, and then mostly restricted to his own fields of expertise: works of art and fine craftsmanship on the one hand, and classi- cal antiquities, probably chiefly coins and medals and sculpture, on the other. He moreover could provide his customers with related materials such as semi- precious stones or the custom-made containers for the wares he had sold them. How much of what he purveyed them was produced in his own workshop, how much he may have sold in commission for artists, master-craftsmen or deal- ers elsewhere remains an open question. A concrete indication exists only in the case of his old Nuremberg neighbour Wenzel Jamnitzer: their earlier col- laboration suggests that Strada may have continued to function as his agent at court. Maximilian ii’s extensive patronage of Jamnitzer—often in works that required very precise iconographical deliberations, such as the reliquary for the Empress Maria and the famous bronze and silver-gilt fountain—certainly does not contradict this supposition. It might well be that Strada’s house also offered more modest, more standardized objects from Jamnitzer’s workshop, such as silver drinking cups and plates which graced the aristocratic sideboard and would have been eagerly acquired by competing courtiers. The books of drawings of goldsmith designs produced in Strada’s studio could also have functioned as trade catalogues from which patrons could select the type of objects they wished to order. That Strada did not limit his acquisitions for his patrons to antiquities only, is suggested by a passage in a letter Fugger wrote to him in November 1568, instructing him about the ‘camei et gioie’ Strada was to send to Duke Albrecht, which implies ample confidence in his judgement and probity.22 22 Doc. 1568-11-13: in a lost letter of 6 November Strada had asked whether the princes (the Duke and his sons) wished to receive them immediately, or rather wait until he could