Page - 869 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

869Agent of Change: Imperial Antiquary and Architect modest psychological experiment I have related in my introductory chapter strongly suggests that you would not. An even more forceful argument is that Titian appears to have painted Strada very much as he actually looked like, witness the description of Strada’s features circulated at the time by the Holy Office—the counsel for the persecution of heretics—which even included de- tails such as the individual grey hairs in his reddish beard. To conclude that these features are ‘petty’ is in itself an interpretation: I, for one, do not see it. But to deduce the character traits of their owner from them is an argument reminiscent of Kaspar Lavater’s and Cesare Lombroso’s long discarded physi- ognomic theories. ‘In the painting Strada is shown bending obsequiously across a table’ says Pope-Hennessy, ‘holding a marble statuette which he is displaying deferen- tially to some patron on the right’. Is it a coincidence that he chooses terms with negative connotations, while he might have chosen positive terms such as ‘courteous’ and ‘respectful’? The terms are chosen because they relate to the ‘capacity for flattery’ which he attributes to Strada. Now doubtless Strada was as capable of saying and writing flattering things to his patrons as any human- ist scholar or artist, which was often a dire necessity. However, there is little evidence that Strada was more ‘obsequious’ than other scholars and artists of his generation. On the contrary, there is abundant evidence that he was not. Strada’s own letters to princes, even to the Emperor himself, are courteous and contain the habitual courtesy phrases and baciamani; but they are also very as- sured in tone and never humble, never in fact ‘obsequious’, not even when he had good reason, for instance in the letter thanking Guglielmo Gonzaga for the benefice conferred on his son Paolo.49 The assurance with which some years later he asked the Duke himself to arrange for someone to make documen- tary drawings of Mantua monuments is quite unusual—the more so in that the Duke appears to have actually done so.50 Such assurance could evolve into obstinacy even with Hans Jakob Fugger, his first patron, to whom he probably owned much of his prosperity, and who remained a close associate. In a letter to Nicolò Stopio Fugger discusses Strada’s waywardness: 49 Doc. 1568-12-28. Strada uses the thank-you letter also as an advertisement of his Musaeum, his potential services and his position at the Imperial court. It is instructive to compare Strada’s letter to Archduke Ferdinand in December 1556 (Doc. 1556-12-22) with those writ- ten by Paul Pfinzing in the same affair (Doc. 1557-01-26): the self-abasement of Pfinzing, a Nuremburg patrician and secretary and diplomat in the service of Charles V and Philip ii, can only be partially explained by German custom: Wenzel Jamnitzer’s letters to the Arch- duke, again in the same affair (Docs. 1556-12-22 and 1557-01-27), are robust, self-confident and matter-of-fact in tone. 50 Doc. 1577-10-04; cf. above, Ch. 13.8.2.