Page - 870 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 2

Chapter 16870 <…>as to Strada, is seems he behaves as usual, and if he was not so secretive, and instead showed himself more friendly, he would increase his stature; for in truth, one wonders what he would be if he was not more expert in antiquities than anyone else; for the rest it seems he is rather insufferable to those who do not do exactly as he wants. Enough; he is gone to Vienna, and has left me a note which I wish had been kinder and more friendly; but this is the way he is made, and he loses more than he gains by it<…>. Fugger continues to tell Stopio that Duke Albrecht intends to use Strada’s con- cept and designs for the new Antiquarium, adding, with a touch of irony, ‘if at least he will deign to come here’.51 ‘Obsequious’ is not exactly the qualifi- cation which I would apply to someone displaying such behaviour. Yet for all his reservations, Fugger squarely chose Strada’s side when he became aware of Stopio’s own incompetence in antiquarian matters, and realized how viciously he had attempted to blacken Strada’s name. He would remain on good terms with Strada until his death in 1575, the same year that Strada published his enthusiast account of Fugger’s contribution to the Munich collections—an account which again does not sound ‘obsequious’, but rather reflects Strada’s own happy memories of—and pride in—the share he had been given in the realisation of Fugger’s and Duke Albrecht’s ambitions.52 Stopio himself certainly did not accuse Strada of undue servility towards his patrons: ‘in fact his arrogance is insufferable: if he talks about the Emperor or the princes, it seems that they are staying with him, instead of he staying with them’. If his descriptions have any kernel of truth in them, they indicate that Strada took a lot of trouble to present himself as a nobleman and courtier, and as an independent agent, rather than as a servant: <…>he went about here<…> in scarlet hose, with his son as a page and accompanied by three or four of these appraisers, so that he looked like a nobleman with his suite<…>. 51 Copy of Fugger’s letter to Stopio, Ingolstadt 25 August 1568, BHStA-LA 4852, fol. 165–166: ‘<…>Quanto al Strada me pare che luy tenga al solito suo, et se non si simulse tanto, anzi se dimostrasse piu amorevole, si faria maggior assai di quello che è, che in verita si [puo ?] dir quanto se ne vagli esso se non intende circa l’antiquaglie quant’ un altro; del resto pare che sia assai insuportabile a chi non fa tutto a modo suo; basta, egli è ito a Vienna et mi ha lassiato una sua che voria fusse piu dolce, et amorevole; ma egli è pur fatto cosí, et con questo perdene p[er]de assai piu che non guadagna.<…>S. Ecc. è deliberata di fabricare una stanza p[er] le sui antiquaglie, et circa l’ordinare vuol usare il disegno et parere d[e]l Strada, se pero si vorra degnare di venir in qua<…>. 52 Caesar 1575, ff. *3v.–5r.