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Fischer von Erlach’s Entwurff einer historischen Architectur 99
the sources for many of the reconstructions in
the book. His post allowed him to give Fischer
free access to the Habsburg collections, enabling
him to supplement what he had seen in Rome
years earlier. He presumably offered his exper-
tise as well. It must be for this reason that the
plate of the Colossus of Rhodes was reworked at
some point between 1712 and 1721 to add another
visual footnote: a second recto and verso of an
ancient coin showing the monument (figs. 4, 5).37
This is the only instance of this kind of anti-
quarian intervention in Fischer’s finished work.38
Heraeus may nonetheless have been the source
of a more general planned revision of the book
that would have delayed publication. Many of
the images had been in preparation for years, and
the framework and goals were laid out clearly
by 1712, and perhaps as early as 1710, cement-
ing the form of the work before Heraeus could
have become deeply involved. He may have
proposed expanding the book textually, how-
ever, transforming it from an image-book of
reconstructions and contemporary works into
a scholarly work more comparable to Bellori’s
publications – a prospect that may well have
appealed to Fischer, who began his antiquarian
studies in Bellori’s collections. This would have
allowed an enormous expansion in the ambition
of the work without changing the parameters or
historical structure set out in the title page. In-
deed, the written component accompanying the
first two books is an impressively full discussion of the monuments, but incomplete. The inscrip-
tion accompanying the image of the mosque of
Suleyman III in Book Three refers the reader to
the text, which was never supplied.39
Heraeus’s precise role in the development of
the Entwurff remains very unclear. He evidently
was not as involved in the conceptual gestation
of the book or the architectural reconstructions
as has often been assumed, since he made no
claim to this and the work seems to have been
largely done by the time he became involved.
His formal involvement seems to have been
limited to the text, which was a complementary
but somewhat distinct undertaking, and a few
relatively minor corrections and additions to the
images. Yet, he seems to have remained involved
in some way throughout, for all correspondence
regarding the book went through him, and he
evidently had the authority to give Carl Gustaf
Tessin access to the work in 1718 and again in
1720. Perhaps he was ultimately as much a friend
and advisor to Fischer as a collaborator in the
project.
36 Zirnbauer, Johann Adam Delsenbach (cit. n. 22), pp. 290–292.
37 Very likely this adjustment was made quite late, since the Tessins’ copy of the Entwurff contains the unrevised image.
38 The only other interventions in earlier plates are the erasure of the engraver Benjamin Kenckel’s signature on a
number of the early plates; the reworking of the Domus Aurea of Nero; and the view of the Trautson garden palace,
in which the date was changed from 1710 (in the Vienna manuscript and the Tessins’ copy of the book) to 1711 (in
all published editions). This may be related to the elevation to prince of the empire of the patron, Johann Leopold
Donat von Trautson. It was likely in response to this that the Ionic order on the façade was reworked as a composite
order. See A. Kreul, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. Regie der Relation, Salzburg 2006, p. 248.
39 The inscription on the view of the mosque of Sultan Suleyman III (Book Three) includes the note: NB: Die genauere
Erklärung der Ziffern, ist in der beschreibung zu suchen (the more precise explanation of the numbers is to be sought in the
description), indicating that an extended text was to have accompanied the third book, and likely the whole work.
The incomplete nature of the text is emphasized by Lorenz, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (cit. n. 1), p. 43.
Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte
Volume LIX
Entnommen aus der FWF-E-Book-Library
- Title
- Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte
- Volume
- LIX
- Editor
- Bundesdenkmalamt Wien
- Institut für Kunstgeschichte der Universität Wien
- Publisher
- Böhlau Verlag
- Location
- Wien
- Date
- 2011
- Language
- German, English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-78674-0
- Size
- 19.0 x 26.2 cm
- Pages
- 280
- Keywords
- research, baroque art, methodology, modern art, medieval art, historiography, Baraock, Methodolgiem, Kunst, Wien
- Category
- Kunst und Kultur