Seite - 22 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

Introduction22 deliberately dramatize the story of Anna Maria Strada, an illegitimate daugh- ter of Ottavio Strada who became Rudolf ii’s mistress and mother of two of his children. In Svátek’s version of the facts she is renamed Katharina instead of Anna Maria, she is the daughter of Jacopo, instead of his granddaughter, be- comes not only the mistress but even the morganatic wife of the Emperor, and the mother of (all of?) his illegitimate children, including the mad Don Julius. This fictionalized account of the affair had a wide appeal, witness the his- tory painting by Jan Skramlík (1860–1936) which had been illustrated in the Czech review Ruch of 1887 [Fig. 0.13].41 Thus Strada became part of the web of legend about Rudolf ii the melancholic recluse, living amongst his art trea- sures surrounded by artists, alchemists and astrologers. This legend has been retold and reconstructed from its literary sources in Angelo Maria Ripellino’s magisterial essay Praga Magica of 1973, but its historical basis has been care- fully examined and partially deconstructed in Robert Evans’ Rudolf ii and his 41 I am grateful to Eliška Fučíková to have drawn my attention to this image. A version (or copy?) of the original painting (oil on canvas, 55 x 80 cm) was recently sold at auction (Rempex auction house at Warsaw, May 21, 2003, lot 226); the print shows a different back- ground. On Anna Maria Strada and her relation to Rudolf ii, see Jansen 1988a, pp. 132–133, 143, notes 1 and 5, and now the exhaustive survey on Rudolf’s children, Sapper 1999. Figure 0.13 Jan Skramlík, Rudolf ii visits the studio of his Antiquary Jacopo Strada, who introduces his daughter Katharina to the Emperor, after a painting reproduced in the Czech periodical Ruch, x, 1887.