Seite - 87 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

87Travel—Wenzel Jamnitzer he owes to the Imperial Majesty and to your own, nor to the duties of civility, to call me by that name in his writings <…>’42 Strada’s ‘saper et intender’ of the art of the goldsmith, that is of a menial oc- cupation as a craftsman, would even a decade later lay him open to the attack of an invidious rival, the minor poet Niccolò Stopio, who in a letter of 1567 to their common patron, Hans Jakob Fugger, scoffed that: Strada has no connections here with sculptors, but only with goldsmiths and print-designers, or miniaturists, which is his trade.43 It must be conceded that it is doubtful whether Strada’s original motivation to learn the craft of the goldsmith was a mere desire better to comprehend the intricate new discipline of ancient numismatics. It might be that Strada’s antiquarian interest was itself partly due to his training in a goldsmith’s work- shop; such shops after all were habitually also the repositories of the smaller and more valuable antiquities such as cameos, intaglios, small bronzes and ancient coins. The craft enjoyed a relatively high social distinction, since it was a ‘clean’ craft and, moreover, required a capital investment to set up an independent workshop, an investment which Strada’s family would have been able to provide . In his letter to King Maximilian Strada certainly does not deny 42 Doc. 1559-06-00, printed in Jansen 1993(a), Annexe 2, pp. 233–235: ‘Il Dottor Lazio <…>, volendomi tassar di puocha cognitione nelle cose de l’Anti[chità], fugge descrivere et palesar il proprio mio nome et cognome, et mi descrive da[ll’] arte ch’io ho da putto im- parato, per meglio poter poi col tempo venir ad apprendere quello che per gratia di dio ho con gran fattica et spesa apresso, in parte dal[l]’ antichità de marmi et medaglie <…> scoprendo con li scritti suoi a Vostra [Maestà] et a tutto’l mondo quanto io so et vaglia nella mia professione, nella quale [non] sol mi son contentato di voler intendere i nomi, et conossere i ritratti degli [uom]ini antichi, ma ancora ho fatto si con la fattica e’l tempo, che li so non so[lo] ritrarre in carta, ma li so anche sculpire tanto in oro et metalli, quant[o in] marmo <…> essendo che egli per caso ha per cosa vituperosa (come mostra d’[haver]) il saper et intender l’arte del’orefice, non era conveniente nè a la servitù che deve a la Ce- sarea et Vostra Maestà, nè al debito del viver civile, il volermi chiamar ne suoi scritti di tal nome <…>’. 43 Stopio to Fugger, Venice 15 June 1567: ‘Il Strada non pratica qui con scultori, senon con orefici o disegnatori di stampe in rame, o miniatori, che è il suo mestiere’ [BHStA-LA 4852, fol. 35–36/29–30]. Stopio deliberately deluded Fugger, for from his own reports a few weeks later it appears that Strada had close connections with the best Venetian sculp- tor of the time, Alessandro Vittoria, idem, 24 August 1567: ‘Io volevo che quella mattina fusse venuto meco il Strada, ma mi disse hiersera il suo figliuolo che mi portò letter da mandare a Monaco a S. Gio:, ch’l va a desinare con Alessandro Vittorio [sic] scultore che fa queste sue cose <…>’ [ibid. fol. 60/53].