Seite - 212 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

Chapter 4212 the person of the Emperor, as well as the lawyers and accountants running the chancery and the Hofkammer or treasury. Taken together, the further acts of patronage that Strada obtained from Maximilian ii—his assistance in ac- quiring and rebuilding his Vienna mansion, his insistent recommendations to other princes to aid Strada in his affairs and his ambitions for his family, and the formal recognition of his noble status—are exceptional: they dem- onstrate that Strada’s services were highly valued. It is therefore odd that so very little is known about what these services actually entailed. In fact Stra- da’s function at the Imperial court is the largest and most glaringly blank spot on the map of his career: whereas its size and shape can be roughly defined, its contents can only be conjectured. For any real understanding of Strada’s career this conjecture must be hazarded. Based on the assumption that the patronage he received was indeed a recompense for services rendered, what- ever their nature, the conjecture first relies on Strada’s few concrete activities on the Emperor’s behalf that are documented. To give substance to the rather hazy picture then emerging, Part ii of this study will be dedicated to Strada’s activity as an architect, while Part iii concentrates on his role in the collecting activities of his patrons and on his own collection. In both cases comparisons with documented activities for other patrons, in particular for Duke Albrecht v of Bavaria, will be discussed and the analogy used to underpin his conjectured role in Vienna. 4.3.2 Strada’s Documented Activities on Behalf of His Imperial Patrons Considering that Strada remained in Imperial service for over twenty years, and in two different functions, his concrete activities in those capacities that are documented are quite few. As we have seen, his earliest activities on behalf of members of the House of Austria preceded his appointment at court: his involvement in Archduke Ferdinand’s projected silver Garden of Eden and his advice on the planned catalogue of the Emperor’s medals have been discussed above. Soon after his arrival in Vienna, Strada was called upon to exercise a third of his accomplishments, his understanding of architecture. In October 1558 he was summoned, together with Hermes Schallautzer—as Bausuperintendent responsible for the management of the Imperial building projects in Vienna— and the Imperial Architect Pietro Ferrabosco, to examine in the presence of Ferdinand himself, the model for the arcades of the Hofspital, a charitable in- stitution that was being built next to the Vienna Hofburg at the Emperor’s ex- pense. The original model for the Hofspital had been presented to Ferdinand by his architect Sigismundo da Preda in 1549; but Ferdinand had decided to add superimposed arcades to the new building. It was the model for these