Seite - 215 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

215Tasks at the Imperial Court that the latter had in fact provided a design that had been well received by his patron.51 In April 1569 Strada was sent to Pressburg (Bratislava), since the fall of Buda to the Turks the effective capital of Hungary. The chapel of the castle, which served as the principal royal residence, had been decorated with an elaborate programme of religious scenes designed and painted by Giulio Licinio. These paintings have not survived, but they were framed in stucco and surrounded by grotesques by Cesare Baldigara and Ulisse Romano, which have recently been rediscovered and restored [Figs. 9.4–9.5]. Begun in 1563, the project was nearing completion; Strada’s task was to inspect it and to give an estimate of the remuneration Licinio was entitled to for this prestigious work, unfortu- nately destroyed or removed in the early nineteenth century.52 In 1572 or 1573 Strada provided the Emperor with twelve antique portrait heads and a bust, the former at 40 Kronen each, the latter at 60 Kronen. It is not known whether these were statues from his own collection—perhaps those bought at such high prices during his visit to Venice in 1560?—or wheth- er he had negotiated their acquisition on the Emperor’s explicit commission during his last stay in Venice in 1570. It is likewise unknown what was done with them, but it appears likely that they were intended for the decoration of the Neugebäude: at least since 1566 Maximilian had been actively engaged through his envoys and agents in Rome to obtain ‘varias antiquitates, que haberi possunt, artificiosissimas et elegantissimas ad ornatum hortorum spec- tantes’, that is, antique sculpture suitable to decorate the garden he was plan- ning. The total sum Strada received—he was paid 810 Gulden, the equivalent of 540 Kronen—was almost thrice his combined annual salary, and therefore not inconsiderable.53 The numismatic manuscripts Strada had dedicated to Ferdinand i and Maximilian ii in the 1550s had not been solicited, but had been presented as gifts, to draw the attention of these potential employers. Though both giver and recipient would always carefully maintain the courtly fiction of an even ex- change of gifts, such presents were implicitly expected to yield some concrete recompense: Strada had in fact received a quite generous remuneration for the fruits of his labour, disguised as Ehrengeschenk—literally a ‘honorarium’. On the other hand, the six monumental volumes of his Series Imperatorum 51 DOC. 1568-11-13; on the Neugebäude, see below, Chapter 9. 52 DOC. 1569-04-00; On Licinio’s frescoes, see Lietzmann 1987, pp. 148–149; on Licinio in gen- eral, ibidem p. 148–151, and Vertova 1976, pp. 513–589 and 543–544. 53 DOCS. 1573-01-21; 1574-06-01; 1574-06-08; on Maximilian’s attempts to acquire antiques: Lietzmann 1987, pp. 164–166; Brown 1987, which provides additional archival material.