Seite - 302 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

Chapter 5302 83 ibidem, pp. 281–282; Xenophon, The Economist, iv; cf. the English translation by H.G. Da- kyns: ‘Lysander, it seems, had gone with presents sent by the Allies to Cyrus, who enter- tained him, and amongst other marks of courtesy showed him his ‘Paradise’ at Sardis. (16) Lysander was astonished at the beauty of the trees within, all planted (17) at equal inter- vals, the long straight rows of waving branches, the perfect regularity, the rectangular (18) symmetry of the whole, and the many sweet scents which hung about them as they paced the park. In admiration he exclaimed to Cyrus: ‘All this beauty is marvellous enough, but what astonishes me still more is the talent of the artificer who mapped out and arranged for you the several parts of this fair scene’. (19) Cyrus was pleased by the remark, and said: ‘Know then, Lysander, it is I who measured and arranged it all. Some of the trees’, he added, ‘I planted with my own hands’. Tanner, whose description is more extensive, may have used a later paraphrase or translation, perhaps Cicero’s? 84 Chmel 1840–1841, 2, pp. 263–264. 85 ibidem, p. 289, attributes the general plan [Fig. 5.65] to Wolmut; the drawing of the or- chard is signed mbw (for ‘<de> manu Bonifacii Wolmut ’?). responsible for some of its features and their execution. But it also served to publicize Tanner’s own wide erudition, so his interpretations cannot auto- matically be assumed to coincide always with Maximilian’s intentions. Never- theless it is likely that Tanner’s remarks complement and refine, rather than conflict with the King’s own ideas; at the very least they represent ideas cur- rent in his immediate circle. 5.3.3 Maximilian’s Personal Participation After the fulsome dedicatory epistle, the actual treatise opens with Tanner’s paraphrase of a passage from Xenophon’s Economist, describing how the great Persian King Cyrus showed Lysander, a Greek envoy, his garden or ‘Paradise’ at Sardis, and stressing how this wonderful garden full of fragrant shrubs and regu- larly placed trees was designed and measured out in person by Cyrus himself, who had actually planted many of the trees with his own hands.83 Later in the text Tanner extends the parallel implied between the Sardis ‘Paradise’ and the Vienna Prater to include Maximilian’s personal participation, when he describes how the King, on 21 May 1556, himself stretched a string from the central window of the Lusthaus, and began setting out the limits of the planned orchards and fixing the spots of the individual trees, some of which he planted himself.84 This confirms Crato’s assertion in his funeral oration for Maximilian cited above. If Maximilian took the trouble to execute the plans in person, it is also pos- sible that he was chiefly responsible for the actual planning or designing that must have preceded it. If so, he must have been assisted by a professional who worked out the calculations and transformed his sketches into definitive plans: the obvious candidate is Bonifaz Wolmut, who shared the humanist interest and expertise necessary to understand the King’s ambitions, and who provided the illustrations for Tanner’s manuscript [Figs. 5.65–5.69].85 Tanner strongly emphasizes the fact that the garden was laid out and that the trees were planted