Seite - 304 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

Chapter 5304 89 ibidem, p. 286, for instance: ‘Is prope sepem circum circa oblonga et amoenissima ambu- latione vitbus odoratis, et iis quiem laetissimis consitus in quotidianum Culinae usum, ut salubres (ut Virgilius inquit) corpori praebat cibos, prudenter destinatus est’. 90 ibidem, p. 284. classical literature, and a large part of Tanner’s treatise is dedicated to listing and quoting the classical sources on the lay-out and management of gardens, and in particular the quincunx, including Columella’s De Re Rustica, Virgil’s Georgica and Pliny’s Historia Naturalis. These are mostly practical treatises on agriculture and husbandry, and Tanner actually stresses the functional use of Maximilian’s garden, which included not only orchards but also herbal and kitchen gardens. Next to its recreational and representative functions, the do- main was useful in providing the Vienna court with the game, the vegetables and the fruits—often exclusive, exotic ones—that it needed in large quantities.89 This practical aspect also applies to the quincunx, which is praised not merely for its geometrical perfection, but also because it gave the individual trees more space and better protected them against adverse weather conditions.90 Of course we do not know whether Maximilian himself had studied all of these texts. When Tanner was asked to prepare the description of the garden, he may have begun collecting such classical instances to vindicate the King’s project ex post facto. But it seems more likely that he merely added to the argu- ments and ideas that had inspired the design of Maximilian’s garden, and that the King had read at least some of these texts himself—though possibly he limited himself to the relevant passages pointed out to him by advisors such as Huetstocker. That he should have read such texts is not really odd, in view of his intelligence, his gift for languages and his well documented personal inter- est in gardening. It could moreover be justified because such texts often made part of, or complemented more general arguments of domestic economy, and were therefore of immediate practical use for an efficient administration of his patrimony, and, by analogy, also for the proper government of his states. That at least is the point made by Tanner’s opening quotation, taken from a treatise entitled ‘The Economist’ and describing the gardening activities of a prince who is explicitly presented as the ideal ruler. Like his Cyropedeia, Xenophon’s Economist was perfectly suitable for the education of a prince, and in some version it may already have been among the reading material assigned to Maxi- milian by his teachers long before he ever thought of building or of gardening. Yet the general tenor of Tanner’s description of the King’s ‘amoenissimus hortus’ is to sing the praises of the many animals that inhabited its groves, the many species of birds whose sweet music filled the air, the flowers that bejew- elled its meadows: