Seite - 425 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

425The Munich Antiquarium [cf. above, Figs. 5.75 and 6.13]. It was to include octagonal compartments filled by copies of Giulio Romano’s scenes from the myth of Cupid and Psyche in the Camera di Psiche of the Palazzo del Te.62 The minimal interpretation of Strada’s claim would be that he merely had organized and designed the ‘order’, that is the placing, of the antiquities in the ground floor hall. We have seen above that Fugger considered this as Strada’s most essential contribution, and Strada may well have thought so himself. He had insisted on bringing some of the portrait heads to Vienna, in order to have the busts sculpted to his own specifications and under his close supervi- sion, and he had already at an early date begun to design and to commission the plaques in black marble he considered necessary adjuncts to identify the individual statues. Though soon the Duke decided to have this work done in Munich, rather than in Vienna, it was Strada who provided the identification of the statues, drafted the exact texts for the name-tablets and prepared the detailed lay-out of their arrangement. Apparently a version of his plan for the collocation of the statues was already available at the preparatory meeting for the building of the Antiquarium in June 1570, since in its minutes it is noted ‘The columns [should be] separate, in order for the statues to be placed accord- ing to the survey’.63 This plan for the arrangement of the collection has not been preserved, and even its original composition cannot be confidently determined, so it is dif- ficult to reconstruct the earliest arrangement of the Munich antiquities, and to know in how far this corresponded to Strada’s intentions. But his interior elevation gives at least some indication of these [Figs. 8.20 and 8.45]: the larger statues were to be placed separately on low pedestals, each in the centre of a niche, whereas the larger portrait heads are placed in busts on tall pedestals; smaller full-length figures are placed on columns and smaller busts find a place on top of the cornice over the piers between the niches. The inscriptions iden- tifying each object were engraved on separate plaques of black marble which were inserted into the pedestals. The slightly later drawing already referred to [Fig. 8.44] documents the interior before the redecoration commissioned by Albrecht’s successor, and probably gives a good impression of how Strada’s plans were realized in the building as actually constructed. 62 Related in Fugger’s letter to Duke Albrecht of 5 March 1569, excerpts given in Hartig 1933, p. 221–222; cf. Von Busch 1973, p. 128 and 299, n. 99. 63 ‘Die Seulen von ainander, das die Pilder steen mögen vermög der Verzaichnus’ [Weski/ Frosien-Leinz 1987, Textband, p. 468, nr. 173, quoted from Hartig 1933, p. 223]. The process discussed in detail in Diemer/Diemer 1995, pp. 62 ff. The sculptors Jordan Prechenfelder, Carlo Pallago and Hans Ernhofer were charged with making the busts, Prechenfelder was also paid for a large number of the inscription tablets.