Seite - 432 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

Chapter 9432 Buda had fallen to the Turks. The rather attractive decorations in stucco and painting in the chapel that were executed between 1563 and 1569 by Giulio Licinio, Cesare Baldigara and Ulisse Romano have recently been uncovered and restored [Figs. 9.4–9.5]. With his colleagues, the medallist Antonio Abondio and the sculptor Mathias Manmacher, Strada was sent there in April of 1569 to examine them in order to provide an estimate for the payment of Licinio’s work, and he may earlier have been involved in formulating Licinio’s commis- sion.3 The sophisticated architecture of the chapel and the type of decoration chosen strongly suggests that Strada had been involved in some capacity: it is derived from Raphael’s Vatican Loggia, and must have been directly inspired by the detailed documentary drawings which Strada had commissioned a decade earlier [cf. above, Figs. 3.92–3.93 and below, Figs. 13.102–13.107].4 9.2 Kaiserebersdorf and Katterburg Though positive evidence is lacking, it seems likely that Strada’s tasks at court included expert advice and perhaps designs for interior decoration, principally in the Hofburg itself, in the Stallburg and in the castle at Kaiserebersdorf, in all of which work was continually going on. Apart from the Stallburg, 3 Doc. 1569-04-00. Licinio’s paintings in oil on panel that filled the stucco compartments were destroyed in a fire in 1811. Licinio was greatly offended that his own estimate was questioned and left Pressburg in a rage; cf. Vertova 1976, p. 561 ff; Podewils 1992, pp. 132–135. I am very grateful to Annemarie Jordan-Gschwend to have shared with me the images she has obtained of the remains of this remarkable work of art. 4 Cf. above, Ch. 3.8.2, and below, Ch. 13.8.1. Figures 9.4a–b and 9.5 Giulio Licinio?, Cesare Baldigara and Ulisse Romano, remainders of stucco and painted decoration in the chapel of the Royal castle at Bratislava, ca 1563–1569.