Seite - 484 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

Chapter 9484 The most spectacular resemblance, however, is that with Ligorio’s reconstruc- tion of a Vivarium, that is a place to keep live exotic animals, a functioned it shared with the Neugebäude [Fig. 9.69]. Here a rectangular space is surround- ed on two sides by crenelated walls interrupted by square towers and by a col- onnade (actually part of Rome’s city walls), and closed off by a huge loggia carried by coupled columns over a closed rustic zone: again very similar to the Neugebäude’s main gallery. 9.9.2 Roman Baths If the Vivarium shared a function with the Neugebäude, the same is true for the Thermae, the Roman Imperial baths or Thermae. Maximilian’s poor health required him regularly to have recourse to bathing, and one of the towers of the Neugebäude is identified as ‘Badeturm’, ‘bath-tower’.84 More in general, the 84 During one visit to Kaiserebersdorf he is reputed to have spent about sixty hours in his bath (Fichtner 2001, p. 207). The ‘Badeturm’, with some of its sumptuous decoration, was Figure 9.69 The Castrum Praetorium and an adjoining Vivarium, from Pirro Ligorio’s 1561 plan of Ancient Rome.