Seite - 512 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

Chapter 9512 Strada had been involved in the commissions for both tombs, and must have known Colin personally; he probably granted him access to his own antiquar- ian and artistic documentation. He must have regularly shared his knowledge and documentation with him, as with other artists working at or for the Impe- rial Court: at least that is suggested by a design, now attributed to Giuseppe Arcimboldo, for one of the several fountains Colin was commissioned to ex- ecute for the Neugebäude. Now in the Tiroler Landesmuseum, this drawing shows a beautiful two-tier fountain, the upper basin of which is carried by four female herms, with their arms interlaced and their breasts spouting water. It is topped by the statue of a goddess, accompanied by two putti, carrying a wa- ter jar on her head [Figs. 9.108–9.109].124 This goddess is an adaptation in re- verse of a statue of a canephore now in Munich, which is illustrated in Jacopo Strada’s Statuarum antiquarum, an album of drawings of classical statues still preserved in the Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek [Fig. 9.110].125 To sum up: in the development of the Neugebäude Strada acted as an ar- tistic advisor for his patron, as a designer, as an iconographer and as an agent. These activities represented only the artistic and antiquarian aspects of his patron’s brief. In practice decisions were taken and problems were solved in small committees meeting on the spot, such as we have earlier seen discussing the tomb for Maximilian i, the ceiling of the Goldene Saal in Innsbruck, and the Vienna Hofspital. In view of Maximilian’s close involvement in the project, such meetings may have taken place when he could be present in person; but often he would be absent from Vienna, and hoped to see something finished when he returned. Such informal meetings would be attended on the one hand by those responsible for the execution of the project: the managing architects, the master masons, the ‘Bauschreiber’ who administered the available funds and materials and, not least, the head gardener. On the other hand the patron would be represented by a group of counsellors, trusted members of the Em- peror’s immediate entourage, representing the courtly and the financial inter- ests, and including Strada as the adviser best versed in the designs.126 Strada may have occupied a key position in this constellation: speaking the language 124 Innsbruck, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, inv. nr. dm 62; Lietzmann 1987, pp. 145–146; I am grateful to Rosanna Dematté, who drew my attention to the plausible at- tribution of this drawing to Arcimboldo: ARCIMBOLDO: ARTISTA MILANESE 2011, p. 200. 125 önb-hs, Cod. min. 21,2, fol. 151. 126 One of the likely candidates is Reichard Strein von Schwarzenau, who as Hofkammerprä- sident would have represented Maximilian’s financial interests; but he was also an intel- lectual, a dedicated historian and antiquary and an important patron of architecture in his own right (see below, Ch. 10.6).