Seite - 560 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 2

Chapter 11560 and banker such as Fugger, but through his connections with Fugger and asso- ciates such as the Nieri and because of his own experience as a merchant and book dealer he was sufficiently aware of international commerce and financial dealing occasionally to advise or assist some of his patrons in this field. There are many other instances of people who visited Strada’s house or at least were in contact with him when in Vienna—they cannot all be discussed in detail. Thus when Strada tried to persuade Vilém z Rožmberk to buy his house and collections, he refers to his patron’s personal knowledge of both. When he makes the same offer to the Elector of Saxony, he refers him to his own ‘Kammersekretär’ Hans Jeniß or Jenitz, ‘who had seen it the time that Your Electoral Grace has been here at Vienna’ (in February 1573). In a letter of recommendation for Strada to the Elector of Saxony in this same affair, Hubert Languet [Fig. 11.18] amply praises Strada’s house, which presupposes that he saw it during his visits to the Imperial court, as did his pupil and dearest friend, the English diplomat, soldier, poet and national hero, Sir Philip Sidney. As we saw, Sidney’s name and family device, ‘Quo fata me vocant’, is inscribed in Ottavio Strada’s Stammbuch [Fig. 11.9].27 The Flemish humanist Nicasius Ellebodius, who had settled in Hungary as a canon of Esztergom cathedral, visited Strada’s house to buy copies of Lodovico Castelvetro’s brand new Italian translation of Aristotle’s poetics for his Mila- nese colleague, Gian Vincenzo Pinelli. Pinelli had told Ellebodius that the book could be had at Strada’s house, and thus must at least have heard of Strada’s activities—perhaps his source was Ellebodius himself, who elsewhere men- tions Strada as a friend.28 The fact that the book was sold at Strada’s house strongly suggests that he had been instrumental in its printing, with Maximilian 27 Doc. 1576-09-28: ‘Eur C.F.G. Secretari, der H[err] Jeniß, der khan Eur C.F.G. einen bericht darvon geben, der hatt sie das mal gesehen, wie eur C.F.G. alhie zu Wien gewesen sendt’; cf. Lietzmann 1997, p. 397. Languet’s letter Doc. 1576-09-07. 28 Lodovico Castelvetro, Poetica d’Aristotele vulgarizzata, et sposta, Vienna (per Gaspar Stain- hofer), 1570. It was soon reprinted (Basle, Perna, 1576). Pinelli had at first written to Janus Sambucus to go and buy two copies of the book, which Ellebodius could pick up when he arrived in Vienna. Ellebodius first visited Strada, whom he elsewhere calls his friend, and found him ill. When it turned out that Sambucus had not yet picked up the books, Ellebodius bought the two copies for Pinelli and one for himself from Strada directly. A few months later Pinelli asked Ellebodius to get another copy for a friend, ‘il gentilis- simo Monsignor del Bene’. By now back in Pressburg Ellebodius wrote to the young Hugo Blotius, who had just arrived in Vienna, telling him that either Sambucus or (the sculptor Mathias) Manmacher could tell him where to find Strada’s house (‘aedes’), and asking him to greet him in his name; cf. Docs. 1571-05-14; 1571-07-04; 1571-09-27a, b and c.; on the sympathetic Ellebodius (also: Ellebaudt, Van Ellebode), see Sivirsky 1976; Almási 2009, pp.  72–73, 202 and passim.