Seite - 581 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 2

58�The Musaeum: Its Contents Over twenty years ago I was sent to Italy, to Rome and Venice and else- where, to buy gold, silver and bronze coins, as well as old and impor- tant marbles, which with great effort and expense of money I brought to Augsburg, divesting Italy of its most noble spoils. Among these are several heads of Emperors and Empresses, moreover many intact marble statues, and other works of no less prize and antiquity.<…>In the same way I have bought up, during two trips I made into Italy, to Venice, the most famous Musaeum of the Venetian nobleman Andrea Loredan, in which can be seen the most beautiful heads in marble as well as in bronze, intact marble statues, and ancient coins of all sorts, which he had brought together as occasion served for over fifty years and at great expense. These, together with many other most noble works of the same kind, which would be too long to mention here, I had brought to Munich, at the cost of many thousands of ducats<…>.8 Strada’s employment by Hans Jakob Fugger has already been discussed in chapter 3. The sources relating to the activities he now deployed, at Fugger’s recommendation, on behalf of the collections of Duke Albrecht V, confirm the important place such traffic in works of art and antiquities had among Strada’s occupations.9 12.3.1 Sources: The Libri Antiquitatum and the Letters of Niccolò Stopio The most important source documenting the formation of these collections consists of a number of files preserved in the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv in Munich. These Libri Antiquitatum, containing correspondence, accounts, some inventories and miscellaneous material, have been known and consulted since at least the end of the eighteenth century, and some extensive extracts have been published, though not always with great precision.10 The mate- rial directly relating to Strada’s commissions is to be found in the first three volumes, which contain some of his letters to the Duke and to Fugger, drafts of their answers, some accounts, lists of available objects and other miscel- lanea. Moreover, the second volume contains the letters from Venice written by another agent employed by Fugger on behalf of the Duke, the Italianate 8 Caesar 1575, fol. *4. 9 The following paragraph is a slightly expanded and updated version of my article ‘Jacopo Strada et le Commerce d’Art’, in Revue de l’Art (Jansen 1987). 10 München, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Kurbayern, Äusseres Archiv 4851–4856; here after referred to as BHStA-LA 4851–4856); extracts published in Stockbauer 1874 (passim) and used extensively throughout Von Busch 1973; Weski/Frosien-Leinz 1987 and Diemer/ Diemer/Sauerländer 2008.