Seite - 688 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 2

Chapter 13688 drawings were readily available in Rome: Strada’s drawings of this monument doubtless were derived from such earlier sources. But the Column of Marcus Aurelius was much less well documented and Strada may well have needed to organize the preparation of a complete survey of the frieze himself. In his entry on this column he explicitly stated that these drawings, like those of the Col- umn of Theodosius (in fact that of Arcadius) were made at his initiative and expense (a claim he omits when describing the drawings of Trajan’s Column). If such a complicated operation indeed took place on Strada’s instigation, this would only have been possible thanks to Fugger’s strong financial backing: af- ter all this required a well-managed team of draughtsmen and assistants as well as some considerable investment in scaffolding and/or machinery. Unfor- tunately the early reception of the Column of Marcus Aurelius has been less studied than that of Trajan’s Column.101 Apart from the two Roman columns Strada also took pains to document the similar column erected in Constantinople by Arcadius, but finished and dedicated only after his death (408 ad) by his son, Theodosius ii.102 This lat- ter fact may help to explain the regular confusion of this column with the one erected by Theodosius the Great in about 386, but destroyed in an earthquake in 1517: Strada and his contemporaries referred to the columns of Antoninus and Theodosius, rather than to those of Marcus Aurelius and Arcadius. Under its incorrect appellation the column of Arcadius, which remained standing until hit by an earthquake in the early eighteenth century, was well known to travellers. Strada had commissioned a set consisting of about hundred sheets of this  column on behalf of Duke Albrecht V during his 1567 visit to Venice and Mantua, which was delivered in instalments between 1567 and early 1569.103 This implies either that Strada had gained access to a complete set of drawings of this frieze—perhaps in the possession of collectors such Giovanni Grimani or Cesare Gonzaga—or that he had these commissioned himself through his contacts in Constantinople, such as the Imperial diplomats at the Otto- man court with whom he had good contacts, or through trade connections in 101 The Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance refers only one print of a scene of the shaft, a Sacrifice of Marcus Aurelius, by León Davent printed by Lafreri in the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, and no drawings at all (http://census .bbaw.de; consultation 5 August 2017); I have never found references to sets of drawings of the frieze from the 16th century; but many scenes—such as the Victory inscribing Marcus’ Triumph on an oval shield, halfway up—must have been very familiar to Renaissance artists. 102 Grigg 1977. 103 The sources mention instalments of 50 sheets and a later consignment of 45 sheets. Cf. Stockbauer 1865, p. 34: ‘Um die Colonna Theodosii, sind 50 Bogen jeden zu v 1 1/2 = v 75,-’; Busch 1973, pp 204,. 340–341, n. 85.