Seite - 703 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 2

703Visual Documentation inner walls and ceilings of each separate chamber, documenting every detail of the painted and stucco decoration [Figs. 13.112–13.113], and finally Strada’s own room-by-room description of the palace, making the Palazzo de Te prob- ably the best documented Renaissance building in existence.121 Strada’s en- thusiasm for this building—‘the most beautiful and resplendent palace in the world’—was based on a complex amalgam of juvenile memories—he had seen it being built and decorated, and may himself have contributed—coupled to a taste schooled on the premises of the style of Raphael and his pupils, in par- ticular Giulio, and to Strada’s patriot pride as a Mantuan citizen and Gonzaga vassal, as he styled himself.122 In any case Strada was very closely involved in the production of the ma- terial, which he could not have realized without the tacit or explicit support of Duke Guglielmo, and the help of his Prefetto dell fabbriche, Strada’s exact contemporary and old friend Giovanni Battista Bertani, who probably made available some of the original drawings and designs kept in the Gonzaga office of works. That these drawings were at the basis of the documentation rather than the finished building is evident from the anomalies between Andreasi’s drawings and the building as executed, and from Strada’s annotations and his descriptions. Yet drawings and executed building were carefully confronted, as is evident from Strada’s annotations and from the report that he had men at work both ‘in Castello’—the Palazzo Ducale—and in the Palazzo del Te, at the other end of town. Running around to supervise their work had even caused him an attack of the gout.123 In this project he was well served by Bertani, whose help he gratefully ac- knowledged in a much later letter to Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga. From this 121 The drawings in Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum (ca 40 sheets documenting the Palazzo del Te, ca 35 sheets documenting some interiors in the Palazzo Ducale); the plan of the Palazzo del Te, ibid., Fp 10937; the description: Jacopo Strada, Ordine come vanno li dissegni del Palazzo del Ti fuori di Mantua, ms. Vienna, önb-hs, Cod. 9039, ff. 154–155. The drawings are catalogued in Harprath 1984, and discussed in Giulio Romano 1989, pp. 333–334 and passim; and in Belluzzi 1998, Saggi, pp. 31–36 and passim; Strada’s description printed in Davari 1889; Verheyen 1967, pp. 68–69. The plan and perhaps the outlines of the eleva- tions may have been prepared by Bertani, whose help in Strada’s project was gratefully acknowledged in a later letter of Strada to Duke Guglielmo. 122 In his letters to Duke Guglielmo, and only to him, Strada habitually referred to himself as his ‘vasallo’, f. i.: ‘E questo favore lo serbaro a miglior tempo a commodità di Vostra Excel- lenza Illustrissima, perchè dal canto mio, essendogli Suo vasallo, non posso dessiderar se non cosa che li agradi e torni a utile; suplicandoLa si degni a comandarmi e servirsi di me dove vaglio e posso’. (Doc. 1568-10-11; other examples: Docs. 1568-12-28; 1571-11-20; 1577-10-04). 123 Von Busch 1973, pp. 204–205 and pp. 340–3421, notes 84–92.