Seite - 792 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 2

792 Chapter 14 Figures 14.47–14.48 Ottavio Strada, De Vitis Imperatorum et Caesarum Romanorum, Frankfurt a.M. 1615, opening page of the chapter on Julius Caesar and the entry on Emperor Maximilian ii. Figure 14.46 Ottavio Strada, Aller römischer Kayser Leben und Thaten, Frankfurt a.M. 1618, title page. Even more ironically, the only volume that was published under Strada’s own name after his death concerned a subject in which he himself apparently was not particularly interested. This was a set of technical drawings for wind-, water- and treadmills, fountains and pumps and other inventions largely derived from the technical tradition stemming from Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Though an autograph manuscript of this in Strada’s hand exists [Fig. 14.49], this material—which he doubtless obtained at least in part with Serlio’s collection—figures in none of the written sources, and was certainly never in- cluded in Strada’s publishing programme (though Ottavio the Elder provided manuscript sets to various of his own patrons).149 Ottavio the Younger pub- lished it in a Latin, a German and a French edition [Figs. 14.50–14.51], prob- ably both because of his own personal interest, and as a means to draw the attention of potential patrons to his professional competence as a hydraulic engineer. Entering into a partnership with the largely Dutch company charged by Henri iv already in 1499 with the draining of the marshes in various regions of France, this competence allowed him to re-establish the fortune of his family, after his forced departure from Bohemia after the Battle of the White Mountain: as Marquis de Strada d’Arosberg his descendants became the biggest 149 On this treatise, see the facsimile edition of one of the copies by Ottavio the Elder, now in the Museo delle Scienze in Florence: Marchis/Dolza 2002.