Seite - 831 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 2

831Agent of Change: Imperial Antiquary and Architect in the manner of Rome or Naples, in a beautiful style and order of archi- tecture; and would have laid out beautiful gardens, fishponds, fountains and other delights suitable to a great Prince as is Your Highness, I can serve him extremely well, and what I will have had made will be praised by every man of taste.1 It is also true that the construction of his own house in Vienna shows that he possessed the necessary competence to realize such a project. Yet even con- sidering the dearth of sources documenting the architectural commissions in Vienna under Ferdinand i and Maximilian ii, it seems inconceivable that Strada’s direct responsibility for their construction would not have left at least some traces in the archives. Nevertheless, this does not preclude that Strada functioned as a formal or informal consultant to the architects or master masons who had been charged with their realization, in particular in case of those projects for which he had provided designs. In addition to some general supervision of the transforma- tion of his designs into the construction drawings necessary at the building site, such consultancy would have concerned the correct use of the propor- tional system and the detailing of the orders, the providing of models for these and for other decorative elements, as well as suggestions as to the materials in which, and the masters by whom these were to be executed. Moreover, Strada’s visual-spatial ability, his critical eye and his imagination qualified him to sug- gest practical considerations related to the intended use of the building, as his design for the Munich Antiquarium makes abundantly clear. Strada opens his letter to Archduke Ernest with the claim that Maximilian ii had kept him continuously at work ‘nelle sue fabbriche’, that is, in his build- ing projects. This claim cannot have been very much exaggerated, in view of the Archduke’s familiarity with the situation in Vienna and his personal acquaintance with Strada, whose son Paolo was a gentleman in his house- hold. This implies that Strada was often involved in the architectural projects at court: apart from the Neugebäude, for which he certainly made a design, the most likely candidates are the Stallburg, the decorative elements of the Hofburg proper, and possibly the earliest plans for what would become the Ernestinische Trakt or Amalienburg. But his principal role would have been in the initial stages of such projects. It consisted of advising the patron about the project in general, suggesting various alternative options and providing mod- els from his own collection and commenting on these: in short helping him to make up his mind what type of architecture to commission. The genesis 1 Doc. 1579-05-00.