Seite - 848 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 2

Chapter 16848 Perna—in lieu of payment for outstanding debts.25 That Strada intended Max- imilian ii’s library to profit from this occasion is another indication that his Musaeum functioned as a high-class bookshop and stationer, ‘by appointment to His Majesty the Emperor’, but also catering to the needs of his courtiers and the local intelligentsia. Given his own artistic and scholarly interests, Strada would also have traded in prints, maps and other items exclusive for their rar- ity, their erudition or their sumptuousness. Gian Vincenzo Pinelli’s instruction to Nicasius Ellebodius to buy the new Vienna edition of Castelvetro’s transla- tion of Aristotle’s Poetics in Strada’s house (‘aedes’) shows that its reputation as a bookshop transcended the milieu of the Imperial court.26 16.4.5 Strada’s Clientèle With his exclusive bookshop Strada catered for two sections of Viennese so- ciety: the first consisted of the members of the aristocracy connected to the Imperial court and the diplomats visiting it, whose taste would have been for fashionable novelties, easy reading and illustrated materials, and perhaps some serious reading in practical fields such as law, history and warfare. The second consisted of the cosmopolitan intellectuals employed at court, includ- ing not only the humanists and lawyers acting as secretaries, auditors, dip- lomats or translators, and the clerics servicing the Imperial Chapel, but also several professionals expressly employed for their specialism, such as the bota- nists Dodonaeus and Clusius. This group wished to keep abreast of intellectual developments and required serious scholarly and scientific publications. They moreover rubbed shoulders with local intellectuals, in particular the profes- sors of the university, the chapter of the cathedral, the Jesuit College, and the upper strata of the Vienna bourgeoisie.27 It is some indication of the intellec- tual stature of Maximilian’s court that these sections overlapped to a consider- able degree: Reichard Strein von Schwarzenau and Christoph von Teuffenbach are just two of many high-ranking nobles who were intellectuals in their own right. Members of each group would moreover be interested to inspect the an- tiquities, the works of art and other objects of luxury that Strada’s Musaeum offered. This would incite them to acquire or commission similar objects for themselves, perhaps directly from Strada, perhaps through his mediation from 25 Doc. 1564-00-00; Strada to Maximilian ii, without place and date, cf. above, Ch. 11.4. 26 Doc. 1571-09-27, Nicasius Elebodius to Hugo Blotius; cf. above, Ch. 11.4. 27 Several of the court intellectuals, such as Lazius, held professorships at the university; sev- eral Vienna patricians, such as Wolfgang Lazius and his father-in-law, the Bürgermeister Hermes Schallautzer also held appointments at court.