An Object Lesson: Strada’s House in Vienna

Abstract

Though we cannot attribute any executed project in Vienna to Strada on the basis of incontrovertible evidence, there was one building of which he certainly must have made the designs. Moreover here he certainly also closely supervised its execution, because he was not only its architect, but also its patron. When Strada had come to court, he had immediately brought his family and household with him, clearly intending to settle in Vienna, where he soon acquired a plot of ground on which to build himself a house. By the autumn of 1562 he indicates, in a business letter to the French Ambassador, Bernardin Bochetel, Bishop of Rennes, that this was one of his chief occupations at the time: