Le Cose dell’Antichità: Strada as a Student of Antiquity

Abstract

The foregoing chapters have attempted to provide an overview of what is known at present about the life and the career of Jacopo Strada. Some aspects which deserve more detailed consideration have only been touched upon in passing. For instance, an inventory and study of the libri di disegni on various subjects which Strada and his workshop provided to his patrons, a practice assiduously continued by his son Ottavio, would contribute to a better understanding of these interesting objects themselves, on the practice and functions of drawing, and on the intellectual aspects of encyclopaedic collecting in the later sixteenth century. An investigation of Strada’s approach to numismatic method would throw light on the early history of classical scholarship and on the use of visual classical sources in the art of his period.1 A comparison of his career with that of similar personalities—in particular with other selfstyled ‘antiquaries’, but also with other agents, brokers, dealers and ‘expert advisors’—would add to our knowledge of the dynamics of production, dissemination and reception of ideas, fashions and trends as well as of concrete cultural products. Such a comparison, however, can only be fruitful when the results of empirical research into the activities of a sufficient number of such professionals are available. The present study attempts to provide this for at least one such individual, Jacopo Strada. The question remains whether at the time the varied group of professionals assuming or being indicated by the term ‘antiquarius’ was generally considered to belong to one single and established ‘profession’. As a hypothesis this is doubtful, given that no commonly accepted, unequivocal term exists for representatives of such a profession. In his groundbreaking essay on the role of the antiquary in the study of ancient history, Arnaldo Momigliano complained: