Chapter 3 In Hans Jakob Fuggers’s Service
3.1 Hans Jakob Fugger
Strada’s first contacts with Hans Jakob Fugger, his chief patron for well over a decade, certainly took place before the middle of the 1540s. As suggested earlier, the possibility remains that Strada had already met this gifted scion of the most illustrious German banking dynasty, his exact contemporary, in Italy. Fugger [Fig. 3.1], born at Augsburg on 23 December 1516, was the eldest surviving son of Raymund Fugger and Catharina Thurzo von Bethlenfalva. He had already followed part of the studious curriculum which was de rigueur in his family even before arriving in Bologna: this included travel and study at foreign, rather than German universities.1 Hans Jakob, accompanied on his trip by his preceptor Christoph Hager, first studied in Bourges, where he heard the courses of Andrea Alciati, and then fol- lowed Alciati to Bologna [Fig. 1.12]. Doubtless partly because of the exceptional standing of his family—the gold of Hans Jakob’s great-uncle, Jakob ‘der Reiche’, had obtained the Empire for Charles v—but certainly also because of his per- sonal talents, Fugger met and befriended a host of people of particular political, ecclesiastical or cultural eminence—such as Viglius van Aytta van Zwichem, whom he met in Bourges and again in Bologna—or later would ascend to high civil or ecclesiastical rank. His friends included both Germans, such as the companion of his travels and studies, Georg Sigmund Seld, afterwards Reichs- vizekanzler, his compatriot Otto Truchsess von Waldburg, afterwards Cardinal and Prince-Bishop of Augsburg [Fig. 1.14], and Wigulaeus Hund, later Chancel- lor of the Duke of Bavaria. Among the Italians he met we find the young Ales- sandro Farnese, the future Cardinal [Fig. 1.15], and Cristoforo Madruzzo, after- wards Prince-Bishop of Trent; another fellow student was Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, afterwards Bishop of Arras, Cardinal, secretary of state of Emperor Charles v and King Philip ii of Spain and Viceroy of Naples [Fig. 1.13].2
1 The following biographical sketch is chiefly based on Maasen 1922, supplemented by infor- mation from Hartig 1917, pp. 193–223 and passim; Lehmann 1956–1961, i, pp. 41–73 and pas- sim; Kellenbenz 1980. The volume on Hans Jakob and his cousins as patrons of the arts in the series Die Fugger und die Kunst promised in the Preface of Lieb 1958, p. vii, has never ap- peared. A full biography of Hans Jakob Fugger remains one of the major lacuna in the history of the German Renaissance. 2 On Alciati and on the circle of students Fugger later met in Bologna, cf. Ch. 1.3. It should be noted that the Fuggers of Hans Jakob’s generation were considered as nobles (if not as © dirk jacob jansen, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004359499_005 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the prevailing cc-by-nc-nd License.
Figure 3.1 Christoph Amberger, Hans Jakob Fugger, 1541; present location unknown.
The young Hans Jakob was a very assiduous student, who showed a great in-
members of the Augsburg patriciate, certainly as Counts of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn, fiefs they held since 1507); this is corroborated by Hans Jakob’s apparently extended stay at the court of Ferdinand i in his youth, his subsequent marriage to a daughter of an Austrian baronial family, and by the habitual participation of various Fuggers in tournaments at the Imperial court and elsewhere.