I initially encountered the Italian artist and antiquary Jacopo Strada during my first year of graduate school. My gateway to this figure were a number of insightful essays by the Dutch scholar Dirk Jacob Jansen. I later corresponded with Jansen, who was very generous sharing his research, and Strada eventually emerged as a major figure in what became my first book, an examination of Renaissance culture in late sixteenth-century Vienna. Now, nearly three decades later, Jansen has brought together years of research and has produced a beautiful book that will certainly become the definitive biography of this intriguing Italian.

Who was Jacopo Strada, and why does he merit a study of nearly one thousand pages? Strada is best known by what was one of Titian's final portraits. The great Venetian colorist depicts Strada at the height of his powers and in the midst of his work. Richly dressed in fur and with elegant sleeve, the sophisticated Strada carefully cradles a small statue of Venus in his hands while before him are other marks of his trade—Roman coins and medals presumably from his collection. Art critics who have interpreted this portrait as a psychological indictment of its subject have dismissed Strada as a pretentious office seeker and unscrupulous antique dealer. Jansen is far more sympathetic, and this very careful study anchored by years of archival and library research offers a full and thorough assessment of the antiquary. His argument at base is simple and straightforward. Strada is significant because he offers an unparalleled look into the complicated process by which ideas and ideals of the Italian Renaissance crossed the Alps and spread across Central Europe in the sixteenth century.

Jansen divides his study into four major sections. The first investigates Strada's background and the web of connections and patrons that he developed to launch his career. Born in Mantua in the early sixteenth century, he trained in the workshops of Raphael's former pupil Giulio Romano. He grew up in the splendor of the Gonzaga court. Indeed, Mantua's first duke, Federico II, supported a household as large as what Strada would encounter with the Habsburgs. Strada's most important contact early in his career was the Augsburg financier Hans Jakob Fugger, whose patronage opened other doors for the ambitious Italian. In time Strada would work for the Wittelsbach dukes in Bavaria and, most importantly, for the Habsburg emperors in Vienna and later Prague. Part 2 of the study moves to Strada's work as an architectural advisor. Here Jansen gives significant attention to what was arguably Strada's most important commission, the Munich Antiquarium. Duke Albrecht had commissioned Strada earlier to purchase antiquities for his collections and then employed him to help design what is certainly one of Bavaria's most spectacular Renaissance structures.

Jansen also follows Strada's efforts for the Habsburgs on the Hofburg, as well as his work on Maximilian II's so-called Neugebäude, a garden palace outside the city center. In the third part Jansen explores what Strada called his Musaeum, a shorthand reference to his house, library, collections, and workshop. It is in this section in particular that we truly see Strada's significance in the process of cultural transfer. He had amassed a sizable collection of drawings, manuscripts, and physical remains from antiquity that served as a source of inspiration for his current projects. He used the collection as well to shape his own identity as a cultural advisor to his patrons, an individual who translated and interpreted the world of classical antiquity and its ideals into a language they could use in their own projects. The final section continues with this theme and offers a broader interpretation of what Strada meant when he described his profession as antiquary. Here Jansen explores the work of Arnoldo Momigliano and others as he assesses the cultural impact of his activities in Central Europe. Jansen has a sober view of Strada's gifts and talents, the limits of his interests and actual expertise. Using the work of the American sociologist Everett Rogers who introduced the term “early adopter,” Jansen sees Strada as an innovator who spread and promoted knowledge of antiquity and then helped his patrons apply this intelligence to a wide variety of cultural products ranging from architecture to festival design, from the display of collections to the development of libraries.

The personality and career of Jacopo Strada have in many respects been Jansen's life's work. It is clear to what extent this biography has been a true labor of love. Despite its length, the study is easy to navigate, and Jansen writes in an almost colloquial style that is a refreshing break from more turgid academic prose. The two volumes also feature hundreds of illustrations that, apart from a small subvention, Jansen included at his own expense. This, in fact, may be one of the most valuable features of the study, for Strada, the avid collector, numismatist, and bibliophile, also opens new vistas to our understanding of the material culture of the Renaissance.