Remarks on the Collections of Rudolf II: The Kunstkammer as a Form of Representatio
Author(s): Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann
Source: Art Journal, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Autumn, 1978), pp. 22-28
Published by: CAA
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Remarks on the Collections of
Rudolf I1: the Kunstkammer as
Form of Representatio
THOMAS DACOSTA KAUFMANN
A series of recent discoveries calls for the reinterpretation of
the fabled and long misunderstood collections of the Emperor
Rudolf II of Habsburg (reigned 1576-1612). Since Julius
Von Schlosser's treatment of the late Renaissance Kunst- und
Wunderkammer, Rudolf's collections have until recently
been regarded as a kind of circus sideshow lacking any
organizing principle or orderly display. Unicorn horns and
magic stones are said to have been heaped up alongside
great paintings by Duirer and Brueghel throughout the rooms
of the imperial castle in Prague. The Emperor is supposed to
have grown increasingly mad as he spent his days contemplating
his strange, secret treasure instead of tending to
affairs of state.'
I would like to sketch in brief outline a different picture, in
the hope of stimulating further discussion. I believe that we
can now see Rudolf II's collections not only as a refuge for
contemplation, but also as an expression of his imperial
magnificence and a symbol of his claims to power. Information
about visits to his Kunstkammer, its disposition and
display, a contemporary inventory, and the imagery of key
objects made for it suggests that the imperial collections had
an orderly arrangement, a symbolism of their own, and a
role in contemporary diplomacy. Rudolf II's Kunstkammer,
like much of the art and public ceremony of his reign, was a
form of representatio, of imperial self-representation.
First of all Rudolf's collections were by no means kept
secret from outsiders. While, like other princely collections
of the time, Rudolf's was not normally accessible to commoners-although
several saw it-it was regularly used for
formal diplomatic functions. The Savoyard envoy to the
imperial court, Carlo Francesco Manfredi di Luserna, reports
that ambassadors were customarily shown the collections
before their departure from Prague.2 Ambassadors were also
taken to the Kunstkammer when the Emperor wanted to give
a sign of his favor in order to make a specific political point.
For example, when in September, 1601, the Venetian ambassador
Piero Duodo congratulated Rudolf on military successes
against the Turks, the Emperor rewarded Duodo with
a visit to the Kunstkammer.3 Dignitaries on state visits to
Prague were also usually taken to see the Emperor's collections.
Cardinal Alessandro D'Este, Archduke Maximilian III,
Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights and Regent of the
Tyrol, the Elector Duke Christian II of Saxony, and Duke
Maximilian I of Bavaria are known to have seen it. It is
significant that on Christian II's visit to Prague in 16
only private audience he had with the Emperor w
visiting the collections.4 Rudolf II seems to have s
and through his Kunstkammer.
Other avid collectors like Christian II or Maximilian of
Bavaria, with whom Rudolf carried on a lively exchan
gifts, would no doubt have understood one of the messag
of the Emperor's Kunstkammer. This message, as suggest
in contemporary writing, was that a prince expresse
virtus, his worth, in his collections. And so just as Rudol
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demonstrated one of the imperial virtues, his magnanimity,
in the gifts he sent to other courts, he may be said to have
exhibited his magnificence in his collections.5 One perceptive
observer who would have been familiar with collections,
since his own family had a very important one in Italy,
explicitly recognized this. Cardinal D'Este wrote that on his
visit to Prague Rudolf took him to see "his most recondite
and valuable things, and particularly his paintings, marvelous
for their quantity and quality. Besides them vases of precious
stones of various kinds, statues, and clocks ... a treasure
worthy of him who possesses it (tesoro degno di chi ii
possede)."6 Thus it may have been something more than a
sense of quality alone that drove Rudolf to possess masterpieces
by Durer, Brueghel, Raphael, Correggio, and Titian,
commessi in pietre dure, fine sculpture by Adriaen De Vries
and Giambologna, and clocks in abundance. He may have
had something else in mind when he amassed what, in
comparison with other courts north of the Alps, was the
biggest and best collection of its time. In an age of princely
collectors, Rudolf had a Kunstkammer that was worthy of his
rank as Holy Roman Emperor, as first among European rulers:
he was first among collectors.7
Rudolf's collections consequently received a disposition
that emphasized their role as a form of imperial display.
Rudolf transformed the Prague castle to include special
housing for his Kunstkammer; in reality he acted very differently
from the traditional portrayal of him as uninterested in
architecture and the orderly exhibition of his collections.
From about 1590 a group of artists and artisans, mainly of
Italian origin, under the direction of Martino Gambarini and
Giovanni Maria Filippi, built and decorated rooms for the
collections in the first and second floors above the stables in
what is now the second courtyard of the Prague castle (Fig.
1). One of the rooms Rudolf had constructed was the famed
"Spanish Room" (Spanischer Saal)-a picture gallery. Next
to it was the so-called "New Room" (Neuer or Neu Saal), a
hall for the display of sculpture, articulated by niches in
which were placed stucco and bronze statues by the imperial
sculptor Adriaen De Vries. Both the Spanish and New Rooms
had ceilings with illusionistic paintings by Pauwel and Jan
Vredeman de Vries. In a series of smaller vaulted rooms in
the adjoining wing were placed objets d'art, small sculptures,
jewels, books, and natural objects. Alongside these rooms
ran a corridor in which paintings were hung; additional
paintings were to be found in galleries on the second floor
of this wing.8
I believe we can now identify a drawing in Munich,
formerly thought to be a plan for the Antiquarium there, as a
preliminary design for the New Room in Prague9 (Fig. 2). The
style of the figures and decorative details is that of Rudolf's
court painter, Bartholomaus Spranger. In comparison with a
drawing signed by Spranger of slightly later date (Fig. 3), the
Munich drawing not only reveals the same ductus of line,
handling of wash, type and stance of figure, and fleeting
characterization of facial features, with eyes and noses indicated
by open loops, but also treats details like the mascarones
and the profile of the socle of the figure in the righthand
niche similarly. We know that Spranger was involved
with decorative projects both in Italy and in palaces in Vienna
and Prague, where one of his frescoes has been rediscovered.10
Rudolf was thus using some of his most experienced,
as well as best, talents to design the space for his collections.
::~:~ - ~A:
u&
-~~ A3
4"
: - i ~J
Ar
* 2:
*
?:;: :- r
r ~.---~Ii~L~
Fig. 1. An 18th-century plan of the first floor above
Prague castle, showing (A) the Spanish Room, (B) th
and (C) the adjoining wing with further rooms for th
From Krtalova, "Poznamky k rudolflnske architekture
23, no. 6, 1975, fig. 7.
The drawing (Fig. 2) shows niches for the displa
like those in the New Room, which later e
represent with rectangular panels similar t
here. Though the sculpture is not drawn to
pieces can be identified with works that were p
Emperor's collection. For example, the group
Deianeira resembles bronzes by De Vries and
that probably belonged to Rudolf." The cop
Belvedere perched on a socle must also have be
because a contemporary portrait of the court
Aachen shows it in a similar place, posed on a
4). Spranger's drawing again emphasizes the fo
of rooms for Rudolf's collection, and at the sa
to parallels with the Italian tribuna, a type
niches for the display of sculpture exemplified
of the Marciana Library in Venice.12
The disposition of rooms in the palace
collections further corresponds to the systema
tion and programmatic arrangement reveale
published inventory of the Kunstkammer f
1607-11. The inventory deals with objets d'ar
FALL 1978 23
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...............
01, - ------ - ----------------- ..
.. ........ .
g M
WON<
.................. ...
Fig. 2. Bart
Munich, Sta
ture, scie
just the
adjoining
cataloged
constitut
assume th
ries. At a
proceeds
to size. T
grouped
naturalia.13
The inventory thus demonstrates that the collection not
only had its own system of classification similar to that of
other contemporary collections, but also that, like them, it
was encyclopedic in scope. Like the Studiolo of Francesco I
Medici in Florence or the Kunstkammer of Archduke Ferdinand
of the Tyrol in Ambras, but on an even larger scale,
Rudolf's Kunstkammer contained choice examples of all that
was to be found in nature or made by man."4 It thus
embodied a conception of the Renaissance world view in
which the world of man, the microcosm, may be seen to
parallel the greater world, or macrocosm. By having specimens
of all parts of creation, Rudolf II's Kunstkammer represented
the universe in microcosm. In the words of a Renaissance
topos applied by Samuel a Quiccheberg in a book of
IN
gN P
1\0ii
pum
o~ ~ ~
v A Viiiii
o tiii iiii'iii
w w " -ii~iiiiiiiii
Fig. 3. Bartholomaus Spranger, Triumph of Wisdom over Ignorance
and Envy, 1604, Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle.
........ ..... .....
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. .... ............
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MMMI A
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lip
Fig. 4. Jan Piete
Hans von Aache
phische Sammlun
24 ART JOURNAL, XXXVIIi/1
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.. . .. . . .
Fig. 5. Wenzel Jamnitzer and Johann Gregor von Schardt,
Spring, from fountain, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
A&Z.-
O'A
IWO,
'p A'
g
Av?4t 7 le, 4
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Fig. 6. Crown of Rudolf II, 1602, Vienna, Weltliche Schatzkam-
mer.
st \
N> K N
'~ IM
Fig. 7. Hans von Aachen
Collection.
1565 to the Kunstkammer, Rudolf's collection, like other
the time, was a theater of the world.15
With Rudolf II it is difficult to know, however, how m
the notion of a Kunstkammer as a theater of the world is
metaphor and how much magic. For Quiccheberg's conc
tion is drawn specifically from a book by Giulio Camillo o
the memory theater. In Camillo's system there are not on
correspondences but also magical links between the mic
cosm and the macrocosm. Man may form a magic mem
through which he grasps the world, reflecting the mac
cosm of the universe in the microcosm of his mind. Thro
the mediation of the imperial antiquarius Jacopo Stra
Quiccheberg's conceptions were no doubt known in Prag
and where Quiccheberg had used Camillo's system for
organizing principles, Rudolf may have grasped at the
teric significance implicit in the comparison of Kunstkamm
to memory theater.'6 Did the Emperor, who is otherw
known to have been fascinated with what we might
occult thinking, also view the objects in his Kunstkammer
talismans which would strengthen his power? Did he th
of his Kunstkammer as a magical memory theater thro
which he could grasp and control the greater world?17
However we interpret Rudolf's own point of view, t
notion of a theater of the world, to be organized and perh
controlled by man, guides us into the realm of thinking i
which originated the symbolism of key objects made e
cially for the Kunstkammer, and through them toward
understanding of the principle of the collection as a whol
For much of the iconography of the Rudolfine Kunstkam
pieces portrays the world as a microcosm controlled by th
Emperor. Take for example the fountain by Wenzel Ja
nitzer, presented to the Emperor, of which four figures fr
the base still survive in Vienna (Fig. 5). From a 17th-centu
description'8 we know that the fountain once stood ten fe
FALL 1978 25
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. ... ...
-. . . ....... . .
ALA
. ......
Fig. 8. Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Fire, 1566, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
:::j-
:..
::
Fig. 9. Arcimboldo, Winter, 1563, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
high and when assembled must thus have been a central
object in the Kunstkammer. It represented the cosmos in the
form of an imperial crown standing on a base; to give an idea
of the shape of its upper part, the crown made for Rudolf II
(Fig. 6) is illustrated here. Four gods representing the four
seasons made up the base. Above them came gods and
creatures symbolizing the four elements. Above them in the
heavenly sphere were four winds and four archangels. Then
came four eagles said to stand for the House of Austria. In
the place of the topmost diadem sat Jupiter astride an eagle,
symbolizing the Emperor. This was a common enough association
in Rudolfine, and indeed imperial, iconography, as in
an allegory by Von Aachen in the Harrach Collection (Fig. 7).
Jupiter sits astride an eagle, with Bellona beside him holding
an imperial crown, and casts down thunderbolts against the
Emperor's enemies, the Turks. On what would correspond
to the outer bands of a crown the fountain further displayed
symbols of the body politic of the earthly empire, including
finally, on the lower circumference, arms of the Habsburgs'
lands.
Similar imagery symbolizing the Emperor's control of the
world characterizes other works contained in Rudolf's collections,
including pictures by the imperial painter Giuseppe
Arcimboldo (Figs. 8, 9, 10). Arcimboldo's paintings of the
Seasons and the Elements have been associated with the
Kunstkammer ever since Schlosser first published his thesis
that these images were jokes expressing the disorder of
Rudolf's mind and the unseriousness of his collections.'9
And indeed in another sense we can make a connection
between them, for like the Kunstkammer, Arcimboldo's work
is based on the system of correspondences of microcosm to
macrocosm and in turn to the body politic.20 We can however
no longer accept the traditional notion that
boldo's pictures are simply jokes. Poems presented
paintings when they were given to the Empero
instead that they are allegories of imperial power
boldo's images of the Seasons and Elements were
suggest that as the objects exist together in harmon
individual heads-the cannon and wicks in Fire (F
instance-and as harmony also exists between the i
heads representing the elements and seasons, so
world exist in harmony under the beneficent ru
Emperor. As the Emperor rules over the world of s
body politic, so he may be seen to rule over the seas
elements, which consequently are adorned with
emblems. Fire, for example, wears the Golden Fl
the coat of arms of the House of Austria, and Wint
wears another Habsburg device, the striking iron fr
chain of the Fleece, and the letter M for Emperor M
II, for whom this particular image was made. Arc
portrait of Rudolf II as Vertumnus (Fig. 10) is the cu
of this sort of imagery, depicting him directly as g
seasons and implicitly as god of the elements, and, w
combination of fruits and flowers from all seasons,
ing the return of a golden age with his reign.21
The imagery of Jamnitzer's fountain and Arcim
painting is in turn directly related to the decoratio
Prague castle under Rudolf II. Another illusionistic c
Pauwel Vredeman de Vries is described by Karel Van
as a depiction of Jupiter in the midst of the four e
and the parts of the year, the twelve months.22 Th
of this ceiling seems furthermore to parallel the
expressed in the rooms containing Rudolf's collectio
As Zeus above rules the elements and parts of th
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MIX
3F
.... ......
m
n
Fig. 10. Arcimboldo, Portrait of Rudolf II as Vertumnus,
c. 1590, Skokloster Castle, Sweden.
Rudolf rules the microcosm below, his Kunstkammer.
This symbolism seems further to support a new interpretation
of Rudolf II's collections. Rudolf's Kunstkammer had a
role in diplomacy that was stressed by its stately setting. It
had a carefully organized content based on the system of
correspondences. It is clear that it had at least one convincing
message, since perceptive observers like Cardinal D'Este
could see it as worthy of the Emperor. I believe that we may
also consider Rudolf's possession of the world in microcosm
in his Kunstkammer an expression of his symbolic mastery of
the greater world. M
This article is a revised version of a paper read at the 65th annual meeting of
the College Art Association of America in Los Angeles in February, 1977,
which was in turn based on material in a chapter of my dissertation,
"Variations on the Imperial Theme: Studies in Ceremonial, Art, and Collecting
in the Age of Maximilian II and Rudolf II," Harvard University, 1977,
published as Variations on the Imperial Theme in the Age of Maximilian II
and Rudolf II, New York and London, 1978.
1 Schlosser's interpretation is presented in his Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern
der Spdtrenaissance, Leipzig, 1908, pp. 76-82, following in part that of
Josef Sv~tek, "Die Rudolfinische Kunstkammer in Prag," in Culturhistorische
Bilder aus Bihmen, Vienna, 1879, pp. 227ff. In her recently published
introduction "Die Kunstkammer Kaiser Rudolfs II. in Prag, ein Inventar aus
den Jahren 1607-1611," in "Das Kunstkammerinventar Kaiser Rudolfs II.
1607-1611," Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, vol. 72,
1976 (published in January, 1977), pp. xii-xvi, Rotraud Bauer reviews and
criticizes the previous interpretation of Rudolf II's collections. Her introduction
now provides the most convenient and complete bibliography on the
collections. R. J. W. Evans, Rudolf II and his World: A Study in Intellectual
History, Oxford, 1973, p. 178, still argues, however, that Rudolf used his
collection for "private contemplation" and that he was "very secretive about
its contents."
2 The commoners Ulrich Krafft, Jacques Esprinchard, and Melchior Goldast
all saw the collections; for convenient references to their visits see Evans,
Rudolf II and his World, p. 178 n. Di Luserna's remarks were occasioned by
a visit to Rudolf's Kunstkammer in 1604; Vincenzo Promis, ed., "Ambasciata
di Carlo Francesco Manfredi di Luserna a Praga nel 1604," Miscellanea di
Storia Italiana edita per cura della Regia deputazione di storia patria, vol. 16,
ser. 2, 3, 1877, pp. 583, 594, and Adolfo Venturi, "Zur Geschichte der
Kunstsammlungen Kaiser Rudolfs II.," Repertorium for Kunstwissenschaft,
vol. 7, 1885, p. 15.
3 Vienna, Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, Dispacci di Germania (hereafter
HHStA), Secreta 31, September 10, 1601, cited in part in H. von Voltelini,
"Urkunden und Regesten aus dem K.u.K. Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv in
Wien," Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhochsten
Kaiserhauses, vol. 19, 1898, reg. no. 16257.
4 Cardinal D'Este's visit is reported in a letter of August 23, 1604, Archivio
Storico Estense, Modena, Carteggio Ambasciatori Estensi, Busta 183,
quoted in part in German translation in Venturi, "Zur Geschichte," p. 15.
Archduke Maximilian Ill's visit is mentioned in another letter of August 23,
1604, by Girolamo Manzuolo, Archivio Storico Estense, Modena, Carteggio
Ambasciatori Estensi, Busta 69. Sources for Duke Christian II's visit are Felix
Stieve, ed., Die Politik Baierns 1591-1607, part 2 (Briefe und Akten zur
Geschichte des dreissigjahrigen Krieges, vol. 5), Munich, 1883, reg. no. 898-
900; an account of Federigo Soranzo, HHStA, Secreta 37, July 8 and 16,
1607; and that of the papal nuncio Antonio Caetani, M. Linhartova, ed.,
Antonii Caetani Nuntii Apostolici apud Imperatorem Epistulae et Acta 1607-
1611, vol. 1, Prague, 1932, p. 148. For Duke Maximilian I's visit see Stieve,
Die Politik Baierns, part 1, Munich, 1879, p. 1, and Helmut Dotterweich, Der
Junge Maximilian, Munich, 1962, p. 127.
5 See, for example, the discussion of the ideological basis of the Bavarian
collections in Renate von Busch, Studien zur Sud-deutschen Antikensammlungen
des 16. Jahrhunderts, dissertation, TObingen, 1973, pp. 102ff.,
110f., 160ff. The founding documents of the Munich Schatzkammer state
that it was meant to express and increase the reputation of the Wittelsbachs;
H. Brunner, ed., Schatzkammer der Residenz, Munich, 1970, pp. 7ff. For the
concept of magnificence see, for example, A. D. Fraser Jenkins, "Cosimo
de' Medici's Patronage," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes,
vol. 33, 1870, pp. 162-170.
6 I am quoting from the Italian text of Cardinal D'Este's letter in Modena, loc.
cit., which in the version printed in Venturi, "Zur Geschichte," p. 15, has
had a fateful effect on the interpretation of the collections (for which see
Bauer, "Die Kunstkammer Kaiser Rudolfs," p. xii).
7 Evans, Rudolf II and his World, p. 178, calls Rudolf "primus inter pares"
among collectors. See also the remarks in H. Trevor-Roper, The Plunder of
the Arts in the Seventeenth Century, London, 1971. Rudolf's efforts to obtain
and preserve the Ambras Kunstkammer and his interest in the establishment
of a dynastic collection may also be a reflection of the idea of a collection as
a representative form of the rank and glory of the House of Austria; see A.
Lhotsky, "Die Geschichte der Sammlungen," Festschrift des Kunsthistorischen
Museums in Wien, part 2, vol. 1, Vienna, 1941/1945, pp. 240, 289. In
an essay published subsequent to the completion of this paper Peter Thomas
succinctly states "The Kunstkabinett itself was a form of propaganda... ";
"Charles I of England: The Tragedy of Absolutism," in A. G. Dickens, ed.,
The Courts of Europe, London, 1977, p. 201.
8 This paragraph summarizes the important article by Jarmila Kr66lov&,
"Pozndmky k rudolfinsk6 architektute," Umd6n, vol. 23, no. 6, 1975, pp. 479-
525.
9 Erich Hubala, "Ein Entwurf fur das Antiquarium der Munchener Residenz
1568," Manchener Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, vol. 9-10, 1958-59, pp.
141-42, fig. 6. Both the lack of resemblance to other designs for or the actual
appearance of the Antiquarium and the presence of what seems to be postantique
sculpture (e.g., the Nessus and Deianeira group) in the drawing
militate against Hubala's attribution, however. Konrad Oberhuber first suggested
(orally) that the drawing was by Spranger. Differences of ink and style
in the drawing suggest that it may in fact be by two hands: the figures and
details by Spranger, and the elevation without shading by an architectural
draftsman, probably one of the court Baumeister with whom Spranger
presumably cooperated.
1o For Spranger's work as a decorator see Konrad Oberhuber, "Die stilistische
Entwicklung im Werk Bartholomaus Sprangers," unpublished dissertation,
Vienna, 1958, pp. 74ff, and Jaromir Neumann, "Kleine Beitrage zur
rudolfinischen Kunst und ihre Auswirkungen," Umdnf, vol. 18, no. 3, 1970,
pp. 142-50.
"11 Although no Nessus and Deianeira group is mentioned in the 1607-11
inventory of Rudolf's collection, an inventory of 1619 describes such a
sculpture, possibly identifiable with a work by De Vries; see Lars Olaf
Larsson, Adrian de Vries, Vienna and Munich, 1967, pp. 53f. The provenance
of similar groups by Giambologna, which the sculpture depicted in the
drawing resembles even more closely, is discussed in Elizabeth Dhanens,
Jean Boulogne, Giovanni Bologna Fiammingo, Brussels, 1956, pp. 200ff. As
the 1607-11 inventory does not mention Rudolf II's large-scale sculpture and
antiquities, both of which were housed in the New Room, it of course stands
to reason that objects shown in the drawing would not be found in this
inventory.
12 Karel Van Mander, Het Schilderboek ... , Haarlem, 1604, fol. 291r,
mentions that Von Aachen had sent Pieter Isaacsz. several drawings includFALL
1978 27
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ing a self-portrait, which must have served as the source of the image
illustrated here as Fig. 4. A preparatory drawing for the print by Isaacsz. is in
the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, inventory no. 22066. For the tribuna type see
Marilyn Perry, "The Statuario public of the Venetian Republic," Saggi e
Memoria di storia dell'arte, vol. 8, 1972, pp. 75-150, which also cites further
literature on the Antisala; Detlef Heikamp, "Zur Geschichte der UffizienTribuna
und der KunstschrAnke in Florenz und Deutschland," Zeitschrift for
Kunstgeschichte, vol. 26, no. 3/4, 1963, pp. 193-268; and Jeffrey M. Muller,
"Rubens's Museum of Antique Sculpture: An Introduction," The Art Bulletin,
vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 571-82. The New Room in Prague is not of course
specifically patterned on the Pantheon, whose use as a model is discussed
by Perry and Muller. The model for Prague, as for the Munich Antiquarium,
may rather have been Giulio Romano's design for the palace in Mantua,
discussed most recently by Kurt Forster, "Giulio Romano's 'Museum' of
Sculpture in the Palazzo Ducale at Mantua," lecture delivered at the 66th
annual meeting of the College Art Association of America in New York,
January, 1978. Giulio's designs were recorded in drawings made for Jacopo
Strada, and perhaps owned by his son Ottavio; both Jacopo and Ottavio
served in the role of imperial antiquarius.
13 For the interpretation of the organization of Rudolf's collections see Erwin
Neumann, "Das Inventar der rudolfinischen Kunstkammer von 1607-11,"
Analecta Reginensia I, Queen Christina of Sweden, Documents and Studies,
Stockholm, 1966, pp. 262-65, and Bauer, "Die Kunstkammer Kaiser Rudolfs."
Neumann's interesting suggestion of a category of scientifica seems
to me rather to be subsumed under artificialia.
14 See Luigi Salerno, "Arte, Scienza e collezioni nel Manierismo," Scritti in
Onore di Mario Salmi, vol. 3, n.p., 1963, pp. 198ff; Luciano Berti, II Principe
dello Studiolo, Florence, 1967; Heikamp, "Geschichte der Uffizien-Tribuna,"
pp. 208f.; Niels von Hoist, Creators, Collectors, and Connoisseurs, London,
1967, p. 103; and Elisabeth Scheicher, "Kunstkammer," in Die Kunstkammer,
Sammlungen Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck, 1977, p. 15.
15 Samuel a Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones vel tituli Theatri Amplissimi ...,
Munich, 1565. For an important early discussion on the relation of Quiccheberg's
ideas to collecting-a subject which has by now gained a fairly
extensive bibliography-see Rudolf Berliner, "Zur Alteren Geschichte der
allgemeinen Museumslehre in Deutschland," MOnchener Jahrbuch der bildenden
Kunst, vol. 5, 1928, pp. 324-52. For the topos of the theater of the
world see R. Bernheimer, "Theatrum Mundi," The Art Bulletin, vol. 38, no. 4,
1956, pp. 225-47.
16 Quiccheberg, op. cit., fol. 14v, explicitly states that he is not using the
word theatrum metaphorically, as other writers have done, but has taken it
from Camillo. For a brilliant explication of Camillo's thought see Frances A.
Yates, The Art of Memory, Harmondsworth, 1966, pp. 173ff. Although she
does not refer to Quiccheberg or Strada, Dame Frances has also suggested
that Rudolf II's Kunstkammer may have been planned along the lines of a
memory system, in The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London, 1972, p. 68.
Jacopo Strada had also been active in the formation of the Munich collections,
to which Quiccheberg's book is immediately related; see Bauer, "Die
Kunstkammer Kaiser Rudolfs," p. xxxvii.
17 For Rudolf and the "occult arts" see Evans, Rudolf II and his World, pp.
196ff. It is possible that Rudolf's collections may have in turn inspired an
occult system. Dame Frances Yates has suggested to me that the organization
of Giordano Bruno's De Imaginum Signorum . . . compositione (Opera
Latina Conscripta, Florence, 1889, pp. 87ff.) with its symbolism and complex
images was inspired by Rudolf's Kunstkammer, which Bruno may have seen
while on his visit to Prague.
18 This description is based on a report printed in Hans Boesch, "Urkunden
und AuszOge aus dem Archiv und der Bibliothek des Germanischen Museums
in NOrnberg," Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des
Allerh6chsten Kaiserhauses, vol. 7, 1889, reg. no. 4732.
19 Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammer, p. 88.
20 Salerno, "Arte, Scienza e collezioni," and Sven Alfons, Giuseppe Arcimboldo,
Tidskrift f6r Konstvetenskap, vol. 31, 1957, pp. 151ff. also relate the
microcosm-macrocosm analogy expressed in Arcimboldo's painting to the
Kunstkammer.
21 Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, "Arcimboldo's Imperial Allegories," Zeit
schrift fOr Kunstgeschichte, vol. 39, no. 4, 1976, pp. 275-96.
22 Van Mander, Het Schilderboek, fol. 276v. Another description contained
in an evaluation of De Vries' paintings by the Elders of the Prague Paint
Guild describes the room with the ceiling as located between the palac
(palacz) and the "Summer House" (weystupek anebo zumrhauz) of Rud
II; Prague, Statni Ustr6dni Archiv, Star6 Manipulace, F 73/3, February
1599, cited by Karl Kbpl, "Urkunden und Regesten aus dem K. K. Statth
terei Archiv in Prag," Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen d
Allerh6chsten Kaiserhauses, vol. 12, 1891, reg. no. 8320. According to a
reconstruction of the Prague castle in the 17th century by Jan Mor~v
("Giuseppe Mattei a 'Nova Stavenf' praiskdho hradu 1638-1644," Um6
vol. 5, 1957, p. 342) the "Summer House" of Rudolf II adjoined the win
containing Rudolf's collections, and specifically the gallery with Rudo
paintings. Thus a room connecting the "Summer House" to the palace
would in fact lead directly to the imperial collection. Could the decoration of
the ceiling have been chosen deliberately as an iconographic prelude to the
Kunstkammer?
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann is Assistant Professor at Princeton University,
Department of Art and Archaeology.
28 ART JOURNAL, XXXV/II/1
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