Lot 176: Strada, Ottavio

Manuscript album entitled, "Variae ac faciles Molendina construendi inventiones Pacis et Belli tempore admodum necessarie, quibus diversa instrumentorum genera sunt adiuncta ad elevandam cum magna facilitate aquam ab infimis partibus ad sublimiores et alia Fontium Aedificiorum et Hortulorum usui, et iucundditati servientia multeq. Aliae commoditates & utilitates quae ex aque motu haberi possunt nunquam alie visae." Comprising 100 drawings of designs for mills and other machines for raising water, 101 pages (12 x 9 1/4 in.; 317 x 233 mm), [Florence, ca. 1580s]; some dampstaining at head of first eight pages, light marginal foxing, some scattered wormholes on first nine pages; three stamps on title-page, one obscured, one with initials "H. F. 1770," the other with initials "H. F. 1834"; contemporary black morocco, covers with borders ruled in gilt and blind, spine gilt in eight compartments with floral tool gilt edges; worming abrasion and some repair, joints cracked, new endpapers

l'Album fiorentino dei "designi artificiali" raccolti da Jacopo e Ottavio Strada with introductions by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann and Dirk Jacob Jansen. Rome: Edizioni dell'Elefante, 2002

Mills and the movement of water. The second son of the famed Jacopo Strada, Ottavio Strada succeeded his father as antiquary to the Emperor Rudolf II. From an early age, Ottavio showed great aptitude for his father's profession and he was trained accordingly to become his father's successor. Ottavio learned to write texts in a fine calligraphic hand and execute drawings with grace and precision for the bound volumes prepared for his father's illustrious patrons. Ottavio's skill and refinement are apparent in the present manuscript album. The one hundred technical drawings on mills and the movement of water are finely rendered. To assemble this album, Ottavio made a selection from the designs in his father's archives customizing the album for the intended patron. Then, the designs were transferred to large sheets of fine paper and skillfully bound. Another album, with fifty of the same drawings herewith, resides at the Museo delle Scienze in Florence with other variant albums in Leiden and Vienna. There is no evidence Jacopo or Ottavio actually designed any of the machinery they illustrated, though most likely Jacopo had an understanding of their functional principles. The drawings and subsequently, the albums containing the drawings, were created not only for instruction, but for pleasure and reflect the intellectual and creative disposition of a father and a son?each a true antiquarius.