Holl’s Journey to Venice (1600–01)

The journey to Venice, which between November 1600 and January 1601 Holl undertook, was an important chance for him to study Cinquecento architecture in situ.⁴¹ The trip was sponsored by the merchant Anton Garb (1557–1616), for whom Holl had completed a family palace in the city center of Augsburg (Haus Garb, now Maximilianstraße 79) just one year before, in 1599.⁴² According to the Hauschronik a traveling party, composed of twelve people on horseback,⁴³ left the city on 18

41 According to Renate Miller-Gruber, in ca. 1590 Holl had already received a chance to accompany Georg Fugger, a member of the important merchant family in Augsburg, for his traveling to Venice.

The invitation was finally refused by Elias’s father, Hans Holl (1512–94), a mason of Augsburg.

However, Miller-Gruber does not give the reasons for the rejection. Renate Miller-Gruber, Elias Holl.

Der Geniale Augsburger Baumeister der Renaissance, Augsburg 2010, pp. 36-37; Eva-Maria Seng,

“Elias Holl,” in: Killy Literaturlexikon, vol. 5:Har – Hug, Berlin ²2009, p. 558. For Holl’s Venetian tour, see Christian Meyer (ed.), Die Hauschronik der Famile Holl (1487–1646), insbesondere die Lebensaufzeichnungen des Elias Holl, Baumeisters der Stadt Augsburg, Munich 1910, p. 42; Bernd Roeck, Elias Holl. Architekt einer europäischen Stadt, Regensburg 1985, pp. 66-67.

42 Bernd Roeck, “Venice and Germany: Commercial Contacts and Intellectual Inspiration,” in: Bernard Aikema and Beverly Louise Brown (eds), Renaissance and the North. Crosscurrents in the Time of Dürer, Bellini and Tizian, exhibition catalog, Venice, Palazzo Grassi, 5 September 1999–January 2000, London 1999, p. 53. For Haus Garb, see Julius Baum, Die Bauwerke des Elias Holl, Straßburg 1908, pp. 33-34, cat. D 284; Roeck 1985 (as note 41), pp. 62-63; Miller-Gruber (as note 41), pp.

30-32.

43 Holl’s other fellow travelers, most probably also merchants like Garb, are unknown. Lionello Puppi,

“Elias Holl und Italien,” in: Wolfram Baer, Hanno-Walter Kruft and Bernd Roeck (eds), Elias Holl und das Augsburger Rathaus, Regensburg 1985, pp. 30-31.

November 1600. They reached Bolzano (Bozen) towards Saint Andrew’s feast (30 November) and arrived at the lagoon city five days later.⁴⁴ In Venice, Holl and Garb were welcomed by a fellow countryman from Augsburg, the merchant Christoph Helbig⁴⁵ and hosted in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi.⁴⁶ They stayed there for nearly two and a half months and returned to Augsburg at the end of January 1601.⁴⁷

In the Hauschronik, Holl gives a brief account of his experience of the trip: “And [I] beheld all well and [saw] wonderful things in Venice, which were useful for my building” (Und besahe zu Venedig alles wohl und wunderlich Sachen, die mir zu meinem Bau-Werk ferner wohl ersprießlich waren).⁴⁸ He presumably wrote these sentences years after the trip, a fact that might explain his dry comment.⁴⁹ Nevertheless, it reveals his desire to learn from the local monuments, which helps us to understand the meaning of studying the modern Italian architecture among Northern architects at that time and its importance to Holl’s career as an architect.

For a young talented architect of that time coming from the north it was necessary in terms of education and artistic promotion to study modern architecture in Italy. What is more, several territorial lords and merchants in Germany were willing to

44 The duration of Holl’s journey to Venice is mentioned in the Hauschronik in the following way:

“Mit diesem Hrn. Garben den 18. November 1600 auf den Andreas-Markt nacher Bauzen und nach 5 Tagen von dar mit Herrn Garben selbs zwölf nacher Venedig geritten.” Hauschronik (as note 41), p.

42; Puppi (as note 43), p. 30; Roeck 1985 (as note 41), p. 66; Miller-Gruber (as note 41), p. 32.

45 The welcome reception is described as follows in the Hauschronik: “Geschah mir durch Hrn.

Holwig daselbst große Ehre.” Hauschronik (as note 41), p. 42. Holwig could be identified as Christoph Helbig, who was the consul of German merchants at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi since 1598;

Henry Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venedig und die deutsch-venetianischen Handelsbeziehungen. Eine historische Skizze, Stuttgart 1887, p. 210; Roeck 1985 (as note 41), p. 67;

Puppi (as note 43), p. 31.

46 Simona Valeriani, “Behind the Façade: Elias Holl and the Italian Influence on Building Techniques in Augsburg,” in: Architectura. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Baukunst 38, 2008, p. 103.

47 The return is also briefly recorded in the Hauschronik: “Machte mich also nach diesem auf meine Heimreise und kam durch Gottes Seegen den letzten Januarii 1601 mit guter Gesundheit wieder eines Renaissancearchitekten?,” in: Gunter Schweikhart (ed.), Autobiogrphie und Selbstportrait in der Renaissance, Cologne 1998, pp. 194-195.

support their private or court architect, sending him to visit Italy.⁵⁰ Some of the most distinguished noblemen not only wished to closely cooperate with their architects in order to apply the new Italian style at their building projects thus giving them a more representative appearance, but also to demonstrate their artistic taste as cultivated connoisseurs and patrons of the arts. Holl’s contemporaries Heinrich Schickhardt (1558–1635), court architect at the Duchy of Württemberg, as well as the great Inigo Jones (1573–1652), favorite architect of the British high nobility, for example, reached Italy in a similar way.⁵¹

Holl’s brief account articulates his positive judgment of the journey’s significance and results, which were advantageous both for his designs and his career as Stadtwerkmeister. This might be a reason why Holl characterized the experience as

“useful” (ersprießlich) instead of giving a detailed description on his sojourn in Venice. As a persuasive evidence of the benefit gaining from the trip, Holl also mentioned that he had received a higher payment from the city than the fixed amount in the contract for erecting the Bäckerzunfthaus, the Baker’s Guild house (1602;

demolished after 1945), “because of the elaborate cornices in Italian style on this [building]” (wegen der mühsamen Gesims, so auf welsche Manier daran).⁵² Most scholars interpret his Venetian tour as a decisive prerequisite of his appointment as

50 Simon Paulus, Deutsche Architektenreisen. Zwischen Renaissance und Moderne, Petersberg 2011, pp. 19-20.

51 Between 1598 and 1600, Schickhardt undertook two journeys to Italy, which were supported by Duke Friedrich of Württemberg (1553–1608). Nearly at the same time, that was between 1598 and 1603, Inigo Jones also went to Italy as a courier of Lord Roos, and with the Earl of Arundel, Thomas Howard (1585–1646), between 1613 to 1614. Paulus (as note 50), pp. 22-26; John Harris,

“Heidelberg, Holl, Jones und das serlianische Zwischenspiel,” in: Baer, Kruft and Roeck (as note 43), pp. 118-121; Christy Anderson, Inigo Jones and the Classical Tradition, New York 2007, pp. 35-36.

52 The Bäckerzunfthaus was a four-storied building. Its façade and side were characterized by pilasters in superposition above a rusticated basement. According to the building contract, to which he alludes in the chronicle, the city government promised Holl in the project beginning to grant 1,750 florin as reward for his work. While the administrative leader of the city’s office for architectural affairs (Baumeister) was satisfied with using the modern Italian on its façades, they later offered 250 florin extra to Holl as honorarium. Hauschronik (as note 41), pp. 44-45. For the Bäckerzunfthaus, see Baum (as note 42), pp. 45-50; Baer, Kruft and Roeck (as note 43), p. 338; Georg Skalecki, Deutsche Architektur zur Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges. Der Einfluß Italiens auf das deutsche Bauschaffen, Regensburg 1985, p. 67.

Stadtwerkmeister of Augsburg in 1602.⁵³ Since the humanists Octavian Secundus Fugger (1549–1600) and Marcus Welser (1558–1614), both fervent advocates of the Italian culture, obtained the position as Stadtpfleger in 1594 and 1600, the Italian forms entered the stylistic repertoire of the city’s new buildings.⁵⁴ In the Hauschronik, Holl insinuated that Welser and other gentlemen, probably the leading figures in the city council, had known that he “had recently made a journey to Italy, had visited buildings in Venice and [...] had learned from them.”⁵⁵ They were obviously satisfied with his experience and promised if Holl had informed him before his returning, Welser would like to send him back to Augsburg in his costs.⁵⁶ Based on this description, Miller-Gruber assumed that Holl before his departure might have discussed with his later patron on his role as Stadtwerkmeister. She put forward the hypothesis that the tour could have been financed by the city.⁵⁷

Due to the lack of a more detailed documentation, it is difficult to reconstruct Holl’s exact route to the South; hence, we can only assume, which buildings he had

53 See also Roeck 1985 (as note 41), p. 68; Dirk Jonkanski, “Oberdeutsche Baumeister in Venedig:

Reiserouten und Besichtigungsprogramme,” in: Klaus Bergdolt, Andrew John Martin and Bernd Roeck (eds), Venedig und Oberdeutschland in der Renaissance: Beziehungen zwischen Kunst und Wirtschaft, Sigmaringen 1993, pp. 32-33; Valeriani (as note 46), pp. 99-100; Miller-Gruber (as note 41), p. 37.

54 Fugger was Stadtpfleger from 1594 until his death in 1600. Welser became his successor from 1600 to 1614. It was under Fugger’s leadership that the Italian-style fountains were installed on important sites of the city. Julian Jachmann, Die Kunst des Augsburger Rates 1588-1631. Kommunale Räume als Medium von Herrschaft und Erinnerung, Berlin 2008, pp. 15, 209-210.

55 “Herr Welser meldet auch, meine Herren hetten verstanden dz Ich Kurtzlich eine raise in dz welschlandt gethon hatte, die Gebew zue venedig besichtiget, und außer Zweifel darvon wol waß abgesechen, und erlernet hette, dz habe meine Hrn. Wolgefallen, wann Ich damehlen zuvor bej Meinen Herren vor meinem dahin raisen mich angemeldt hette, wollten sye mich auf Ihren Costen hinein verlegt haben, und anders anerbieten mehr.” Hauschronik (as note 41), p.44, old edition after Roeck 1985 (as note 41), p. 68.

56 Ibid.

57 It is questionable, whether Holl’s tour was really sponsored by the city. However, his close acquaintance both with the Fugger and Welser family was an important factor for this young architect’s appointment to the Stadtwerkmeister immediately after his return to Augsburg. Elias’s father, Hans Holl, was the house architect of the Fuggers, while the Garb family had a matrimonial relationship with the Welsers. Like Miller-Gruber’s assumption it is possible that Holl’s journey to Venice might become a prerequisite for his career as city’s architect. Miller-Gruber (as note 41), p.

37. For the Garb family in Augsburg, see Reinhard Hildebrandt (ed.), Quellen und Regesten zn den Augsburger Handelshäsern Paler und Rehlinger 1539–1642, vol. 2: 1624–1642, Wiesbaden 2004, p.

144; Mark Häberlein, “Garb. Kaufmannsfamilie,” in: Augsburg Stadtlexikon Online, http://www.stadtlexikon-augsburg.de/index.php?id=114&tx_ttnews[swords]=garb&tx_tt news [tt_

news]=3862&tx_ttnews[backPid]=115&cHash=5394371ae2 (accessed on 4 August 2014).

visited during the journey. It has to be taken into account that the architect was invited by the merchant Garb. Since the early fourteenth century the Via Claudia Augusta (fig.

3), the ancient Roman business and military route connecting the southern German territories with northern Italy, was frequently taken by businessmen from Augsburg.⁵⁸ It is probable that Holl’s group followed this way, which the merchants among them certainly knew. Starting from the area of Augsburg, the Via Claudia Augusta was composed of two routes.⁵⁹ The main road went along the Lech to the Tyrolean Alps, going through the Val d’Adige past Bolzano, Trento and Verona to Ostiglia, while an alternative route began in Trento and lead through the Valsugana, turning eastwards after Primolano over the mountains to Feltre, following the Piave valley towards Treviso and finally Venice.⁶⁰

In the sixteenth century, the journey from Augsburg to Venice normally took eight to ten days on horseback.⁶¹ It was possible to travel to Venice along the Roman trade route via Verona, Vicenza and Padua.⁶² If we, though, take into consideration that the group travelled in winter time and reached Venice from Bolzano in only five days, as Holl reports, he and Garb must have chosen the shortest itinerary. The detour from Trento, following the Val d’Adige to Verona and then turning eastwards to Vicenza and Padua, seems therefore to be out of question. As an experienced businessman and leader of the touring group Garb must have chosen the most familiar

58 Reinhard Stauber, “Bayern und Italien – Aspekte ihrer Beziehungen in der Neuzeit,” in: Rainhard Riepentinger [et al.] (eds), Bayern–Italien. Die Geschichte einer intensiven Beziehung, Stuttgart 2010, p. 38; Bernd Roeck, Elias Holl. Ein Architekt der Renaissance, Regensburg 2004, p. 14; Roeck 1999 (as note 42), p. 48.

59 The Via Claudia Augusta was built under the Roman Emperor Claudius (10 BC–AD 54) for securing the military control over Roman provinces Rhaetia and Noricum. See “Claudische Straße,”

in: Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, vol. 4, Wiesbaden 1968, p. 78; Michael Rathmann, “Via Claudia Augusta,” in: Hubert Cancik [et al.] (eds), Der Neue Pauly. Brill Online, http://referenceworks.brill online.com/entries/der-neue-pauly/via-claudia-augusta-e12203180 (accessed on 5 August 2014).

60 In the Roman antiquity, this alternative route starting from Trento was merely reached to Altino on the Adriatic Sea. Brockhaus Enzyklopädie (as note 59), p. 78; Simonsfeld (as note 45), p. 97.

61 Simonsfeld (as note 45), p. 102; Roeck 1999 (as note 42), p. 48.

62 The German architect Heinrich Schickhardt, for instance, had traveled along this route on his return from Rome to Stuttgart. Paulus (as note 50), p. 26.

route to him. The way from Trento through the Valsugana to Bassano and Treviso—the latter road section along the old Via Postumia—which was usually taken by Germans bound to Venice,⁶³ is the most possible itinerary.⁶⁴ The same route was, in fact, taken by other German architects of the early seventeenth century. Heinrich Schickhardt (1558–1635) and Josef Furttenbach (1591–1667) took this route on their return journey.⁶⁵ Furttenbach’s guide book Newes Itinerarium Italiae of 1627 (fig. 4) contains a traveling map which shows the route from Venice via Treviso and the Valsugana to Trento and northwards to Bolzano.⁶⁶

Since Holl, in the Hauschronik, described his tour only vaguely, we cannot exclude that he visited other places on the terraferma during his time in Venice or on his return to Augsburg.⁶⁷ Palladio’s Vicenza, in particular, was a center of attraction for all visitors interested in classical Cinquecento architecture. Several German architects had been there and left descriptions of Palladio’s buildings in and around Vicenza.⁶⁸ A key issue of the following analysis will, therefore, be the question, if Vicenza could have been a destination on Holl’s way back to Augsburg.

Unlike the problematic reconstruction of his traveling route to and from the lagoon city, Holl’s visiting program in Venice can be more easily implied on the basis

63 Simonsfeld (as note 45), p. 97.

64 Puppi pointed out that there was another possibility for traveling to Venice after leaving behind the Valsugana. One might have travelled along the Brenta from Bassano del Grappa south to Padua. This circuitous route is, however, seldom recorded in the documents. Puppi (as note 43), pp. 30-31.

65 Paulus (as note 50), pp. 25-30.

66 Entitled as “an entirely new and useful route direction in chronological order, from and to the prominent places [of ] Italy” (Ein neüe ganz Nuzliche chorografische Wegweisung, von und zue den namhafftesten örtern, Italiae), the traveling stations on the route between Venice and Bolzano are marked as follows: Venetia, Trevigio (Treviso), Castel franco (Castelfranco Veneto), Passano (Bassano del Grappa), Cobel, Primelano (Primolano), Borgo (Borgo Valsugana), Persene (Pergine Valsugana), Trento, and Bozen (Bolzano). The itinerary on the map ended northwards in Brixen (Bressanone). Joseph Furttenbach, Newes Itinerarium Italiae, Ulm 1627, pl. N. i; Paulus (as note 50), p. 27.

67 In the late seventeenth century, for instance, Christoph Pitzler (1657–1707), court architect of the Duke of Saxe-Weißenfels Johann Adolf I (1649–97), and Lambert Friedrich Corfey (1668–1733), court architect of the Prince-Bishops of Münster, had visited Vicenza and Verona on their return.

Both of them had seized this chance to visit Palladio’s buildings in Vicenza. For the duration of Corfey’s and Pitzler’s journeys, see Paulus (as note 50), pp. 38-44 and 63-66.

68 Schickhardt and Corfey, for example, enthusiastically described Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico (ca.

1580–85) in Vicenza and the villas nearby. Paulus (as note 50), pp. 25-26, 42.

of descriptions of similar journeys by other German architects of the time. In the Reiß in Italien (1602), Schickhardt conveys his memory as follows:

“The city is populated beyond all measure [...]. Immediately before the [Ducal-] Palace there is a place of incomparable beauty and grace called St.

Mark’s Square. It is on all sides surrounded by admirably beautiful and finely decorated palaces. And one always sees so many beautiful galleys and marvelous ships with many people and hundreds of gondolas.”⁶⁹

In the passages, Schickhardt indicates the places and edifices that foreign architects should visit in the lagoon city. These are Piazza San Marco, the striking forum-like main square, headed by the front of Saint Mark’s Basilica and enclosed by the Procuratie, the Ducal Palace and the representative palaces along the canals—the magnificant palaces on both sides of the Canal Grande in particular.⁷⁰ In addition, the palace is the only one building type mentioned by Schickhardt here; this reveals that the Renaissance palace became a study focus at that time aside from the sacred architecture as St. Mark’s Basilica. Those sites are the ideal places offering better views for learning the Italian architecture, while the building’s façades in other city’s sections are often covered by each other due to the narrow and irregularly continued streets.

In the preface of his Architectura civilis (1628),⁷¹ Josef Furttenbach, chief

69 “Die Stadt ist über allen Maßen bevölkert [...]. Unmittelbar vor dem [Dogen-]palast gibt es einen Ort von unvergleichlicher Schönheit und Anmut, der Markusplatz heißt. Er ist auf allen seite von bewunderswert schönen und wohlgeschmäckten Palästen umgeben. Und immer sieht man auf dem Meer so viele wunderschöne Galeeren und herrliche Schiffe, mit vielen Menschen und Hunderten von Gondeln.” Quoted after Klaus Bergdolt, Deutsche in Venedig. Von den Kaisern des Mittelalters bis zu Thomas Mann, Darmstadt 2011, p. 71.

70 The Ponte Rialto, Fondaco dei Tedeschi and many other palaces, such as the Palazzo Dolfin-Manin (begun in 1536), the Palazzo Corner della Ca’ Granda (1545) of Jacopo Sansovino (1486–1570) and the Palazzo Grimani (1556) of Michele Sanmicheli (1484–1559), are famous examples built along the Canal Grande, the major canal for water transportation inside the city.

71 Published in Ulm in 1628, Furttenbach’s Architectura civilis can be regarded as an outcome of his Italian study journey made between 1607 and 1620-21. The book is an illustrated typological collection of various profane buildings of the Italian Renaissance, which he visited during the journey. For the Architectura civilis, see Bernd Evers (ed.), Architektur Theorie. Von der Renaissance bis zur Gegenwart, Cologne 2006, pp. 320-329.

architect (Stadtbaumeister) of the Free Imperial City of Ulm, outlined his purpose as

“to visit many and various noble palaces, houses, churches, chapels, places of worship, hospitals etc., in order to document their measurements and form [and] to copy and describe them with diligence.”⁷²

Furttenbach expressly proposed that an architect should measure the buildings.

In this way, the form and proportions of the Italian Renaissance architecture were transmitted to other countries. The question, whether Holl measured the buildings he visited on his tour, can be answered with a glance at Holl’s petition for raising his rewards written in late 1607,⁷³ in which he emphasized that it took him great efforts to transmit the Italian moduli and parti into the local measuring system in order to follow the correct proportions of the Italian models.⁷⁴