A Church and a Castle. Centre and periphery of the Empire in duke Ottavio Piccolomini's self-representation

Introduction On May 4th 1634 Ottavio Piccolomini Pieri d’Aragona (1599–1656), colonel general of the Habsburg army, received confirmation from one of his agents in Vienna that the estate of Náchod, in Eastern Bohemia, had been assigned to him by the Emperor Ferdinand II .1 The assignation proceeded from Piccolomini’s involvement in February 1634 in the elimination of the alleged traitor generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein, duke of Friedland (1583–1634) . The assassination of the Bohemian general, one of the notable episodes in Thirty Years War, had been ordered by the Emperor and carried out by the generals under Wallenstein’s command, Matthias Gallas (1584–1647), Johann Aldringen (1588–1634), Walter Leslie (1607–1667) and, remotely, Ottavio Piccolomini . All the generals involved in the event had been rewarded for their service and loyalty to the Emperor with a sum of money and the attribution of one of the estates formerly belonging either to Wallenstein, to his brother-in-law Adam Erdmann Trčka (1599–1634), or to his associate Christian Ilow (1585–1634), both killed together with him in Cheb . The delay in the attribution of the monetary reward, the expenses for the ceremony of investiture, the poor status of Náchod, amongst other reasons, prompted Piccolomini’s several attempts to sell the estate already by the end of the same year . At the same time, though, Ottavio Piccolomini started diverting his funds, including the pending credits that he had at the imperial court and that had not yet been fulfilled to him, for the foundation of the church of the Servite order in Vienna . Only towards the end of his military activity, just married and determined to finally establish a Piccolomini lineage in the Habsburg territories, Piccolomini reconsidered an investment in Náchod, never eventually sold, to make of it his and his spouse’s main residence . His involvement with the Servites remained constant throughout his life, more than with any other religious order he sponsored, and it enabled him to promote his patronage next to the one of the imperial court . The settlement of the Servites in Vienna took longer than initially hoped for and the church and convent – today the Servitenkirche in the Rossau quarter in Vienna – was not yet completed at the moment of Piccolomini’s death .


Introduction
On May 4th 1634 Ottavio Piccolomini Pieri d'Aragona (1599-1656), colonel general of the Habsburg army, received confirmation from one of his agents in Vienna that the estate of Náchod, in Eastern Bohemia, had been assigned to him by the Emperor Ferdinand II . 1 The assignation proceeded from Piccolomini's involvement in February 1634 in the elimination of the alleged traitor generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein, duke of Friedland (1583-1634) . The assassination of the Bohemian general, one of the notable episodes in Thirty Years War, had been ordered by the Emperor and carried out by the generals under Wallenstein's command, Matthias Gallas (1584-1647), Johann Aldringen (1588-1634), Walter Leslie (1607-1667) and, remotely, Ottavio Piccolomini . All the generals involved in the event had been rewarded for their service and loyalty to the Emperor with a sum of money and the attribution of one of the estates formerly belonging either to Wallenstein, to his brother-in-law Adam Erdmann Trčka (1599-1634), or to his associate Christian Ilow (1585-1634), both killed together with him in Cheb . The delay in the attribution of the monetary reward, the expenses for the ceremony of investiture, the poor status of Náchod, amongst other reasons, prompted Piccolomini's several attempts to sell the estate already by the end of the same year . At the same time, though, Ottavio Piccolomini started diverting his funds, including the pending credits that he had at the imperial court and that had not yet been fulfilled to him, for the foundation of the church of the Servite order in Vienna . Only towards the end of his military activity, just married and determined to finally establish a Piccolomini lineage in the Habsburg territories, Piccolomini reconsidered an investment in Náchod, never eventually sold, to make of it his and his spouse's main residence . His involvement with the Servites remained constant throughout his life, more than with any other religious order he sponsored, and it enabled him to promote his patronage next to the one of the imperial court . The settlement of the Servites in Vienna took longer than initially hoped for and the church and convent -today the Servitenkirche in the Rossau quarter in Vienna -was not yet completed at the moment of Piccolomini's death . In this contribution, I discuss the role played by both the castle of Náchod and the church of the Servite order in Vienna in conveying a symbolic capital that was instrumental to Piccolomini's fashioning as a nobleman and a courtier at the imperial court, where despite the credit acknowledged to him for his political, military and diplomatic virtue, he was always perceived as a foreigner . 2 I analyze the different effectiveness of these buildings as tools used by Piccolomini within distinguished urban contexts, at distinct stages of his career, to embody his identity as well as to represent his stance within the highly-competitive court society .

Architecture as Self-representation in absentia
In the Seventeenth century, self-representation through architecture had long been assimilated by Italian nobility . The expression of social identity, and the processes related to it, had been developed centuries earlier in the awareness that "the family palace and the family portraits ( . . .) were forms of conspicuous consumption and means of impression management which no one who had or aspired to high status could do without ." 3 In fact, the very idea of being represented -and therefore of being seen and being present to the knowledge of any social audience even in absentia -had been developed at its best in Piccolomini's motherland, Tuscany, and, in this respect, he could certainly benefit from his family heritage and background . 4 As the scion of the highest Sienese nobility, Piccolomini had had the chance to grow in Florence, within the context where the very expression of magnificence through 2 I use the concept of "fashioning" as defined by Stephen Greenblatt, The Re-naissance Self-fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, Chicago 1980, to define the process of constructing one's own identity and public persona according to a set of socially acceptable standards . architecture had been taking shape since 1430s in the patronage of the Medici family . 5 The uncommonly rich cultural background on which Ottavio Piccolomini could count was then accumulated in his childhood as a page at the Medici grand ducal court in the Pitti Palace, where his father, appointed chamberlain of the Grand Duke and educator of the prince heir, and his older brother Enea, a court page, were amongst Galileo Galilei's intimate friends . 6 Even more relevant as for the efficacy of self-representation through architecture was the patronage of the most notable amongst Piccolomini's ancestors, the humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini (1405-1464), from 1458 pope Pius II, known for his love for the arts and his political and diplomatic skills . Pius II, as a court poet of the emperor Frederick III (1415-1493), as the first author since Tacitus' time to use the term "Germany" (1457), as the author of a History of Bohemia (1458), was the natural reference for Ottavio Piccolomini, that had moved to the Habsburg territories at sixteen to spend his life in the service of the Empire . 7 The Piccolomini pope had found the highest celebration of himself and his lineage through the urban re-planning of his native village, Corsignano, into the new foundation of the city of Pienza, regarded as the first realization of the humanist idea of urban design, modeled on the concept of the città ideale . 8 Still nowadays several other Piccolomini palaces are defining the urban structure of Siena as landmarks in its historical center . There the magnificence of the family is not only expressed within the compass of the civic urban space through the size and elegance of the buildings, but it is also embodied in the celebrative words on the Loggia that Pius II built gentilibus suis Piccolomineis (1462) next to the family palace, and represented to the detail no less than in the knockers of the palace's gates and in the decoration of the windows, featuring the crescent from the Piccolomini coat of arms . 9 (Figure 1) The most important religious building in Siena, the cathedral, also stands as one of the celebrative sites of the lineage, housing the most famous amongst the artistic commissions of the family, the impressive library that Pius II's nephew and successor, Pius III (1439-1503), humanist and patron, dedicated to the memory of his uncle to accommodate his books . The library was decorated by Pinturicchio with frescoes whose design is partly attributed to a young Raffaello (1483-1520) . Next to the entrance of the library, the Piccolomini altar and burial monument was carried out by Andrea Bregno (1418-1506) with the participation of Michelangelo (1475-1564) . 10 The high level of this cultural patronage 9 On the importance of one's own ancestors for representation and promotion at the imperial court, Andreas Pečar, Genealogie als Instrument fürstlicher Selbstdarstellung. Möglichkeiten   coupled with the renown martial tradition of the family . As responsible for the arsenal of the Gran Ducal army and Constable of the military order of Saint Stephen, the fame of Ottavio's father, Silvio Piccolomini (1543-1612), had grown enough to be celebrated by Michel de Montaigne in the Journal of his travel to Italy (1580-1581) . 11 In his father footsteps, and following the destiny of a third-born nobleman, Ottavio received a military education and his career started out in the service of the Spanish crown in the Milanese region . He later followed his brother as captain of chivalry in the regiment that the Grand Duke of Tuscany had sent in assistance to his uncle the Emperor facing the Bohemian insurrection, he participated to the Battle of the White Mountain (1620) and later to the Battle of Lützen (1632) . 12 The attribution of the estate of Náchod and of the 215,613 guilders occurred in May 1634 at the turning point in Piccolomini's career . (Figure 2) After Wallenstein's assassination, in fact, he was able to climb the ranks of the military hierarchy . Yet, regardless for these honors, Piccolomini felt that his life and reputation at the court were constantly at stake . Notwithstanding the court's formal acknowledgement of the necessity of the action taken, after Wallenstein's death all the generals involved in the event had difficulties in fitting into the reorganization of the power dynamics at the court . 13 The foreign nationalities of most of them -Italian, of Italian descent, Scottish and Irish -contributed to reinforce the prejudice against them, the German party  Therefore, in the tense aftermath of Wallenstein's elimination, it was not advisable to be absent from the court for reasons other than the military service and leave room for repercussions . 15 The need for an appropriate representation in Vienna was then particularly felt by Piccolomini, that had to rely on a network of agents composed by his nephews and subordinates and by his few peer friends at the court . 16 After Wallenstein's death Rudolph Colloredo (1585-1657) received the castle of Opočno, Matthias Gallas had Friedland and Reichemberg, Johann Aldringen was assigned Teplice and Piccolomini was given the eastern estate of Náchod, former possession of Adam Trčka . Piccolomini's effective ownership of the estate was delayed, because of the time taken by the imperial court for the detailed description of all the assets owned by the executed traitors . Sources report of Piccolomini's intention to sell the castle soon after the ceremony for the investiture . In June 1634, posted at the imperial camp near Regensburg, Piccolomini gave mandate to his agent and confessor Paolo Orsini to represent him in the formal ceremony of the expensive taking of possession . Once ratified, the ownership would have facilitated the sale, for which offers had already been presented . 17 Several factors contributed to Piccolomini's decision not to keep the castle . Notwithstanding the chance of reaping revenues from the estate, Piccolomini was prompted to get rid of it because of its constant state of ruin . Out of all the newly attributed estates, Náchod was in fact weakened by its most vulnerable location, exposed to enemies' attacks and therefore also frequently assigned with the quartering of imperial troops, either going to or returning from the  front . In 1635 only, the damages amounted to 159 000 florins, for which Piccolomini's agents asked the emperor a waiver from the contribution, as applied to other estates, while movements of troops over the city and in the surrounding area are documented until 1650s . Furthermore, when selling, Piccolomini would eliminate a source of continuous expenses and administrative problems . Troubles in the remote management of Náchod through Piccolomini's agents were driven by the weakness and unwillingness of some of them, and particularly of his nephew, Francesco Piccolomini (1611-1658), that would use the revenues from the estate to repay his gambling debts, would spread the rumor that the estate had been donated to him by his uncle and would constantly try to swindle its administrators . 18 The peripheral location implied a high economic investment and the need for a continued supervision that in the fourth decade, because of his military activity, Piccolomini could not provide . Besides the problematic remote managing mirrored in the correspondence, in fact, he had to face the constant need for liquidity to support his regiments throughout the end of 1640s . 19 For this reason, at the same time with the taking of possession, Piccolomini requested from his agents an esteem of the estate, convinced that the Emperor would have reimbursed to him the difference between its value and the amount that he had had to pay for it . 20 By December Piccolomini's network had already been activated for the sale and potential buyers had already made offers . The Barnabite friar Florio Cremona (1592-1649) had found someone willing to pay 50 000 florins -payable in Italy, upon request, to spare Piccolomini the expenses of the change -and to give the equivalent of another 15 000 florins in modern jewelry. 21  only the castle was all ruined, but that in refurbishing it, even with the Peace of Solomon, it would take years and many ones, because of the universal destruction occurred . The formal taking of possession had opened the chance for more offers from potential buyers . Indeed, right after the investiture the castle had been fortified, equipped and given in custody to a garrison .
A mansion of his own property, differently from the temporary accommodations of the constantly reattributed court quarters in Vienna and from the rented houses that Piccolomini was always at difficulties to pay for, would have granted him the chance to establish his lineage in Bohemia, as his older brother and advisor Ascanio Piccolomini (1590-1671), archbishop of Siena, would urge him to do . 23 And yet, while temporarily taking advantage of the poor revenues of the estate, Piccolomini was determined to sell . Notwithstanding his military successes, the process of integration within the imperial court was not easy . 24 It requested a constant presence and, in absentia, an adequate supplementary representation . The position of Náchod was peripheral not so much as to its being at the border of the territories controlled by the imperial troops, as it was, more importantly, far from Vienna . 25  instrumental to his promotion at the court, where he continuously needed to temper the doubtful perception of his loyalty to the crown, despite the formal appreciation for his trustworthy service in its defense .
In this light, the support offered to the Italian order of the Servi di Maria in Vienna had a specific relevance as for the efficacy in signifying Piccolomini's commitment to the Catholic church and in associating his patronage to the imperial one, therefore contributing to reinforce his public persona . A symbolic representation through the patronage of a religious order struggling to settle in Vienna, would signify his presence in the center of the Habsburg's power even when he was not there and much more effectively than any of his trouble-making representative could have done . The weakness of Piccolomini's network for the purposes of representation is extremely well mirrored in the sources, to the point that, while posted on duty on the several war fronts, Piccolomini had to repeatedly face the improper behavior of more than one of his agents causing him occasions of embarrassment that he remotely had to make up for calling on his fellow soldiers and few associates at the court . 26 Jointly with economic issues and with the distance, between 1630s and 1640s issues of representation were certainly determining the choice of the Servite church in Vienna as a far more convenient investment than the peripheral Náchod .
The protection granted to a religious order aligned Piccolomini's action with the most ancient European patronage tradition and was not only the expression of a sincerely religious feeling, but also constituted a social investment that would have a return in terms of reputation and prestige . 27 By his culture and family tradition Piccolomini was active, throughout his life, in the protection of several religious orders, in which his family could count saints or blessed or within which, in the first half of the century, several members of the lineage had prominent positions . Beneficiary of Piccolomini's generosity had been, amongst others, the Dominicans in Cologne and the Friars of the Penitence of Saint Ciriacus in Prague . He was also strongly connected with the Jesuit order, of which a member of the family, another Francesco Piccolomini (1582-1651), was the Superior General between 1649 and 1651 . Furthermore, in the footsteps of his papal ancestors, the fight against the heresy and the Turkish threat had been one of the defining traits of Piccolomini's public persona since his initial activity, so that he would be seen not only as the descendant of the last pope to call a crusade, Pius II, but a champion of the catholic faith himself . In 1650s the Jesuits were called by Picco- lomini in Náchod, in the framework of the recatholicization of an area where, as the lord of the estate and to comply with imperial orders, Piccolomini would be in charge to take action for the conversion of a non-Catholic majority . 28 But the attention given by Piccolomini to the Servites far exceeds the assistance offered to any other religious institution . This commitment relates obviously to the origin of the order -funded in Florence in the 1200s -and to the devotion that several members of the Medici family professed to the Santissima Annunziata, the Servites' mother-church in Florence housing a much-venerated image of the Virgin Mary . Likewise, it also certainly connects with the involvement of the Habsburgs in the promotion of the order, particularly in the person of Anna Caterina Gonzaga (1566-1621), archduchess of Tyrol, founder of the first Servite convent in Innsbruck and, in her widowhood, a Servite nun herself .
In 1634 Ottavio Piccolomini asked the Emperor for the fulfillment of a credit that he had with the court for 5 .000 thalers, the price of a set of cuirasses paid by him to the killed rebel Trčka . Knowing that the restitution of the money would take time, because of the procedure for the description of the Bohemian rebels' properties, Piccolomini wrote to prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg (1568-1634), President of the Imperial Privy Council, pleading with him for the money to be given to the Vicar General of the Servi di Maria, Gioseffe Maria Suares, for the commencement of a church and convent of his Religion of the Servites, dedicated to the Santissima Annunziata. 29 (Figure 3) He then wrote a plea directly to the Emperor, asking him to give order for the money to paid to the General Vicar "to provide, as soon as possible, the necessary things for the construction of the church and convent that I desire (…)  given to the Florentine religious order was also logistic, as more than once the Vicar General of the Servites was a guest of Piccolomini in Prague and Vienna . Naturally enough, Suares and other members of the order were part of the nobleman's network of intermediaries, acting in his interest jointly with his agents, Paolo Orsini and Felice Brunacci, with his brother, Ascanio Piccolomini, and with his nephew, Francesco Piccolomini . 31 Suares in particular was given a representative status and could gather information for the acquisition of other properties adjoining to Náchod, that had entered Piccolomini's possession with the farms of Heřmanice, Rýzmburk and Mala Skalice and to which, between 1636 and 1641, other properties in Miskolezy, Sonov, and Třebešov were added . 32

A Castle to barter, a Castle to keep
The correspondence reflects Piccolomini's uncertain situation in the 1630s and 1640s as to his position at the court and to the establishment of a house . Sources present a double-fold attitude of the Tuscan nobleman that, while trying to find a buyer for the estate, at the same time gathers information about the chance to extend it, when possible, with properties promised by the court to his nephew Francesco . 33 The waning of the impression caused by Wallenstein's assassination had not reduced the hatred and loathing addressed to Piccolomini by the German party at the court .  On the one hand, Piccolomini continued receiving information from his agents about possible buyers for Náchod: count Francesco Magni [count Strasnitz] will give 100 000 thalers cash -Paolo Orsini wrote -countess Firstemberg married to count Harrach [Thekla Lavinia Maria widow Fürstenberg, wife of Otto Frederick von Harrach] will pay now 40 000 thalers in spices, 20 000 florins in jewelry, and the rest in four years; Giovan Battista Chiesa will pay 100 000 thalers, half in jewelry, the rest in five years, the Vertemanni also 100 000 thalers in six years paying the interests. 34 On the other hand, Piccolomini obtained from the Emperor the permission to establish a fidecommisso on his properties and to write his testament in Latin, given that he did not speak the languages of the country, Czech and German . A schoolmaster was working steadily in Náchod between 1637 and 1638 and translating pleas from Czech to Latin . At least in this first period, Náchod represented for Piccolomini a source of income because of the presence of copper mines, of the production of beer and of the privileges of hunting and fishing related to the administration of the estate and regulated by a series of agreements with the burgomaster of the town that lasted throughout the 1650s . 35 As soon as Piccolomini became lord of Náchod, the townsfolk tried to secure its privileges, mainly in regard to brewing, appealing to the estate's administrator Orsini . Apparently, the privileges were not confirmed and, moreover, Piccolomini temporarily removed the revenues from customs duties levied at the city gates . 36  though, in asking him to endorse their request to Ferdinand III for the permission to hold a third yearly fair, in addition to Saint Vitus' and Saint Martin's ones . In 1644 the right was granted for a fair to be held on Fat Thursday and for a weekly market of grain and cattle on Thursday . Despite the troubled times due to the war situations and the general decline of marketing and trades, in fact, fairs were still means of improvement for a city's income . Piccolomini was certainly interested in fostering the growth of the economy in the town given that, upon his order, his agents in Náchod would also take care of the selling of the grains as well as of the harvesting and seeding of the new crop . 37 The revenues from the harvests were then to be used to pay his debts and interests on arrears . 38 At the beginning of the same decade the castle was also equipped with furniture, silverware, paintings, tapestries, likely in view of a marriage project, that takes shape in this period in the Flanders, with Dorothée Caroline, daughter of one of Piccolomini's fellow soldiers, Albert François de Ligne, prince Barbançon and count Aremberg (1600-1674) . 39 It appears from the sources that Piccolomini was then considering several parties, but that, even in the absence of a formal proposal, the Barbançons took the arrangement as done and the rumor arrived as far as to Florence . 40  Thinking that he would have settled down elsewhere, never to return to the imperial dominion, Piccolomini's perspective changed, once again, and he started negotiating the exchange of Náchod with properties that Prince Philip Wilhelm of Pfalzgraf Neuburg (1615-1690) had in the Kingdom of Naples . The negotiation with Neuburg was likely related to the recent recovery of the Duchy of Amalfi, whose possession the Piccolominis had lost in 1583 and that had been nominally returned to them in 1639 by the king of Spain . The process of enfeoffment of Amalfi to Piccolomini was complicated by the opposition of the local nobility . To obtain the title and jurisdiction on the duchy, Piccolomini would have had to pay 116 660 ducats to several privates that had bought parts of the duchy from Spain . 43 The transaction with Neuburg was therefore oriented to strengthen the presence of the Tuscan family in that area, to fight the opposition of the local Amalfi nobility and to maintain a possibility for the establishment of a permanent mansion there under the patronage of Philip IV . The negotiation went far enough for a contract to be sent to baron Polidoro Bracciolini, administrator of Náchod and Piccolomini's agent in Vienna, though no trace of an effective swap of goods is documented in the 1640s .
In July 1643, while Piccolomini was on his way to Spain, via Venice and Florence, Bracciolini, had contacts with Neuburg through the prince's majordomo, his sonin-law's father . 44 The prince was inclined to seal the agreement and offered com- plete information on his possessions in Italy . Requested for the value of Náchod, Bracciolini declared the estimate in 300 000 florins and reported that in time of peace, Piccolomini thought to be able to earn from it an annual revenue of over 25 000 florins . 45 Piccolomini, though, was still willing to consider other options, such as the renting out of the estate . Bracciolini then advised him to rent at a low price, so that the tenant would have had means to maintain the structures of the estate, for them not to ruin, and would not need to wait for revenues from the estate to pay for the price of it . 46 Furthermore, while the sale was being adjusted, Náchod continued to be the main source of income for Piccolomini to support himself in his journey to Spain and in the long awaiting for an available galley to bring him there . The revenues, though, were not corresponding to the 9 000 florins he had requested from his administrators . Because of the recurring incursions of the enemy -Bracciolini wrote -Náchod's peasants were spending more time hiding in the woods than in their houses, and the lack of traffic had affected the trades of beer, grains and groceries . Given the situation, while waiting for the secretary of prince Neuburg to send the papers concerning Naples, Bracciolini warmly invited Piccolomini to consider the possibility to make his lineage great elsewhere . 47 Neu-burg seemed nevertheless determined to conclude the exchange and in September 1643 provided Piccolomini's agent with the contract accounting for the state of his properties in Naples, where Piccolomini had in the meantime already asked for information about from the locals . 48 A year later though the negotiation had not progressed . Piccolomini had arrived in Spain in October 1643 and was leaving for Flanders by March 1644 as appointed Governor General of the army in the Spanish Netherlands .
His seesawing attitude towards the sale of Náchod might have been depending not only on the uncertainty of his position at the court, but also by the death of most of the new generation of the Piccolomini's lineage, a difficulty that would certainly condition the settlement of the Piccolomini house anywhere out of Italy . After the death of two nephews -Silvio, dead at Nordlingen in 1634 and his brother Evandro, dead at Saint Omer in 1638 -while on his way to Spain in 1643 Piccolomini had lost his only male child, the natural son Ascanio, on the battlefield in Moravia .
Furthermore, the delicate equilibrium between revenues and expenses had to be managed longer . While in Spain, Piccolomini was informed that Náchod was not burdened with the passage of troops, but that more financial contributions were 45 Bracciolini from Augbsurg to Piccolomini, 24 July 1643, 23167, SOAZ, RAP .  179-199 . quarters . 54 Several episodes had already shown Piccolomini how fragile his position could become at the court whenever he was not there, and had made him more aware of how rapidly his fortunes could overturn when, in June 1643, while he was heading to Leghorn to embark for Spain, his Viennese quarters were assigned to the aulic counselor Ettinghen, since Piccolomini was not using them . 55 On that occasion, ten different pretenders had been aiming to that accommodation . The availability of lodgings close to the court was limited and the competition was tough to have a good assignation from the Quarter Master . 56 The lack of promptitude of Piccolomini's agents -misusing the quarters, delaying the payments to the owner, hosting guests without notifying Piccolomini nor the court -had on several occasions given the court the pretext for the withdrawal, the substitution, or the rent to someone else, forcing Piccolomini to call on his supporters at the court to avoid the dislodging of his properties . 57 The same happened again in December 1645 . That the justification for a reassignment of Piccolomini's quarters to the aulic counselor Justus Gebhard was found in the hospitality given by Piccolomini's nephew, Francesco, to Atanasio Ridolfi (1641-1646), Tuscan resident in Vienna, speaks loudly not only for an actual difficulty in the remote managing of Piccolomini's interests, but also for the adversity of a part of the imperial court towards him . 58 In June 1646 the matter had not yet been solved and Piccolomini's quarters were still disputed . In the meantime, absorbed by the effort to secure his position in Flanders, in September 1644 Piccolomini had elected his brother Ascanio as his representative for the taking of possession of the duchy of Amalfi, whose management appears in the sources slightly less troublesome than Náchod's . 59   While the possibility to come to a prompt definite conclusion of the exchange seemed more and more unlikely, Piccolomini started investing in the refurbishment of Náchod, in accordance with the imperial orders for the fortification of the estates most exposed to enemy attacks . 61 Captain Giovan Battista Formarini, succeeding Bracciolini as an administrator in Náchod, would keep contacts with engineers and architects: with a little expense, even without imperial contributions, the fortifications could have been carried out effectively enough to benefit the whole estate, so to save on the yearly expenses on wood necessary for the patching of the damages and heavily impacting on the woods around the castle . 62 Besides imperial orders and wedding plans, the revenues from the estate provided still a strong motivation for an investment to keep Náchod productive . Incomes from grains and beer kept being reinvested by Piccolomini in the honoring of his debts with his long-term agents and suppliers, such as the Italian Antwerp-based merchant Luigi Malo and the Verteman brothers in Prague . But in order to successfully do so, once again Piccolomini had to stem the pretensions of his nephew Francesco . As he demanded a monthly income from the estate, Piccolomini was forced to expressly state to the administrators that the proxy given to him only concerned the managing of the estate, whereas the revenues should be used to settle his accounts with Malo . 63 As a matter of fact, the estate was Piccolomini's only substantial source of income throughout the fifth decade, to the point that his agents proposed to ask the Emperor for the contribution given by Náchod's subjects to the court to be attributed to Piccolomini instead, as a reimbursement for his expenses for the troops . 64 Towards the end of 1647 Piccolomini's career was again at a crossroads, as he had been invited to go back and serve in Spain but was more inclined to return to the imperial court . 65 After the death of Matthias Gallas in April 1647 Piccolomini expected to be called to fulfill the vacant post of Imperial Field Marshal, though Peter Melander count of Holzappel (1589-1648) was elected for the office and he obtained it only after the latter's death . In the same period he was appointed imperial negotiator at the execution diet in Nuremberg, called to set the demobilization of troops after the ratification of the Treaties of Westphalia . As the meeting lasted from May 1649 to November 1650, Piccolomini had once again to remotely manage his interests related to OPERA HISTORICA • ROČNÍK 17 • 2016 • č. 2 Náchod, Amalfi and the rented mansions in Prague and Vienna . Furthermore, the core of his funds had to be diverted now to the settling of a house in Nuremberg, appropriate to the representational needs of an imperial signatory and suitable for the reception of the other party's negotiator, Charles Gustav of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg (1622-1660), later Charles X king of Sweden .
For his effective role of mediation, Piccolomini had been nominated for the promotion to imperial prince and donated the ownership of a house in Vienna by the German princes participating to the conference . After the conclusion of the executive congress Piccolomini was not only the victorious commander, defender of the empire and of the catholic faith against the reform and the Turkish threat, but he could also promote his image as a peacemaker and diplomat . Aged enough to stop leading troops on the battlefield, his active military service had naturally decreased, bringing into focus his diplomatic activity . Piccolomini, then, definitely turned his attention to settling down and a new matrimonial project soon came to shape . In the light of such an eventuality the estate of Náchod acquired a different relevance . In addition to being Piccolomini's unique source of income, the castle was also becoming his only chance for the arrangement of a stable and lavish mansion of his own property, inescapable requirement for any noble wedding plan . In June 1651 Piccolomini eventually married the sixteen-years-old Maria Benigna Franziska (1635-1701), daughter of Julius Heinrich von Sachsen Lauenburg (1586-1665), one of his fellow soldiers, and of Anna Magdalena von Lobkowitz (1609-1668) .
The renovation of the castle, already started in the mid-1640s, peaked in the 1650s . As the owner, Piccolomini did not need to pay a rent for it, nor to purchase adjacent spaces to make it large enough to accommodate his family and suit, as it had been the unsettled case of the Viennese house . In the refurbushment of Náchod the former defensive function of the structure was taken into account, in line with the choices made in the same turn of years by other exponents of the court nobility for the renovation of their castles and fortresses into noble residences . Is this the case of the Lichtenstein castle in Valtice at the austro-moravian border, the Dietrichstein's in Mikulov, in Southern Moravia, the Collallto's at Brtnice, south-east of Prague . The architects called to work on these refurbishments -often Italians, such as Giovanni Mario Balassi (1604-1667) . Met probably in Rome in 1630s within the Barberini circle, Balassi was a guest of Piccolomini in Vienna in 1652 and carried out several works for him before being invited to Náchod to paint the frescoes in the castle's chapel . 71 Upon Balassi refusal Piccolomini turned to Lurago for contacts and the architect co-opted Giovanni Vannetti, another less known Italian painter . 72 Therefore, in Piccolomini's intention, Náchod would then become the permanent seat of his lineage in Bohemia, in the -unfulfilled -hope of an heir . Náchod would convey an identity that, though constructed in the imperial service across Europe, still found its cultural, political, social and religious roots in the descent from Pius II . That Piccolomini felt these roots as a precondition of his political and military action, and the essential basis for his self-representation, is most clearly signified in the long inscription on one the gates built in 1650s   grand duchess of Tuscany . For a few years resistances to the Servite's establishment in Vienna were motivated with the existence, as of 1627, of a Servite convent in Prague, though the main difficulty was the presence of several other religious orders in Vienna for which the Servites would have been competition . This, jointly with the unwise habit to bypass the bishop while appealing directly to the emperor or to the city council, weakened the Servites' position, resulting in the refusal to allow them to beg for their maintenance and in the rejection of their requests to be assigned the church of Maria am Gestade and then the church of Saint Peter . After a nine-years pause, Suares, in the meantime elected General Vicar, had pleaded again for the permission to build a house for the order in Vienna . The choice fell then on the Prater area, approved by the bishop in 1636, though with the prohibition to the Servites to beg and panhandle, as that would have damaged other orders already settled in town . Not even the Prater area turned out to be suitable, as the Emperor believed it would be too close to the Carmelites and too much exposed to floods and ice, because low . The Emperor suggested then the Rossau quarter of the town, but the Servite presence was newly opposed by the Bishopric and by the civic authority because of the high number of other religious orders in town, believed to be more than sufficient . After the death of the Emperor, the friars appealed to his successor, Ferdinand III, reminding him that his father had given his word for a foundation of their order and that they had committed to self-support themselves without begging . In 1638, after more resistances and several refusals from the bishop, the city council and the Imperial Privy Council, the emperor eventually gave his brother archduke Leopold Wilhelm order to take care of the promotion of the Servites . Negotiations were then undertaken with owners of properties in the Rossau for the purchase of some land where to build the convent and the church . Finally, in May 1639 a chapel was built on land donated by a widow, consecrated as "Bethlehem" and dedicated to the Virgin Announced in the presence of the emperor Ferdinand III and his wife, their son Ferdinand, the archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the apostolic nuncio Malatesta Baglioni and several members of the nobility . The new General Vicar of the order Arcangelo Benivieni brought a copy of the painting with the Announciation of the Virgin Mary conserved in the mother church, Santissima Annunziata in Florence . 75 As mentioned above, Piccolomini's involvement in the establishment of the Servites dated back to 1634 . One year later, in 1635, he donated the Servites his property in Miskolezy to pay for the construction of the convent, but the actual transfer of the money took long . fearing that the authorization would have been withdrawn when appearing that they were not ready to settle . 76 Resilient to any oppositions, the Servites managed to obtain a permission to beg in 1640, provided they would not impact on other orders' activity . Piccolomini assisted them again in 1641, when his agent Polidoro Bracciolini suggested that the funds to complete the promised donation of 10 .000 thalers, of which the friars only had had 4 000, could be retrieved form the sum donated by the Emperor to Piccolomini's nephew, Francesco, out of the confiscations in Bohemia . A Mr . Gersbero Wosckhi had to be forced in 1643 by Prague's city authorities to pay Francesco the sum of money, that Bracciolini then passed to the Servites . Before doing so, though, Bracciolini asked Piccolomini to give order for 3 to 4 000 thalers to be paid yearly from Náchod's revenues to Francesco, for him not to be held as Francesco's debtor . The whole process was closely monitored by the Servites . Father Cherubim Maria O'Dale (1600-1664) -a guest of Piccolomini while awaiting the final construction of the church -went to Prague in person and called on count Jaroslav Bořita z Martinic (1582-1649) and on other members of the imperial council to speed up the practice in the tribunal of the city . 77 Sources are clear about the level of obstinacy and determination of the friars and on their more than active collaboration with their benefactors in view of the foundation of their church and convent: in order to test Piccolomini's intentions and possibilities, O'Dale contacted the nobleman's Jesuit confessor, father Jan Batista Van Holland . 78 In 1643 an enlargement of the "Bethlehem" chapel was decided and, before leaving Vienna for Italy to embark for Spain, Piccolomini set for the transfer of more funds to the order . 79 80 The posing of the first stone for the new church was though only celebrated by the bishop of Vienna on 11 November 1651, Saint Martin's day and Piccolomini's birthday, in the presence of the emperor, the empress, their sons, the apostolic nuncio Camillo Melzi, the ambassadors of Spain and Venice, but, apparently, in the resounding absence of Piccolomini's young spouse . A medal was placed next to the stone with an incision Memoria Fundatore / Octavio Piccolomini de Arragona / S. R. I. Principe / Duce Amalphi . As a matter of fact, in the book of the Servites Priorate of Vienna Piccolomini appears as haud dubie primario Fundatori, first of a long list of excellent patrons of the church and convent, with an initial commitment for a donation of 22 000 florins to be later augmented . 81 By the time Piccolomini passed away the church had not been completed and, following the provisions of his will, his body was temporarily placed in the first structure built by the Servites . 82

Conclusions
More than along the lines of several other prominent members of the imperial court society, whose patronage would reflect the uprising of individuals that were already benefitting from the prestige recognized to their lineage, Ottavio Piccolomini followed in the footsteps of the homini novi, whose popularity at the court -regardless for their original social and economic situation -was exclusively depending on their personal success or failure, such as Rambaldo di Collalto and, more evidently, Albrecht von Wallenstein . His interest in the castle of Náchod and in the church of the Servites in Vienna can be interpreted in the light of both the spatial dimension of his action -in the mobility inherent to his activity as soldier and diplomat -and the ineludible relation between center and periphery in the socio-political dynamics of the Habsburg territories . For Piccolomini, constantly engaged in political and military missions, self-promotion was tied to the quality of his agents -family, associates and patrons -and of their action . In the struggle to establish his position at the court, his presence needed to be felt and remembered even during his frequent absences . Differently, his reputation, fame and possessions would suffer, regardless for his merits on the battlefield . The castle and estate of Náchod represented an economic investment whose importance was not matched by its potential in terms of representation . While Piccolomini was on his way to Spain, his son's wagon was attacked and robbed in the surroundings of the castle by the imperial troops stationing there . When the servants complained, and revealed the name of the owner of the wagon and of the land, the imperials continued their assault answering that Piccolomini was not in Germany anymore . 85 Piccolomini's attraction to Vienna, center of the sovereign power and place of the first formulation of any political discourse, expresses both the desire to represent his own symbolic power -in the funding of the Servite church and convent -and to control his own personal image and the one of his lineage, in a time in which the economic capital could only become fully effective when associated with the cultural one . 86 Apart for the sincere religious feeling that the patronage of the Servites embodied for Piccolomini, the sponsoring of the church would have a more immediate return in terms of prestige . It would in fact represent the Italian nobleman not at the borders of the empire, but right in the capital of the realm . Furthermore, unlike the private and interested patronage involved in the care of the estate of Náchod, the patronage of the church would represent him as acting in the interest of a pious cause and, given the charisma of the order, of the whole civic community . This element, peculiar to the mission of the order, devoted to the assistance to those in need and to the conversion of the masses, contributed to delineate an image of Piccolomini as a strenuous defender of the Catholic faith -in his own ancestor's footsteps -and as a pious gentilhuomo, something that would positively impact on the reputation of pitiless assassin of his commander spread about him at the imperial court . The foundation of a church financed with the goods sequestrated to the Bohemian rebels appears, politically, as much more effective than the settlement in one of the castles of Wallenstein . Once dead, in fact, the Bohemian general was being more and more justified in several of his actions, to the point of being regarded more as a victim than as a traitor, for the ruin of his executors' reputation . Since Piccolomini in particular had made himself hateful to the German nation, the choice of the Florentine Servite order would also allow him to connote positively his Italian origins, in a moment in which the loyalty of the Mediterranean imperial servants was qualified by contrast with the one of the Germans . Besides, in sponsoring the Servites Piccolomini would also celebrate his own dynasty in the person of the blessed Servite Gioacchino Piccolomini (1258-1306) . The fact that Gioacchino's real belonging to the Piccolomini family was in the seventeenth century still sub iudice would not diminish his symbolic potential as a member of the Piccolomini pantheon of blessed and saints, as proven by the statue still on site on the façade of the Viennese church . (Figure 6) Furthermore, Gioacchino was remembered in one of the chapels of the In the end, though, to make the lineage great in Bohemia, self-representation through architecture, for how effective it might be, would not suffice . The depiction of Piccolomini's entombment in the letters of the Tuscan resident at the imperial court clearly signifies how the lack of an heir could hardly be compensated by other family members: "Yesterday at one hour in the night he was brought in a luggage wagon in a coffin, and with only two torches, out in the quarter of the Church begun by His Excellence for the Servite Fathers of the Santissima Nunziata in Florence, where he will remain until something else is made of him; the mentioned wagon was preceded by the Princess in a coach-and-six, but the servants were dressed in turquoise, and then the coach of the Counts Caprara followed, also without black; in seeing such a retinue I was moved, in seeing the cadaver of a man of that kind brought to the entombment as if infected by the plague ." 88 88 Felice Marchetti from Vienna to the Florentine court, 12 August 1656, 4400, ASF, MDP: "Hiersera all'un hora di notte fu portato in un carro da bagaglio entro una cassa, e con due sole torcie fuori ne borghi della Chiesa principiata da Sua Eccellenza a' Padri Serviti della Santissima Nunziata di Firenze, ove starà in deposito fino a che se ne faccia altro; al suddetto carro precedeva la Signora Principessa in una carrozza a sei, ma i servitori erano vestiti di turchino, e seguitava poscia la carrozza con i Signori Conti Caprara pure senza bruno; Io che veddi simile accompagnamento m'intenerii nel vedere il cadavere d'un huomo di quella fatta condotto a guisa de gl'appestati alla sepoltura."