The Court of the Emperor

The court of the emperor 

Tutor: Jo Walton 

This session we will try to come to grips with the Holy Roman Empire. This huge grouping of bishoprics (the diocese of a bishop) margravates (the territory ruled by a margrave or prince of the Holy Roman Empire), dukedoms and Free Imperial Cities was brought together under the leadership of one elected ruler. 

By the 15th century there were seven Electors (three archbishops and four noblemen), who could make the decision about a new Emperor after the demise of a previous incumbent. Naturally there was a great deal of lobbying, bribing, favouritism and jockeying for position in the run-up to any election and, naturally, any ruling Emperor would try hard to prepare the way for his successor/son/heir well in advance. This usually resulted in the prospective candidate being acknowledged as “The King of the Romans” by the Electors – which was tantamount to being the designated emperor-in-waiting. 

For Charles V, who became Emperor in 1519, the enterprise of being the Holy Roman Emperor was a huge undertaking, necessitating a great deal of travelling between his Imperial realms and his other possessions – the Kingdoms of Spain, Naples, Sicily, the Duchies of Milan and Burgundy, the Low Countries and the Austrian Habsburg lands. As such it is really hard to identify the Emperor with one particular city, so we will treat the Imperial Court as a city in itself. 

A court in this period would usually be a peripatetic entity, moving between palaces on a regular basis to allow cleaning and re-provisioning of each royal lodging as well as enabling a ruler to keep in touch with different areas and groups of subjects. Whenever a ruler moved, so did the whole court, taking everything they needed with them – bedding furniture, tapestries, cooking equipment, clothing, jewels, horses, dogs, books, advisors, servants – all packed into fleets of waggons and making their slow and cumbersome way to their next destination. The court would also be a magnet for other visitors, with petitioners, ambassadors, artists and politicians flocking to wherever a monarch happened to be. 

And it wasn’t just Charles travelling around his empire, visiting palaces and castle in Innsbruck, Brussels, Augsburg and Ghent. His aunt, Margaret of Austria, who acted as Governor of the Low Countries on his behalf, had a court at Mechelen (between Antwerp and Brussels) where she housed her considerable collection of artworks, portraits and objects that had come from the New World, including some of the Aztec treasures of King Moctezuma. These very much impressed Albrecht Dürer when he saw them on his journey to the Low Countries in 1520.

Aims 

•  Learn about the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and some of his close family, including his son, Philip of Spain and his aunt, Margaret of Austria. 
• See how the Imperial family used patronage and commissioning to spread their own images across the Empire and build a ‘dynastic gallery’ of portraits. 
• Consider how the development of the Reformation and the ideas of Martin Luther influenced the making of artworks. 

Who’s who?

Emperor Charles V (1500 –1558) 

Born in Ghent in 1500, Charles grew up to inherit a vast empire. His grandfather, Emperor Maximilian, had succeeded in uniting his only son, Philip, heir to the Habsburg and Burgundian lands with Joanna of Castile, the daughter of the monarchs of Spain. After his father’s death in 1506 and his mother’s decline into severe mental illness, Charles and his siblings were cared for by their aunt, Margaret of Austria and prepared for his eventual inheritance by Maximilian. By the age of 16 Charles was already Duke of Burgundy and co-monarch of Spain, with his mother. At 19 he inherited the Habsburg lands and was elected Holy Roman Emperor. As the single ruler of much of Europe (excepting France) Charles proved to be a conscientiou

Margaret of Austria (1480–1530) 

The daughter of Emperor Maximilian, Margaret was used as a valuable pawn in her father’s dynastic plans. A childhood betrothal to the King of France failed, so she was married instead to the Crown Prince of Spain, who died young. In 1501 she made a very happy marriage with the Duke of Savoy, becoming much involved with government (which did not interest her husband). Sadly, the Duke died after only three years and a distraught Margaret returned to her father. Maximilian made her the Governor of the Low Countries, responsible both for the government of the province and for the education of her young nephew, Charles. An avid collector and patron of art, Margaret proved to be a capable, wise and experienced ruler.

King Philip II (1527–1598) 

As the only surviving son of Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, Philip might have expected to inherit all of his father’s enormous territories. However, in 1554 Charles determined to split his realm between Philip (who inherited Spain, the Low Countries, the Kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Milan, along with the Spanish territories in the New World) and his own brother, Ferdinand, who inherited the Habsburg lands and became the next Holy Roman Emperor. Philip was a conscientious king of his still-sizeable lands, although history views him as a rather cold figure.

Martin Luther (1483–1546) 

An Augustinian friar, Martin Luther was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1507 and later became a teacher of theology at the University of Wittenberg. In Rome, at the same point, the Pope was trying to raise funds to rebuild the St Peter’s Basilica, sending envoys across the Catholic world to sell ‘indulgences’ (a way of raising money by guaranteeing remission of penance to the faithful). Luther’s scholarly ‘discussion paper’, the Ninety-five Theses, which he wrote in 1517 and which was to form the opening salvo in the struggle of the Reformation, was an attempt to consider the ethics of this frequently corrupt system. Luther later developed his own theory of salvation, in which an individual’s own direct relationship with Jesus Christ formed his route to eternal life. He also translated the Bible into German, thus ensuring that it was available much more widely for ordinary people to read for themselves. 

Slide list

1. The Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, mid-9th century. Kaiserliche Schatzkammer, Hofburg, Vienna 

2. Albrecht Durer, The Holy Roman Emperors Charlemagne and Sigismund, 1512/13. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 

3. A map of the lands of the Holy Roman Empire, around 1500 

4. Albrecht Durer, The Emperor Maximilian I, 1519. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 

5. Nicolas Reiser, Mary of Burgundy, c. 1500. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 

6. Jean Hey, Margaret of Austria, aged about 11, 1491. Metropolitan Museum, New York 

7. Flemish School, Philip the Handsome as a boy, c. 1495. National Trust, Upton House 

8. Pieter van Coninxloo, Diptych of Philip the Handsome and Margaret of Austria, c.1493-95. National Gallery, London 

9. Bernhard Strigel, The Family of the Emperor Maximilian I, 1515. Museo de la Real Academia di San Fernando, Madrid 

10. Albrecht Durer, The Feast of the Rose Garlands, 1506. National Gallery, Prague 

11. Albrecht Durer, Courtyard of the Former Castle of Innsbruck, 1494. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna 

12. Albrecht Durer, Innsbruck from the North, 1496. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna 

13. The Goldenes Dachl (The Golden Roof), Innsbruck, 1500 

14. Michael Pacher, The St Wolfgang’s Altar, 1479-81. Parish Church, Sankt Wolfgang

15. Albrecht Durer, The Triumphal Arch of Maximilian I, 1515-17. Braunschweig Museum

 

16. The mausoleum of Emperor Maximilian, in the Hofkirche, Innsbruck, completed in 1553 

17. Albrecht Durer and Peter Visscher, the figure of King Arthur, 1513. Hofkirche, Innsbruck. 

18. Albrecht Durer and Hans Leinberger, the figure of Albert IV, Count of Habsburg, 1517. Hofkirche, Innsbruck 

19. Agidius Sesselschreiber, Mary of Burgundy and other figures, Hofkirche, Innsbruck 

20. Joos van Cleve, Henry VIII, 1530-35. Royal Collection Trust 

21. Jean Clouet, King Francis I of France, 1525-30. Musée du Louvre, Paris 

22. Bernard van Orley, Charles, 1519-20. Szépmûvészeti Mûzeum, Budapest 

23. Titian, Charles Vth with a Dog, 1533. Museo del Prado, Madrid 

24. Titian, Charles Vth on horseback, 1548. Museo del Prado, Madrid 

25. Francois Clouet, Francis I on Horseback, 1540. Musée du Louvre, Paris 

26. Titian, Charles V seated, 1548. Alte Pinakothek, Munich 

27. Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, published in Nuremberg in 1517 

28. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Woodcut of Martin Luther as a Monk, 1520. Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt 

29. Lucas Cranach the Younger, Engraving of The Young Luther Preaching, 1550.Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden 

30. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Martin Luther, 1532. Metropolitan Museum, New York 

31. Raphael, Pope Leo X, with Giulio de’ Medici and Luigi de’Rossi, 1518-19. Uffizi Gallery, Florence 

32. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Law and Gospel, 1529. Herzogliches Museum, Gotha 

33. Erhard Schon, The Complaint of the Poor Persecuted Gods and Church Images, c.1530. Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein, Gotha 

34. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Cupid Complaining to Venus, 1526-27. National Gallery, London.

35. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of a Lady, 1525-27. National Gallery, London.

36. Albrecht Altdorfer, The Battle of Alexander, 1529. Alte Pinakothek, Munich 

37. Albrecht Altdorfer, Christ taking leave of his Mother, 1520. National Gallery, London. 

38. Albrecht Altfdorfer, Landscape with a Footbridge, 1518–20. National Gallery, London.

39. Jan Gossaert, The Adoration of the Magi, 1510–15. National Gallery, London 

40. Bernard van Orley, Portrait of Margaret of Austria, after 1518. Musées Royeaux, Brussels 

41. Master of the Guild of St George, Archduke Charles and his Sisters, 1502. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 

42. Jan Breugel, the Younger, Coudenberg Palace, Brussels, c.1627. Museo del Prado, Madrid 

43. The Hof van Savoye, the palace of Margaret of Austria in Mechelen 

44. Circle of the Master f 1499, Margaret of Austria venerating the Virgin and Child, 1501-04. Museum fur Schone Kunst, Ghent 

45. After Bernard van Orley, Madonna and Child with Margaret of Austria, after 1518-20. Private Collection 

46. Hieronymus Bosch, The Temptation of St Anthony, c.1500–1510. Museo del Prado 

47. Jan Gossaert, The Metamorphosis of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, 1517. Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam 

48. Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434. National Gallery, London. Room 63 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jan-van-eyck-the-arnolfini-portrait 

49. Jan Gossaert, A Young Princess (Dorothea of Denmark?) c.1530. National Gallery, London. 

50. Aztec-Mixtec Mosaic Mask, Mexico, 1300–1521 and Branched Coral, Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck 

51. Anon, print showing Charles V making peace with Protestant Princes, 1550 

52. The Palace of Charles V at the Alhambra, Granada 

53. Hans Bocksberger the Elder, The Emperor Ferdinand I, c.1555-60. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 

54. Titian, King Philip II of Spain, c.1554. Museo del Prado, Madrid 

55. Pompeo Leoni, The tomb of Charles V and his family at the Capilla Mayor, El Escorial, 1591.