Maximilian I (22 March 1459 – 12 January 1519) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1508 until his death.
Maximilian was an ambitious leader who was active in many fields and lived in a time of great upheaval between the Medieval and Early Modern worlds. Maximilian's reputation in historiography is many-sided, often contradictory: the last knight or the first modern foot soldier and "first cannoneer of his nation"; the first Renaissance prince (understood either as a Machiavellian politician or omnicompetent, universal genius) or a dilettante; a far-sighted state builder and reformer, or an unrealistic schemer whose posthumous successes were based on luck, or a clear-headed, prudent statesman. While Austrian researchers often emphasize his role as the founder of the early modern supremacy of the House of Habsburg or founder of the nation, debates on Maximilian's political activities in Germany as well as international scholarship on his reign as Holy Roman Emperor often centre on the Imperial Reform. In the Burgundian Low Countries (and the modern Netherlands and Belgium), in scholarly circles as well as popular imagination, his depictions vary as well: a foreign tyrant who imposed wars, taxes, high-handed methods of ruling and suspicious personal agenda, and then "abandoned" the Low Countries after gaining the imperial throne, or a saviour and builder of the early modern state. Jelle Haemers calls the relationship between the Low Countries and Maximilian "a troubled marriage".
In his lifetime, as the first ruler who exploited the propaganda potential of the printing press, he attempted to control his own depictions, although various projects (called Gedechtnus) that he commissioned (and authored in part by him in some cases) were only finished after his death. Various authors refer to the emperor's image-building programs as "unprecedented". Historian Thomas Brady Jr. remarks that Maximilian's humanists, artists, and printers "created for him a virtual royal self of hitherto unimagined quality and intensity. They half-captured and half-invented a rich past, which progressed from ancient Rome through the line of Charlemagne to the glory of the house of Habsburg and culminated in Maximilian's own high presidency of the Christian brotherhood of warrior-kings."
Additionally, as his legends have many spontaneous sources, the Gedechtnus projects themselves are just one of the many tributaries of the early modern Maximiliana stream. Today, according to Elaine C.Tennant, it is impossible to determine the degree modern attention and reception to Maximilian (what Tennant dubs "the Maximilian industry") are influenced by the self-advertising program the emperor set in motion 500 years ago. According to historian Thomas Martin Lindsay, the scholars and artists in service of the emperor could not expect much financial rewards or prestigious offices, but just like the peasantry, they genuinely loved the emperor for his romanticism, amazing intellectual versatility and other qualities. Thus, he "lives in the folk-song of Germany like no other ruler does." Maximilian Krüger remarks that, although the most known of all Habsburgs, and a ruler so markedly different from all who came before him and his contemporaries, Maximilian's reputation is fading outside of the scientific ivory tower, due to general problems within German education and a culture self-defined as post-heroic and post-national.
Legends and anecdotes
Maximilian is the subject of several legends and anecdotes, which themselves would later produce inspirations for artworks. The Faust legend: The legend is strongly based on a legend involving Maximilian, his first wife Mary of Burgundy and the humanist Johannes Trithemius (1462–1516), who was suspected by many to be a necromancer. Through his 1507 account, Trithemius was the first author who mentioned the historical Doctor Faustus. Being summoned to the emperor's court in 1506 and 1507, he also helped to "prove" Maximilian's Trojan origins. In the 1569 edition of his Tischreden, Martin Luther writes about a magician and necromancer (understood to be Trithemius) who summoned Alexander the Great and other ancient heroes, as well as the emperor's deceased wife Mary of Burgundy, to entertain Maximilian. In his 1585 account, Augustin Lercheimer (1522–1603) writes that after Mary's death, Trithemius was summoned to console a devastated Maximilian. Trithemius conjured a shade of Mary, who looked exactly like her likeness when alive. Maximilian also recognized a birthmark on her neck, that only he knew about. He was distraught by the experience though, and ordered Trithemius never to do it again. An anonymous account in 1587 modified the story into a less sympathetic version. The emperor became Charles V, who, despite knowing about the risk of black magic, ordered Faustus to raise Alexander and his wife from death. Charles saw that the woman had a birthmark, that he had heard about. Later, the woman in the most well-known story became Helen of Troy. The story of Maximilian, Mary of Burgundy and the Abbot "Johannes Trithem" later appeared as one of the Grimms' Tales.
Another related story came from Hans Sachs' poem Dem Geschichte Keyser Maximiliani mit dem alchamisten (The story of Emperor Maximilian with the Alchemist), which in turn was based on an incident in the seventh century involving the alchemist and Sultan Khalif of Egypt. Hans Sachs's story allegedly inspired Goethe's scene at the imperial court in Faust II. The story is as the following: Maximilian is approached in his court in Wels by an alchemist who proposed to show him his art. Later, after the transformation had been completed, the alchemist disappeared, leaving a gold cake of ten measures and a message: O keyser Maximilian, Wellicher dise kunst kan, Sicht dich nochs römisch reich nit an, Daß es dir solt zu gnaden gahn. O Emperor Maximilian, Whoever masters this art Cannot see, for you or the Roman empire, That matters will turn out well.
Maximilian then learns that the alchemist was a Venetian and sent by his enemies. The next time the poet returns to Wels, Maximilian has died.
The blooming of the Faustus myth was fuelled by the witch craze of the time.
There are legends that associate Maximilian with swans in Bruges, the city that had once opposed Maximilian's rule in the Low Countries and held him prisoner for nearly four months. The Belgian and Dutch version, possibly dating from the nineteenth century, recounts that after his liberation, Maximilian forced Bruges to maintain swans as a perpetual remembrance for Peter Lanchals, his counsellor and confidant, who was beheaded by Bruges. The German version, appearing early in a 17th-century edition of the Theuerdank, recounts that Maximilian's faithful jester tried to save the king, but was attacked and driven away by swans. Another legend related to this episode in Maximilian's life and Kunz von der Rosen is that, Kunz von der Rosen, under a priest's garb, tried to save the king by exchanging place with him, but Maximilian, either knowing that an army was coming to save him, fearing for von der Rosen's life or worrying about his dignity, refused. Anton Petter (1791–1858) painted the scene of von der Rosen trying to free Maximilian in his 1826 work Kunz von der Rosen sucht den Kaiser Maximilian I. aus der Gefangenschaft zu befreien. Brugse Zot ("Brugge Fool"): After Bruges's revolt had been subdued, Maximilian forbade the organization of fairs. To appease him, the city organized a conciliatory celebration with merrymakers and fools. When he came, they asked him to allow them to establish a madhouse ('zothuis'). He told them that as their city was full of fools, they could just close the gates of the city and they would have a madhouse already. Brugse Zot became the nickname for people of Bruges and also name of an iconic beer, brewed by the brewery De Halve Maan ("the Half Moon").
There are two large murals (created in 2019) in the centre of Bruges, both related to the legend. One is Maria Van Bourgondië (by Jeremiah Persyn), in which Mary of Burgundy is depicted as a Jesus-like figure while Maximilian is in the guise of the Brugge Fool, riding a swan and holding a halfmoon. Another is De Dans der Zotten ("Dance of the fools") by Stan Slabbinck.
The Martinswand legend: According to this popular saga, the young Maximilian went to hunt chamois at Martinswand, a steep rock wall near Innsbruck, and found himself stuck for three days. A messenger of God or an angel, disguised as a young man in peasant's clothing, then appeared and led him to safely. According to Terjanian, parts this tale appeared during Maximilian's life, but the full version was first presented in the work Hercules Prodicius by the Dutch historian (1520–1604), published in Antwerp in 1587. The episode is depicted in Alfred Rethel's A Guardian Angel Rescuing Emperor Maximilian from the Martinswand (1836); Friedrich Krepp's Die Errettung Kaiser Maximilians I. aus der Martinswand (1849); Moritz von Schwind's Kaiser Maximilian I. in der Martinswand (circa 1860); Lorenz Clasen's Kaiser Maximilian I. in der Martinswand (1873); Ferdinand von Harrach's Kaiser Maximilian I. in der Martinswand (1867); Friedrich Hell (1869–1957)'s Kaiser Maximilian I in der Martinswand; Maximilian's Rettung in der Martinswand on the Fresco Innerkofler Street. In 1936, in the (Emperor Maximilian Cave, said to be created by Maximilian to commemorate the place he was stuck), a great cross and a statue of the emperor kneeling in front of it were erected by the sculptor . The popular ballad Zyps or Zirl is about this episode.
Franz Schubert wrote the song Kaiser Maximilian auf der Martinswand, based on a text by Heinrich von Collin, about this legend.
Anecdote of Maximilian holding the ladder for Albrecht Dürer: Dürer was one of the most important artists in the service of Maximilian, whose court leaned towards egalitarianism. One day, Maximilian noticed that the ladder Dürer used was too short and unstable, thus told a noble to hold it for him. The noble refused, saying that it was beneath him to serve a non-noble. Maximilian then came to hold the ladder himself, and told the noble that he could make a noble out of a peasant any day, but he could not make an artist like Dürer out of a noble. The story later became subject of various paintings by nineteenth century painters such as (1820–1883), (1829–1884), Peter von Cornelius (1783–1867).
This story and the 1849 painting by , shown above, have become relevant recently. This nineteenth-century painting shows Dürer painting a mural at St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna. Apparently, this reflects a seventeenth-century "artists' legend" about the previously mentioned encounter (in which the emperor held the ladder). In 2020, during restoration work, art connoisseurs discovered a piece of handwriting now attributed to Dürer, suggesting the Nuremberg master's participation in creating the Viennese murals. In the recent 2022 Dürer exhibition in Nurembeg (in which the drawing technique is also traced and connected to Dürer's other works), the identity of the commissioner is discussed. Now the painting of Siegert (and the legend associated with it) is used as evidence to suggest that this was Maximilian. Dürer is historically recorded to have entered the emperor's service in 1511, and the mural's date is calculated to be around 1505, but it is possible they have known and worked with each other earlier than 1511.